Why blogs have to have comments
A visual aid to help explain what I meant about several points:
1) Blogs foster conversation.
2) If your blog doesn’t have comments, it’s not a blog.
3) If a blogger makes a mistake the blogger needs to correct it (not only the source).
That said, look at the graphic below (click to enlarge it).
It’s a screenshot of RSS Bandit, my RSS aggregator of choice at the moment. I still use FeedDemon to download podcasts but that’s about all. If RSS Bandit had better enclosure support (like FeedDemon) I’d be a happy camper.
My post is first, with the link I referenced second. Robert Scoble’s post is third where he linked to me. Then it goes crazy – look at all the links under him! 12 levels deep and it goes on – I just can’t capture it all on one screenshot and the screenshot be easy to read.
Points 1 & 2: Comments are what create the conversation. RSS Bandit does an excellent job of tracking the conversation. A static website can’t do this. A static website can spark a conversation but it can’t engage in the conversation. That’s what makes a blog special – engaging in the conversation while the conversation is taking place. A blog has to have comments enabled to be a blog.
Point 3: Referring back to the screenshot let’s say Robert made a mistake in his post and corrects it. Unless the people who linked to him corrects it, the readers of the site 10 levels down will never know there was a mistake. Look closely, Robert’s post “I love Maryam” somehow entered the conversation because a blogger related the two posts. Bloggers start stating an opinion and the deeper a reader goes in the chain the more the original theme of the thread can be lost. That is why it’s extremely important that all bloggers correct their mistakes.
Get it? If you don’t and you still believe that a blog is a blog if it doesn’t have comments then explain to me the difference between a static web site and a blog.
More aggregators need to track the conversation. Aggregators have such a long way to go and that is why I think many people don’t understand the true power of a blog. How can they? The technology hasn’t caught up yet.
Update 5:30pm: I forgot to mention my main point - to integrate non-bloggers into the conversation, blog have to have comments. If comments were tracked as well (and on some blogs comments do show up - depends on how the RSS feed is made) the thread would be much more detailed than the screenshot above.
Dave Winer sparks conversation on a daily basis on his site but the only way I can interact with him on what he said is to send him an email. Robert on the other hand gives me the tools to interact with him whenever I want and have other readers interact with each other because he allows comments on his blog.
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