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Ditto for comments. I can read comments very quickly, scanning them for the rubbish and the gold. You cannot do that with video - wait for it to load, listen to the comment move on.
I think the difference is that with the written word the onus is on the creator to distill their words so the reader gets the message. With video, the onus is shifted to the viewer to watch and sift out the noise on the fly. "Er Um Er Um" doesn't get written down - but it'll stay in the video.
Audio comments? I won't be listening.
Video comments? I won't be watching.
I have commented using Disqus on Shegeeks.net. I'm all about the "world wide talk show' analogy and this makes us one step closer to a reality. I will give Disqus a try on my blog for sure and be sure to recommend if I like it.
When? Where? When we have something visual to talk about. Want to see what my kitchen looks like? Want to learn how to cook a meal? Want to see the injury my kid sustained and you're a remote doctor? Heck, wanna see what my kid looks like right now? How about can I show you my new cell phone's UI?
Want to buy my car based on only my text? How about that piece of art hanging on my wall? Etc.
I still like the idea of capturing peoples reactions to certain content. With text, tone can be misconstrued.
I posted the Battle at Kruger video on my Seesmic the other day. I immediately got 2 responses. One guy was absolutely amazed and thanked me profusely for posting it. His words could not have truly captured his reaction. The other guy spoke french so I do not know what he said but his expressions said it all.
I'm sure if a video comment by an "unknown" was positively received by those that do have the time and/or inclination to watch them, the text comments on the video comment would support that fact and drive more people to watch.
I imagine that it would create "closer", more personal networks than text comments alone.
Scanning out the crud and panning for the gold are waay faster with the written word.
@Adam - your "Battle at Kruger" video was posted on YouTube first was it not? I saw it there. Excellent work and thousands of views. I am on Seesmic (but don't have time to shovel and pan) I would probably have looked at that just on the title alone.
It's a question of solutions and problems. These services are solutions looking for problems and I can't see the problem they might be solving.
Try on these two:
Readle Gadgets
Making Music
I've set it up on http://seesmicsidebar.com
Remember to change the default to 'on posts with no comments and all future posts' unless you want to hide all your existing comments, which is not good...
There's not ability to do any editing of comments left. All you can do is approve or delete them. That's great if you're into having comments with "integrity." But what if a commenter doesn't know how to leave an URL that doesn't extend into the margins? What if you don't want profanity in the comments? What if a commenter leaves personal information in the comment? What if you want to disemvowel a comment? ;-)
Also, Disqus doesn't yet support any meaningful export of the comments out of Disqus and back into the WordPress database. Yeah, you can get the comments out of Disqus, but there's no easy way to get them any farther. The longer you stay with Disqus, the more you're held hostage to the commenting system.
I couldn't find any documentation on what HTML was allowed in a Disqus comment. Bold and italics worked. Images didn't seem to.
Also, no identicons or wavetars.
Disqus has a ton of potential. I expect most of my concerns to be answered before too long. Just not yet.
What happens to existing comments? Who owns these comments? Where do the search engines direct comment derived traffic to - Disqus or the blog? What happens to the comments if Disqus goes under?
As for video. I think thats more for personal comments on friends or families blogs. You, Robert, are the exception. Your career is largely about video on the web - you're gonna be biased here!
I've written a few articles and a howto for disqus + drupal here (http://seanreiser.com/taxonomy/term/142) the short version. 1) I like it. 2) I disabled it because you can't import comments 3) I've reenabled it because the benefits I received from the tool outpace the not being able to import comments today and assurances from Daniel that importing comments are coming real soon.
I read your blog through the Media 2.0 Workgroup feed. Lately, in Google Reader, your post titles haven't beens showing up. Not sure if this is because of the re-design or not but all your posts say "(title unkown)."
Only seems to be happening to you. Everyone else's are okay.
Why don't I like video commenting? Well, I think you have to wait a lot to get to the point. I mean that's just gona take a lot of time. One takes a minute to go through someone's comments and get the whole gist out of it but video commenting will take a lot more time.
Also, with text comments, you have the ability to skip pass the stuff that's boring or doesn't make sense or is spam. With video commenting skipping through is not possible. I love new stuff and I love to see innovations being introduced for the good and greater purpose. That's what makes internet so darn interesting but I guess not everything is going to capture everyone's interest and imagination :D
"Because they use a robust identity system across blogs they can kick people off who misbehave."
That's awfully overbroad, Robert. You guys and all your start-up friends take a sudden dislike to someone who criticizes you, and you blacklist them all across services like this using Disqus or similar organizers/aggregators.
For example, I'm banned from commenting on Dave Winer's blog after merely one comment in which I challenged his notion, headlined in his rabid blog recently, that "everybody in the Northeast is racist". And that's just it, in the name of a constant haze of praise and "positivity" you think you need to thrive in, you all block and even harass people for being "negative" "just because you can".
I think eventually the consequences of all this very arbitrary and abusive blocking and declaring of people as "misbehaving" and enforcing various overbroad or even draconian TOS will take its toll, and hopefully eventually people will walk around you.
Meanwhile, I'm going to go see if Disqus enables me to comment on Dave's blog even if he's banned me, and whether he/you then try to blacklist me on Disgus, it will be interesting.
Video and other "rich" media is more visceral and yes, it does consume more time - although with practise, I can scan those too and just watch the ones I want to watch. But video and audio carry not just information as Robert says about human objects - cars, art, chocolate - but also human beings in a way that text does not. Can you tell if I am being ironic right now? Watch the video and you will know for sure.
Whether you love this or hate it, it's here to stay. In particular, watch young people with less inhibition and no concern for the heirarchy of the written word pick this up and run with it.
I have had many emails, Twitter comments and conversations with people who agree that they see no future in video commenting. I fully expect this to be a flash in the pan and be over in a few months - if that.
I don't and won't spend my spare time wading through the detritus to find the good stuff. Enjoy wading - I'll sit on the side and watch it fall to pieces.
And no matter how brilliant the ideas expressed in a video comment may be, we will never be able to find them with Google.
Just my two cents.
Cheers!
Are you going to integrate the disqus commenting system on your blog, Robert?
There are a few missing pieces to the puzzle - I don't have full and easy access to the comments and the comment metadata like I do in WordPress (if someone uses a swear word in a comment on my site, my only options are to leave it alone or to delete the whole comment, which is clunky).
And there's also the Google issue (Google sees Disqus comments at the disqus.com domain first, which makes the comments on your site duplicate content), which as far as I can tell has still not changed. It's not a deal killer for a personal blog, and I still use it myself, but it's something to consider if you're running a business blog or are being super-SEO conscious.
"When? Where? When we have something visual to talk about. Want to see what my kitchen looks like? Want to learn how to cook a meal? Want to see the injury my kid sustained and you’re a remote doctor? Heck, wanna see what my kid looks like right now? How about can I show you my new cell phone’s UI?
Want to buy my car based on only my text? How about that piece of art hanging on my wall? Etc."
Most of those needs would be better served by allowing folks to embed still images in their comments. It surprises me that none of these commenting systems allow this.
On a separate note, video comments will be very difficult to moderate. Who wants to sit through every comment to make sure they're okay all the way through?
Erm - Paul, it's easy. It's called adding "followers" or "friends" - then I just check the people (via feeds!) who i know often give plenty good content, and just occasionally, call me greedy, scan their followers and fans. I don't mind missing stuff, I get plenty of good moments this way without any kind of mental ill affects ;-)
I think video is as temporary as the telephone.
What I believe really *is* the issue here is simply taste. To use a musical analogy, some people like loud guitar music, some people like baroque harpsichord, and rarely are these two musical tastes expressed in the same person. Although I did work with one person...
Thanks
Joaquin
The musical analogy works for me. Peace.
I have never had cause to really question your stance on many things but this Disqus subject seems a little indefensible to me. I reviewed them (perhaps the first or second to do so) some time back and found them to be quite extraordinary in many ways. However, I feel a little betrayed in that even I predicted their prospects to be better than JS-Kit and several others back when.
The problem here is multifaceted of course. Disqus, though a viable and potential filled platform, is limited in a number of ways. Beyond that, their monetization scheme is at best "nebulous". Secondly, their data portability is potentially a disaster if you consider their users to be effectively "locked in" as far as their content is concerned. People fail to realize just how much they have vested in a simple comment sometimes. Considering thousands of them brings to light a wholly unimaginable problem if they are lost into the bowels of Disqus.
It is fairly obvious (via the tail of the comment url's) that Disqus is using this content for their site SEO and not to help the resident blogs. I shudder to think that this might be some Machiavellian attempt to "scrape" and utilize content for Disqus purpose, but what other reasons exist?
Their proprietary user login and profile are again, walking disasters if you think about user friendliness and this being "locked in" aspect of data and residency. JS-Kit, which ironically I put beneath Disqus initially, offers OpenID and etc, as well as a transparent monetization scheme. People really want transparency Robert ...you know this. What happens when Disqus wants to charge 5 bucks for this service (and they will)? The "opt out" scenario for users will not be pretty. If they choose to dump Disqus, they will loose potentially tons of data and comments to the Disqus data base.
So, you can see why I started this "War and Peace" of a comment. Robert, you are one of the best....how come this stuff is not resident in the evaluation'? There are so many other questions out there in thiis area. I know I have sent you 5 emails asking you to review or look at JS-Kit refinements and partnerships. My mail headings are just not that unnoticeable. Disqus has some big problems that not many are talking about. KIT and the others have their issues as well, but at least in the case of JS-Kit ...it is easy to see where the money and data go.
Always,
Phil Butler
And for WordPress.Com, it is better for them to embrace DISQUS than create their own. Especially that SezWho+DISQUS+FriendFeed is a big possibility.
Openness. Collective. Discussions.
Yes, I have the two widgets installed on my blog for showing the Disqus comments, but the mere fact that they aren't WITH the post they were set for is disturbing to me.
Maybe I'm too much of a control freak. It's the DBA in me -- I want my data where I can access it and control it.
As for video commenting, well, I'm on the fence on that one.
- jordy, programmer of fsbo Idaho
This certainly will come handy. Thanks for the article.
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