Blogging without comments

Posted on January 2, 2007 by

Danny Sanchez enters the long-simmering debate of “is it a blog without comments.”

Web managers and newspaper executives should take note. Newspaper folks sometimes think they’re hip to the Web by simply publishing or contributing to a blog without understanding that it is a much more interactive format.

Without  the interactivity provided in the comments (and actually engaging readers), a blog becomes just another publishing platform, an easy way to produce regular pages with plain information on them. And there’s nothing really new or hip about that, is there?

I left this comment:

For a long time, blogging was sold to newspaper people as “it’s just another publishing platform.� But that’s not really true. Good blogging, real blogging is a conversation.

That said, you don’t need to have comments on your blog posts to have a conversation. Instapundit, for example, is a master at conversational blogging without comments. And I’ve seen many blogs with comments where the blogger is not engaging in conversation at all — posting and ignoring subsequent comments.

The critical skill journalists need to learn isn’t how to use the tools of the digital era. It’s how to have a conversation.

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  • http://sonicrusk.com/wordpress S. R.

    I guess I agree. If I see that a blogmaster never responds to comments left for him or her, I quickly find myself not reading any longer. It just strikes me as rude.

  • http://www.howardowens.com/ Howard Owens

    Well, then, S.R., I guess I better respond to this comment. :-)

  • http://blackiejones.wordpress.com john jones

    Blogs without interaction are dead. But there is a fine line. Some folks think attacking persons beliefs or values in the comments with smartass statements is interaction when all it does is alienate the commentor. I published a comment on a blog and was picked apart in minutes by bitter people with nothing better to do than wait around to prove how smart they were by totally disagreeing with me in a way that was very unflattering to them and to me. I logged off and said “its over,” and never returned.

    I think you said, “The net is about co-operation not confrontation…” and I agree. I’d rather keep any potential confrontations face to face.