No, I haven't been getting too carried away with the example set by Seth Godin's blog, and no - there are no (immediate) plans to change the name of this blog from "English Raven" to "English Maven" (as mavens clearly have no need to bother with comments that will inevitably be beneath the lofty wisdom of their original blog post offerings, and I do not of course feel that way about my own humble contributions to the educational blogosphere).
The fact is, comments on blog posts aren't just losing their popularity or lustre, they're becoming unnecessary or even endangered.
I get an average of about 300 views on this blog per day at the moment, and I average about 3 comments per post (not including spammers, who have recently been on a dramatic rise). Just as significantly, I only comment on about 3 (external) blog posts per week these days - and by this I refer to actually putting something in that textbox, typing in that security code, and hitting that "submit" button.
Conversely, I make dozens of quick comments about current blog posts or news on Twitter and Facebook. Likewise, comments in response to my own blog posts that appear on Facebook and Twitter have increased about 500% in the past couple of months (according to my non-scientific and probably highly optimistic calculations).
These comments on Facebook and Twitter are often of about the same length and depth as those that were appearing on the blog, but they generate more discussion. They come along a lot faster, and I'm able to respond to them a lot faster as well. Some of them generate rich discussions in their own right. Sometimes the comments start with people who don't actually click through to read the blog post in full, but have something they'd like to say in response to the title and/or quick intro provided with auto-posting services like "Networked Blogs" on Facebook.
And let's not forget those handy Re-Tweet and "Like" buttons. So much more convenient than logging in to a blog comments section to say "I like this... erm, sorry I don't have that much more to say, really... please don't be offended! But thanks for a bit of a quick read, in any case..."
In fact, the amount of commentary and interaction I see on actual blogs now pales in comparison to what I'm seeing in the most popular social media applications. The blog posts are clearly still of interest, and an important place for more measured thought and composition in an ever rapidly expanding and speeding up social media universe. And there are clearly still some blogs out there with enough meaty matter being explored that they create huge discussions with a lot of depth in the comments (depth the shallow water of Twitter and Facebook could never cope with) - and I don't really count mine as being part of such lofty company.
But what's interesting is that, whereas blog posts are put out for wholly public consumption, the comments generated in response to them on Twitter and Facebook are not only more convenient (technically), they are happening within users' self-selected networks of contacts.
That's why - for example - anyone from the broader ELT community can see my recent post about the fruits of faking it (along with the two solitary comments contributed there), but only people who are friends with either myself or Gordon Lewis can see the really interesting discussion encompassing a dozen or so interactions that blog post generated on Facebook.
In some ways that's a bad thing, because the viewing ELT public may have missed out on gleaning something from that conversation Gordon and I had. It's also potentially an appropriate thing (because clearly not that many of the viewing public cared enough about it to say something), and also a good thing (because Gordon and I could discuss the issue pretty openly together, knowing that only our self-selected private contacts in Facebook would be witness to it).
I'm also watching with some interest as Mike Harrison experiments with moving his whole blogging endeavour over to Facebook - which he calls faceblogging...
So, I don't necessarily think it's death knell for public blogs just yet. But I do think comments on most blogs are definitely going the way of the dodo.
Me? I'd rather go out with a blaze of glory than to slowly fade away.
So, as of today, I'm dispensing with a comments section on my blog posts.
Perhaps I've just saved us both some time...
And I do reckon there's a half chance I might see some of your reactions over on Twitter or Facebook.
Look forward to it!
:-)
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