Do Comments Matter?
Today, I just crossed 10,000 comments on Disqus. I have been using Disqus for 5 years, so that’s a running average of 5.5 comments per day, but it’s a bit more in reality because I became progressively more active in the past 3 years. I’m not really counting. It’s an online lifestyle choice.
Commenting is rewarding when you’re part of a community, because of the people interactions and intellectual stimulation that follows. It’s like talking to strangers and friends at the same time, and making new friends and connections. And it has been rewarding to me, many times over.
But commenting is still considered the underworld of social activity, the “alternative” to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or Google+, Instagram, Foursquare or Vine. Commenting is the equivalent of back alleys when compared to mainstream social activity.
Why? Because comments are not well connected to the rest of the web or to other social networks:
- Comments aren’t indexed by Google. You can’t find what I’ve commented on when it’s relevant to your search.
- Comments don’t have SEO value for the website that is hosting them.
- Comments aren’t part of my Klout signals- not that it matters that much, but it makes Klout incomplete at gaging my “social influence”.
- I can’t reveal, curate or publish a feed of my comments. Of course, I could do it via an API access and some programmatic muscle.
- I can’t search my comments or my friends’ comments or comments about my interests or customers, although they are all public somewhere.
- I can’t easily discover other communities where my friends are having discussions or where there are discussions about my interests. (OK, I get a drip of that via the Disqus email, but it’s a drip)
- I can’t see the social network behind comments in the same way that I see a network of people on Facebook or Twitter.
- My commenting system isn’t suggesting people or other comments I should be a part of, based on knowing so much about me.
Yet, I still drop 20-30 comments every day on a dozen regular blogging communities, and the occasional new one that is discovered by sheer ploughing power or serendipity. 70% of my commenting is done on AVC, my favorite one, of course.
But these blogging communities aren’t intentionally connected with each other. I have to do the bar hopping myself. Arnold Waldstein says You can’t airlift community. He believes that each community is on its own, and that engagement is specific to it. Daniel Ha, CEO of Disqus said in the comments of that post “All of the communities powered by Disqus are incredibly different — that’s true. What is the common trait? The common trait is the people.”
“We, the people” are the common trait, and we are the ones that have to bar hop. This is not a rant directed at Disqus. The other four networks are guilty of the same un-connectedness between each other. And it will probably remain that way for a long time. I attempted to solve that with Engagio, but it was a tall order.
Twitter doesn’t care if the people you follow are on Facebook or LinkedIn, and it won’t help you to identify them. Facebook doesn’t take into account your Twitter friends, and the same indifference exists between Google+ vis-as-vis the others. To each their own.
We, the people have to drive our own buggy and go in and out of these networks, blogging communities, and online vertical services. They each compete with our time, and keep us separated via a consequential divide and conquer.
If you live online, you need to think about four general areas of activities: the general web, the social networks, the mobile apps, and the online communities where “everybody knows your name.”
I would love to be on a bus of people I like, that takes me from one place to another, instead of riding a buggy on my own, but that’s not a reality at the consumer level. Businesses can use HubSpot, HootSuite or Salesforce.com to tie these pieces together, but consumers are on their own.
Comments don’t matter. Community does. It’s really that simple.
It matters cause its the glue of networks and the connecting value of life, not just online. The jump from avc to somewhere else is no greater than the jump from here to getting coffee on Chambers Street.
Community exits between networks, wherever we area. The idea of social gravity is indeed real.
Nice post William.
Thanks. But I haven’t been able to latch on to any valuable business or lifestyle communities on Facebook, except interacting with friends I already know.
Business, me neither. Wine certainly on an international basis lives there as the feeder to blogs. Nutrition and exercise I am sensing will take root there as well.
As in everything, community is a superset of network dynamics. It takes time and work to build.
I agree.
I wished there was more discussion on Twitter though. It does have a serendipitous aspect that is useful, but most people aren’t conducive to that.
Twitter is a platform for discovery, not naturally for conversations. It does what it does perfectly actually.
comments don’t matter. long live comments.
Great post William. Comments matter in the same way that vocal chords matter in real life. I find your points valuable. I find a lot of the other banter on this topic to be as valuable as debating the merits of vocal chords.
So… It’s what you say that matters, not the tool you use to say it.
…and FYI, I found this post of yours through the Disqus Daily Digest! cc @ccrystle:disqus , who, I suspect, also found this post though his Daily Digest. (No, I’m not trying to pick a fight Charlie…hahaha)
…also, to “further the author’s point”, I know everyone on this comment thread in real life (as of the time of posting) as a result of commenting.
Disclaimer: I work for Disqus.
Comments don’t matter, but content matters…
“We, the people have to drive our own buggy and go in and out of these networks, blogging communities, and online vertical services. They each compete with our time, and keep us separated via a consequential divide and conquer.”
I see this like the waste of energy of not having more passengers travel together in an HOV lane. Especially since it’s more social to travel together, in a car or from one place to another online. Actually the @awaldstein:disqus and @ccrystle:disqus discussion about Airlifting Communities ultimately did nicely on having people join in in my view, but only after they were notified of the discussion on another blog. The post was a partial oxymoron – it was about failure to port a discussion, which then did have people ported in, which made it interesting, but showed the failure to cross media/platform rivers with either community or content.
I found it through disqus daily digest too
There is one private FB group, specific to the real estate industry, that is that valuable community for me. In short, it’s the best discussion anywhere online about real estate industry topics. It’s a highly curated list of people though, which gets weeded down if you don’t contribute. It’s what would happen in tech if Fred had a private FB group for top commenters & booted people who didn’t contribute.
I dig the cult of community.
Did we meet in NYC at the 2011 meetup?
Great post, William. Commenting is where the real conversation happens on social media (as opposed to email which takes the written conversation to a new level although the visual display of an email convo is lacking once a third person enters — in comments you can “see” the conversation).
And still thinking about @awaldstein:disqus ‘s point about airlifting community, there is a question forming at the back of my mind about destination. Where or what is the destination for a community?
So back to your 10,000 comments. Congratulations and thank you. You have made the social web a more interesting, enjoyable and enriching place.
That’s great. Can you give us more Discovery? I think it’s only the tip of it.
I had to “drag” some of you here 🙂
But it’s almost always the same group of nomads and we end-up at a different bar, with the same circle, more or less.
We are addicts… but it’s been fun. It is a lot more useful than detrimental. As @awaldstein:disqus said, there’s some level of discussions happening on Facebook too.
Thanks Drew. How do you find out about these- Do you search for Groups on Facebook?
Most LinkedIn groups I saw are pretty lame, discussion-wise. Mostly self-promotional.
But I still have a dream.
I’d like these communities to be more easily searchable and discoverable.
That’s great.
Jim- do you know what happens if one doesn’t comment anywhere. Does the digest bring them new conversations anyways?
I’ve known the guy who runs the group for 6 years since my early days at zillow. He started it due to the exact frustration you mention. There is no way to find it aside from knowing someone in it. It requires major time to moderate and get the early community going, and weed out the self promoters. I have a “global entrepreneurs” fb group with the exact same goal – just haven’t made bandwidth to get the discussion going regularly. If you are interested in creating the same dynamic for tech, I can add you to group and you can see what you think.
Yeah, it’s where the action is. I was joking (rock is dead, long live rock)
Thanks Donna. Meeting people via the commentsphere is definitely rewarding.
“Where or what is the destination for a community?” – That’s a good question. I’m not sure how to answer it.
Another slice of this is to expose what communities a user participates in. I like that part of the Disqus dashboard that tells you where users comment the most.
shoot me an email if you want an invite to the global entrepreneurs group. drew at ohheyworld
consider it picked 😉
The Digest still sucks 🙂 I followed a bunch of people, and the digests more often than not show me things I already know or places I’ve already been.
It could be so much…oh what’s the point 🙂
Don’t forget painting is dead too….
Thanks. I will do that.
Drag and not draw?
I was hoping for your thoughts on the inefficiency of single passengers…
Good to hear.
Patients is a virtue.
You couldn’t resist, couldya? 🙂
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
If you stop commenting, it still knows something about your interests from past commenting.
There’s more to come in this area, yes.
Yes, we did. I remember it well.
Lol. You like that bus metaphor.
Oh, that’s right. That was when I finally stopped confusing you with Kirk Love. Not sure why I had that confusion.
“I had to “drag” some of you here”
But you see we came don’t you?
You raise an interesting topic. As a blogger, I love comments, not only because they mean I have incited a reaction but they also provide great insight from different sources.
Unfortunately, comments take time, effort and thought, which seems to go against the update now world in which we live. In many respects, I think comments are under-appreciated, and I agree with your take that comments need more respect.
Ironically, I had steered away from making comments until I recently installed Vienna as my RSS reader (replacing Google Reader). It has a nice UI, which has made it easier to see the content that interests me and, at the same time, inspires a comment. 🙂
Mark
Disqus was founded when? 🙂
No, I’m really cranky about that. I should just let it go… but, but I can’t!
[shrug]
True, it does take a lot of time. But it’s worth it, to build relationships.
I hadn’t heard of Vienna, but will try it. thanks.
Start reading it from the bottoms-up. The good stuff you don’t know about is at the bottom.
ok one.more.time.
Great post William. I for one can easily credit online commenting in helping me break into a new career. It wasn’t the only reason but an important one and it happened just because I was willing to spend the time to comment and intract with others online. I don’t think this type of online behaviour will become mainstream but those who do it have the opportunity to learn and build relationship in a way that a simple retweet or Like will never offer.
I started reading Mark Suster’s blog while I was studying abroad in Singapore, spring 2010. I commented on some of his articles and eventually had an hour-long meeting with him in September 2011.
I actually told the story of how in a comment on one of Suster’s blogs that October: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/10/13/never-ask-a-busy-person-to-lunch-heres-why/comment-page-2/#comment-334429015
The point is, commenting on his blog was a huge help. Here’s a summary of the story if you’d rather see it here:
On February 3rd, 2011, Mark ended a blog post with this ‘appendix’:
“**I have enjoyed every episode that I’ve done and keep wanting to write up the notes from some of the previous shows but it’s time consuming. Any takers in a trade for helping do some write-ups against whatever you want? Advice, coaching, intros? It’s such a shame that I haven’t written up such great interviews as Seth Sternberg, Howard Morgan, Tom McInerney, Yves Sisteron, Mike Yavonditte and many more.” FROM>> http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/02/03/want-to-know-why-charging-12-year-converts-higher-than-9-99/
At the time, I was chasing an internship with Hashable. Mike Yavonditte was the CEO. So, I JUMPED at the opportunity to summarize Suster’s interview with Mike and have Suster publish it on his blog. I worked hard on it, Mark published it (http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/03/01/the-guy-who-took-on-google-and-now-linkedin-mike-yavonditte/), and then I ultimately got the internship! And later that fall, only a week after returning to Clarkson U for my senior year, I ended up at TechCrunch Disrupt helping to launch YouNow.
I hit up Mark on Twitter about how I was in SF. He agreed to meet in person, remembering me from my comments!
I agree with William. Commenting matters.
What a great story. I didn’t know that. Thanks John for taking the time from your 18 hrs day to tell it to us.
btw- the 2nd url had a 404. i’d love to read it if you have the right one?
Hey John-
Friggin love that story (& the hustle). And actually, would love to use it as an outside perspective to the real estate industry (I run a real estate tech blog) to demonstrate an example of how to hustle to close business opptys. Shoot me an email if interested. drew at ohheyworld
Hey, I want a commission on this intro…5% like realtors, ok?
haha
Little known fact: commissions are negotiable.
“I would love to be on a bus of people I like… instead of riding a buggy on my own.”
Well, yes, and no. Yes, we generally find our interests based on the “topic” (i.e. the blog), and so stumble into the discussion communities, which lead to people we like / follow / circle / connect.
No, because not everything we do is shared. I like a lot of what you write, or @awaldstein:disqus or @ccrystle:disqus etc., but that doesn’t mean I want to always be on a bus with all or one or some of you all of the time. That means I need to be switching buses often to find communities, which is not that different than riding my buggy from avc.com to get a community there and then getting back in to @wmoug:disqus’s startupmanagement to read and get community there.
Can there be community independent of particular blog post topics, or even blogs themselves, or are the blogs the glue that create that context for community? In some ways, the social media of G+ or Facebook do that, but relatively poorly (G+ works a little better). Can disqus (if they ever fixed their weak UI and miserable mobile experience) become a platform for that? Would it be possible for there to be discussions completely independently of some “leader” writing a topic?
I know that I enjoy the reading *and* the community, often independently, but am completely overwhelmed (which is why startupmanagement is so valuable for me… although it kills my Sunday mornings); can I get them detached from each other?
yes, thank you.
but…you need to keep coming on your own. you know the way now 🙂
bring it…no more threats 🙂
part of the reason i asked everyone to comment on semil’s blog yesterday was that i think you can see community move around the web. that is happening here and at many blogs written by AVC regulars. so i think it is happening and will happen more over time.
true. It happened sporadically last year on the engagio blog, and does happen on @awaldstein:disqus sometimes, but someone has to “drag” them there.
eventually, it would become a habit if they like the other community. each blogger has to earn her/his way, one post at a time, but a referral helps.
Drew, thanks a ton for saying that. Appreciate your kind words. I would love to talk. I’ll email you shortly.
Haha, anything for you William. You’re the man and I got you.
I messed up the second URL because I used a parentheses on the link. Here you go sir: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/03/01/the-guy-who-took-on-google-and-now-linkedin-mike-yavonditte/
@awaldstein:disqus covered this more thoroughly in the post I referenced, but I agree with you that the bus metaphor is really about an intermittent need, i.e. sometimes I like to kick back and ride the bus, and sometimes I want to discover on my own.
That’s right. I remember you took my advice to take it seriously, and then when you did, that helped me decide to hire you, because you reveal yourself via your comments.
BIGGEST ADVANTAGE OF TWITTER?
YOU NOT HAVE TO TALK TO FACEBOOK FRIENDS THERE.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEIGHBOR AND GUY AT BAR?
MAYBE LIKE BOTH. BUT ONLY HAVE TO TALK TO GUY AT BAR WHEN WANT TO.
TRY TO MAKE EVERYONE TALK TO GUY AT BAR ALL THE TIME?
NO ONE GO TO BARS ANY MORE.
NOT TRUE.
PROBABLY.
IMPATIENCE IS GOOD WAY TO WIN.
LOL. I forgot that FB and FG don’t get along very well.
THEM NOT KNOW THAT FG NEED ID PROTECTION.
Variety is the spice of life. Same applies to online.
You can visit regular communities, and you can do drive-by communities. But not everyone likes to talk back to strangers unless they see them a few times.
“As of the time of the posting…” 🙂
Patients, patience… Evidently spelling is a virtue also.
Not sure, though, where we are right now. Is the blog-centric (i.e. creator + commenter) world we are in now buggies, where you need to ride to each one? How do we create the bus?
Where did You got that experience. I wolud go there to.
Maybe You meet a friend. Ivan(name)
I think comments are thought of as ‘second class’ because they are historically full of trolls and meaningless drivel/banter…only in the few exceptions has commenting really caught on and become a value-add (AVC being one of the top in this class).
Had Disqus (and the likes) been around from the start, and had they focused on some of the things and use-cases you mention above, I think there really would have been a social network built out of blog commenting…but alas, it was never framed that way and so it will likely not happen in this iteration of the internet…
Still – some awesome ideas and thoughts throughout this post…hopefully some day someone follows through on many of them!
There are much worse people to be confused with….Kirk is da bomb! 😉
You and I think alike here. Nuff said 🙂 thanks
Your points about Disqus and SEO sparked my interest so I did some research.
Verdict still seems to be out but this post says that Disqus is actually optimized for SEO: http://joeltobey.com/is-disqus-seo-optimized/ (note the comments from Disqus’ marketing manger)
Or have you seen research that says otherwise? Just curious to see.
I’d like this to be true. If it is so, then we should be able to search for comments on Google, no?
I’d assume. As the OP says, he was able to at least to a site search for comments.
Hmm…but we need google search.
I like the actually contents of the post but think the title could be better phrased.
“Do Comments Matter?”
I laughed. Of course they do. You asking this question is like a pretty person asking someone if they’re pretty. You need re-assurance of what they know is true. You know comments matter. It’s how they matter and where they fit in the broader scheme of things that is the real crux of your ponderance. And there’s nothing wrong with pondering that subject.
Comments are weird. There is little to no agreed upon use for them. Some people comment and run. Others comment with the intention of having a full-out discussion. There is no defined “chat room”. Comments are as real time as you want them to be – based upon how many times you click refresh in a given minute. Unless you have a rapport/relationship with the person you’re disqussing with, you have no obligation to respond. There’s nothing locking you in. The content that is being commented on also contributes a lot to the associated commenting environment. There are worlds of difference between the commenting environments of here and Huffington Post – mostly because of the content of the sites. Different people gravitate towards the different content.
I don’t know. Just some thoughts.
Posts are great, but comments are where the real action takes place.
Another thought: It’s a bloggers responsibility to provide quality content – but it’s just as much they’re responsibility to provide content that is commentable and conducive to discussion
Thanks Andrew. You’re becoming a regular here!
yes, I was playing with the question, and teasing my friends at Disqus. I’ve written a lot about this topic when I was running Engagio last year, e.g. http://blog.engag.io/2011/12/07/seeing-relationships-from-your-commenting-activity-the-social-interaction-graph/
Anil Dash once said that, as a blog author, you get the comments you deserve. There’s a lot of truth to that statement. For e.g. the AVC.com community is an excellent example of a very valuable commenting community that comes together daily, and I have met and done business with or formed friendships with a number of people from there, over the past five years.
Welcome William, but the thanks really belongs to you! I’m going to try, there’s a lot of stimulating content and discussions in this community – which you are a big part of. I used to spend a decent amount of time on AVC (and related/connected blogs) and am trying to pick up the habit again.
I agree with that statement as well and AVC definitely proves that theory. I used to discuss various posts with an uncle of mine – but would always integrate content from the comment discussions because that’s where the topics were abstracted, expanded, compressed, dissected, and understood. Look at the comments for any given post on AVC & you’ll find a large core group of people helping people. I’ve seen posts asking for e-mails, suggesting meet-ups at various events, etc.
It’s also a very open, welcoming community. I remember when I just started commenting there I was positively received immediately. Such as I was here and I thank you for that!
We are spoiled at AVC, and some of us have taken those learnings back to our own communities, e.g. @ccrystle:disqus @falicon:disqus @FakeGrimlock:disqus , Arnold Waldstein…to name a few.