Is it a Blog if It Doesn’t Have Comments?
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 1st, 2007 8:21 pm
Michael Arrington says Google doesn’t have a real blog because it won’t allow comments. I come down pretty strongly on the other side of this argument.
At the end of the day, a blogger is judged by his or her own content, not that of commenters. How a blogger carries on the conversation, whether through comments, trackbacks, or e-mail, certainly affects the quality of that content and enhances the personal voice so essential to blogging. But we seem to be wading too deep into semantics by using strict technical criteria to define blogging, be it comments, reverse chronological order, etc.
What matters in blogging is voice. I can post a single page article on a website written in my own voice (not PR-speak), sprinked with hyperlinks, with nothing more than my e-mail address for feedback purposes, and it would be more bloggy that a press release that allows comments and trackbacks.
During the last presidential campaign, they said we didn’t have a real blog because we didn’t allow comments. Say what you will, but the vast majority of the content was original and not repurposed from other sources. What I’m saying is that you have to judge the source before you judge the feedback mechanism. If Google’s content sucks, if it’s just recycled press releases, then you can say it’s not a blog. Companies and organizations that truly listen (and that includes comments as one of many tools) will be all the more successful, but if you don’t have interesting content, you are nowhere.
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