Blogs
Bloggers get “paid” with comments
The debate over fragmentation of blog comments has been around for awhile — I’ve written about it, and so have people like Louis Gray and MG Siegler and others — and I don’t think it’s going away any time soon. Some argue that having comments at places like FriendFeed (or Shyftr, or a number of other sites) isn’t really that big a deal, and that it’s no different than people discussing your blog post via email or some other place that you can’t see it. But Fred Wilson had an interesting take on it in one of his blog posts today, about a blog post by his brother Jackson: he said as far as he’s concerned, bloggers effectively get “paid” by people commenting on their posts:
So here’s the deal. Jackson instigated the conversation with that post. His reward is the comments it generates. That’s how bloggers get paid. And he’s not getting his due on this one.
I think that’s an interesting way of looking at it. Obviously, comments don’t actually pay bloggers for their posts (although the tip-jar model is pretty close). And I’m sure some bloggers would rather get paid with actual money. But I still think Fred is onto something — comments, and other interaction with readers, are one of the ways in which bloggers are rewarded for their effort, along with links from other bloggers, high ranking on sites like Techmeme, etc. It would be nice to think that the sheer joy of crafting an awesome blog post was enough, but some feedback is nice too, even if it’s not completely positive. (Note: For what it’s worth, I agree with Jackson — Mott the Hoople was awesome).
That’s why, like Fred, I am hopeful that comments in all kinds of places can be aggregated in more ways. I’ve got Disqus on my blog (as Fred does) and that helps — and now I have the FriendFeed plugin working as well, so any comments that appear there show up here as well. I don’t mind people commenting somewhere else, but I like the idea that I (or anyone else) can see them all in one place if I want to do that.
Steven Hodson thinks Wordpress should buy Disqus, and Broadstuff has some thoughts too about what he calls “dis-aggregating the aggregators.” Allen Stern of Centernetworks has a video response. And Hutch Carpenter of I’m Not Actually a Geek thinks that fragmented conversations can actually be a good thing.
Related posts:
On FriendFeed, this post was liked by 0 people and commented on 0 times show
Discussion
Comments for “Bloggers get “paid” with comments”
Add New Comment
Viewing 17 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
I like all these new approaches to gathering and sharing information. I'm already big time on the record in favor of FriendFeed and Shyftr and any other tool that lets you build a community and conversation around content. I was excited to see Paul Buchheit publicly mention he'd reached out to Disqus. That's the first time I'd seen that acknowledged.
The best thing we can do is continue to participate, and trust the teams working on the innovation. They're all doing a great job and listening. I'm enjoying it. The worst thing we can do is get entrenched and demand that things be a certain way - an inflexible way, and make it so we're not part of the conversation at all.
Looking forward to much much more.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
I understand the desire to participate in the conversations, but desire != obligation.
I'd bet Mike Arrington and Arianna Huffington desire to be a part of any conversations their posts start, but not so much that they'd rather have 10x-100x less traffic so that it was humanly possible!
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
That's one of the reasons that I suspect FriendFeed is actually weaker in the long term than most people think. Even now, with a relatively small user-base, the number of places to discuss something just on FriendFeed is essentially unmanageable. As it grows, it will be almost impossible to "find where the action is", so people will just aggregate around things posted by the likes of Scoble - which will turn FriendFeed into yet another platform for domination by the A-list.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
-- every time someone shares something from Google Reader, or posts it
to Twitter or shares it in some other way, it becomes a new instance
of that item and comments aggregate in different places. I wish FF
could pull those items together.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
I agree with Louis the problem is temporary.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
http://www.ratdiary.com/2008/05/19/the-brand-ca...
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
So with one foot in each world (and I prefer Huffington's ménage à trois idea of journalism-blogger-reader better) one of the things I"m finding irks me is that it's nearly impossible to get to an individual AP writer. They bury their contact information. On the flip side, bloggers who never comment on their own posts or post with mostly negative comments (ie only comment on trolls) I also find myself reading less.
I am tending towards idea that a blog post is the beginning of the discussion / conversation (albeit usually short lived) vs. a newspaper article that I read and am usually finished with by the end (ie I have no expectation of anything further) whereas a blog post is a starting point.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
traditional media (including that at my own paper) is seen as an end
point rather than a starting point. The primary benefit of online
media of any kind, blogs or whatever, is that it is a beginning of
something, and that comments and responses and links make up something
much larger (and hopefully better) than the original thing.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Right now I'm involved working with writers on human interest stories, and it's *really* tough to get them to understand that they need to do this - to interact with their users. They just want to publish and be done with it. They truly feel like this is extra "work" they didn't agree to/ sign on for and don't yet get the dynamicsm you mention, how it can grow. They want to leave this to the marketing folks only, but that's not what the users want. It's going to take some work to change this mindset as "news" (in whatever form) often being a beginning rather than an end product.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
discussed outside their own blog, Joe -- I think most of them would
just like an easier way to find out when that's happening so they can
take part in the discussion (or at least know about it), which I can
sympathize with.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks