Backtalk
This post from Shel Holtz hit home with me today. Most understand by now that getting involved with blogging is often defined as “joining the conversation.” Meaning, in part, that most anyone with a blog would love nothing more than the chance to interact with their audience via copious comments. (Not to mention the ego-stroking, “wait, people read me!?” quality that a comment elicits…come on, don’t deny it!)
But does no comments mean no conversation (or rather, no readers)? Not necessarily. Blogstring, for a very young blog, gets a decent number of unique visitors monthly at this point (naturally, any increases in the last month or so can be directly attributed to my signing on as a co-blogger) (snerk!), but we are not flooded with comments on each post. In many cases, the only exchanges in the comments on my posts are between Nate and myself, and vice versa.
The problem isn’t a lack of readership; I think it’s the current attention crunch. Blogs have skyrocketed, and many folks use RSS to sort through their daily reads. If anyone reading this or any blog has five or six others to hit before their coffee break ends, are they going to take the time to post a comment?
Here’s my highly unscientific example:
I’ve kept personal blogs on various sites since early 2001. (I didn’t even stop when I had the undeniably great misfortune to discover that my father had stumbled upon one of my posts. Official Wurrey Family Motto: Never put anything in writing you wouldn’t want to defend in a court of law…Or to your red-faced father, who is convinced that the Internet is populated solely with rape-happy murderers and who is rather less than pleased to discover it also populated by his youngest daughter.)
When I first began I had hardly any traffic that couldn’t be filed under “friends of mine that I harped on to read my site so my traffic would increase.” And yet I still received regualr comments. As my site gained popularity, the comments often poured in.
My blog these days receives just as much traffic as its ancestors, but I generally get only a comment or two on each post, if that. I don’t think it’s becuase I am any less entertaining (though perhaps my posts have lost some of their zing compared to when I was 21–a welcome development, I’m sure, for Dad), I think it’s becuase people can’t be arsed when mine is one blog amid the dozens in their readers.
Another point to note, from Shel:
With far more blogs in operation today, it’s easier for a lot of readers to use their own blogs to voice their opinions. And why wouldn’t they? After all, every blogger wants his posts to be seen by his readers.
An excellent point. I spend way more time crafting my own posts for this or my work blogs than I do leaving comments for others. Some may forgo commenting altogether in favor of just posting their views on the subject in their own space; hopefully with a hat tip to the blogger that inspired them.
Although maybe comments are king, and this whole post is just a big old rationalization to make me feel better that Blogstring isn’t a comment bonanza.
But hey, the day wouldn’t be complete without a few big, juicy rationalizations, to paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in “The Big Chill.”
(Maybe that’s why we don’t get comments. Who else ends posts by putting the image of Jeff Goldblum in people’s heads? Good lord!)
Tags: Shel+Holtz; blogging; Jeff+Goldblum
Filed under: blogging, social media
I am with you on this. I am really trying to make sure to get out there more, commenting on other blogs, but sometimes it’s just too much to do.
One of the main things is, like you said, the RSS reader. When I read a blog post in my RSS reader, I’ll go through it, and even though there is usually a link to click for comments, it’s rare for me to do so. I’ve found that I’m much more likely to comment on a blog post if I’m reading it on the blog rather than the RSS feed of the blog.
Then there are the blog posts I find from aggregators like Reddit or digg, which host comments of their own. Since there are usually many comments related to the article on digg or Reddit already, I think I do what most people would do: I go to the place where people are talking about the article rather than the article itself. It’s just a mental thing, but if I see an article already has 50 comments on digg and zero on the post, I’ll post a comment on digg. There are people there.
mmmmm. Juicy rationalizations.
Oooh, interesting point on the Digg stuff. That would drive me batty, to get a link on a big site and have all the discussion restricted to that site rather than my own…
Meanwhile, let’s see if you and I continue to be our only commenters, hehe.
Rationalizations = Tasty
Jeff Goldblum = Not