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I am watching how things progress for you though.
- Neil.
1 - I might not have anything constructive to say
2 - holding up a "yeah, what HE/SHE said" sign is kinda lame.
A thoughtful response requires time, which may be one of the greatest barriers to leaving comments these days, at least for me!
Cheers!
I have commented a few times though, when I get in early enough. :)
PS: Are you going to the Startup Epicenter conference tomorrow? I saw Podtech listed as a speaker/panelist but no names.
Rex
In fact, while I'm here I've just thought of something. Neil Ford's comment got me thinking. He's quite right to be unsure about the closed culture of Facebook. I understand the arguments for it being closed but it is hindering its growth in a number of areas, one area in particular is Ireland (especially the North).
Facebook's 'closed' or 'exclusive-ness' in its early days stopped students in Ireland to join and thus looked for an alternative. It is why Bebo is now one of the most popular sites in Ireland (if not the most popular). Facebook is definately starting to catch on but most people use it as a secondary account to catch up with friends who may have studied in universities in Great Britain or went on camps/trips to the US.
It will be interesting to see if the Bebo craze in Ireland dies down and Facebook is embraced as the primary choice. Somehow I don't think so.
Also, there's some posts I don't know how to relate to.
I love hearing and reading from people who love doing what they do. With so much of society being negative, it's hard to do well (in general) unless you surround yourself with good things.
I would quit life for a day if I heard Martha Stewart say, "Robert Scoble - he's a good thing."
(Um, what?)
I don't comment on most blogs because I either don't have much to add/say about it, or the comments remind me so much of http://xkcd.com/c202.html that I don't want to be associated with some of the people who do leave comments.
Most of the time it has to do with the way I read my feeds. I skim, look for interesting information, and if I find any I'm more likely to post on my own blog and trackback than I am to take the time to scan any comments on the site and add my own.
For people who have their own blogs the whole setup is strange, why would I want to leave a comment somewhere else rather than add some potentially interesting content to my own site?
I wrote an entry a couple years ago on this before I blogged on a platform that allowed comments: http://www.myshoggoth.com/2004/10/comments_and_....
I wonder how many of your 1300+ Facebook friends were users prior to you joining Facebook. On the flip side I wonder how many people joined Facebook due to the "Scoble Effect."
As you know... less than 10% of readers ever comment. The reasons are varied for them not participating.
Keep stoking the facebook fire buddy. People are influenced by your behavior. ;)
Cheers!
Would our International Robert leave the poor-English-comments in his blog or delete them? ;)
This may help you to understand why you have a low contributors/viewers ratio (which is normal).
This guy won a "buzz race" and explains why and how he had a high contributors/viewers ratio compared to all the major blogs.
http://fr.intruders.tv/Interview-Video-de-Franc...
Sorry in French (but maybe Loic can help you ;) )
~A
Cheers!
One thing though, I feel that we are on the tipping point for these things, they need to network the networks - just like how networks became internetworks and so on to the Internet. I have too many islands.
I rarely comment because I read them at work in my RSS reader.
So hi, how's it goin'?
So the positive way to look at this is that I must agree with a hell of a lot of what you say.
Facebook seems to be getting real interesting and the news has ticked up 100 degrees recently. I have never really looked at it because myspace made the designer in me sick to my stomach. I have never seen so many gaudy web pages in my life.
I will have to check it out...it seems like they just opened it up to the world (beyond U students), but I know it's been a long time now.
Most people are lazy. The internet is about taking. Not much room left for leaving... :(
You bring up a good point about friends/readers vs. comments...I believe it was always the same way with "friends in real life".
Just look back to the days of high school. Who were your friends who passed notes? Who did you write notes to and never got a note back?
Now with information overload, it is even harder to get a nice note...especially written in teal ink on looseleaf paper, or just a simple comment on your blog.
I miss note passing. As much as I love the web, there is nothing quite like that.
XOXOXO (Common note closure phrase)
~Heidi
P.S. Commenting on websites can be hard work if you are reading over 600 feeds like you do! I read over 100 feeds a day. I leave comments, but now after reading your post I think I should comment more often.
I read every single comment. But not the spam.
As far as not "commenting" (I'll presume in your facebook status update you meant on your wall), the facebook community does not generally thank each other for adding. 99% of my friend adds on facebook I have met them in person or in the depths of the interwebs.
I have added a few bloggers and other people that I have not met, but I choose to respect their privacy and not invade their wall with posts from people they don't know about what I see as inconsequential stuff. (For example, I'm saving my wall post or facebook message to Arlington for when I finally have something worthwhile to show.) I think facebook users consider their wall to be a lot more sacred then say, a myspace wall, and that might be one reason that people are hesistant to engage you there. However, now that you've asked - be prepared for a flood :)
Now, you do have a fair point about your "invisible audience." And I'm certainly part of this group. I believe I've left a comment or two here - maybe, maybe not, but definitely not as many comments as I have left on other blogs (TechCrunch in particular - however I haven't left a comment there in a month or two maybe.) This might be partly because I have only recently started reading your blog, so I am not yet completely comfortable leaving my words.
It also might be because when I read news here, I'm usually reading it for the first time. Arlington, Malik, Cashmore, etc, sometimes tend to cover stuff that I've seen before or I'm familiar with. I'm much more likely to comment on something I am familiar with because I feel that I have something to add to the discussion.
Perhaps your lack of blog comments is just a symptom of your style of reporting. Hopefully that doesn't seem like brown-nosing to you. Maybe you shouldn't be as focused on the number of commenters, but rather on the invisible audience. Perhaps engage them in another way - polls? guest blogs? free tshirts?
Anyway, thats my 2 cents. You asked for it. Now here's my request: keep up the disruption.
Then again, the problem is that I'm not on Facebook!
And I think that you may be right about class division.
I gotta confess, I would like more comments on my blog - I get hundreds of hits every day but only a handful of comments. I have to satisfy myself with the stats that says people do have a looky see.
I find different topics produces different response rates. A really good (imo) bit of blogging gets little. Any ols line about beer or boobs gets a ton.
Such is life.
*smile*
^_^
1. Not likely to see any feedback. Unless I subscribe to your comments feed (which, specially for an active site like yours, would be outrageous in my RSS reader, which brings me to the next reason
2. RSS readers and their popularity. I can read your full post within my RSS reader. Commenting requires me to click, wait to bring up a new tab, scroll ALL the way to the bottom, sign in (or fill out my info), type my comment, and sometimes complete a CAPTCHA. Really makes me think about my comment and if it's worth the trouble.
You don't usually bother to reply past the first few commenters and the occasional A-lister, so it doesn't feel very productive this far down (#67) on the list.
Are you using maps on your phone much? I'm a new addict to Google Maps Mobile. Here's a review and comparison to Microsoft Live Search for Mobile: http://techbrew.net/articles/200706/mobile-maps...
I have not commented, because I feel I need to add value to the conversation. There is no reason to comment if there is nothing to add.
I did comment a while back.
Question: How does your comment frequency compare Microsoft Employee vs. Post-Microsoft employee? Is there a difference?
I'd say that your blog has become less pertinent to me as you've left Microsoft. Before, your viewpoint made you unique and that was fascinating. It also was a great way to get info about Microsoft. Now, you're just another Tech Guy who gets to talk to all sorts of Cool unreachable people, and I often see much of your interesting content on other blogs (TechCrunch, Digg, Techmeme, etc..)
I've never been a big video watcher, so watching the videos is not as fast as skimming blog content.
Good Observation by Mark Woodman. Although, I have noticed an occasional reply lower in the list, but you are correct. Comments are conversations, and conversations are no fun when they're one-way whether you are the Blog Author or the Commenter.
// Please cut the everyday self-PR (Twitter et al) for sometime ;)
If people like your posts, they will hunt you down even into the deepest of the interents just to get your contact info for FFS.
I think if someone has something profound to say, they will create a blog post on their site, and then trackback to the original blog post.
I also don't comment unless I have something profound to say -- in order to keep a high signal to noise ratio.
And there you have it.
I log into my PC once in a day and am flabbergasted by the amount of stuff that people involved in space. Also, I read the type of academic papers like what danah writes (more boring tho..since it's more imagination..) and to top it all I am too exhausted to comment...but I'll try commenting...
Pradeep
Hey look at that - I did!
Also I only have limited time to focus on reading feeds, and I subscribe to dozens of 'em - so rarely have time to comment too. If I'm stirred up enough to write something, I'll generally put it on my own blog and share it with my friends and colleagues.
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-i-will...
Love your blog though... Facebook and Twitter have my business thanks to you (I'd been using LinkedIn before though), all good services.
Cheers
- You make 7 blog posts a day, and my comments will be lost quickly ;)
- I don't read like 600 blog posts a day, but at least 100. So....
That, and I read from oldest news first so half the time it's days before I actually read your posts and usually decide to not bother commenting because it's old news.
Also by the time your post is published to RSS, consumed by my reader, and I get to it, I'm the 92nd comment. Will you even read this far down?
I am in finance, but I used to work in high-tech tax so I follow your blog to keep abreast of what is going on. I ruthlessly use you for your tech knowledge and generous sharing of information.
I sure as hell hope that number includes me. I comment sometimes. :P
I block my feed reading sessions together and so am typically 1+ day behind everyone else - hence usually nothing useful to add to the conversation. Plus Google Reader discourages commenting.
-Nigel
So, here comes one more.
Will be great to see your footprints/remarks on my blog too.
Thanks.