A couple days after the conclusion of the NBA Finals, Mark Cuban put up a great stream of consciousness post ending with the notice "For the record, Im not turning on comments, they have devolved to the point where they add no value."
Some big name bloggers picked up on this. BL Ochman found it odd that Cuban didn't respond to an email asking for comment. Steve Rubel speculated that it might be because comment moderating and mining tools were weak.
One tough guy blogger even had this to say: "Mr. Cuban, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" and was then shocked to discover someone had actually read his post.
Well, comments are turned on again for Cuban's latest posts. Where's the followup/update? Where are the kudos for turning away from the dark side?
How much do you think Cuban cares anyway? The reason he's so great to read is that he says what he thinks and is not afraid to speak what's on his mind - read his post on Ozzie Guillen and you wish that more people in this world would just be "for real."
There aren't any rules to blogging, only conventions. Comments, while valuable, are obviously optional. Three of the top four Engrish language blogs as ranked by Technorati - Boing Boing, PostSecret, and FlickrBlog - don't have comments turned on. So should they be booted out of the "official" blogosphere, along with Seth Godin?
Who makes the final call on what is and isn't a blog, anyway? Just remember that social computing is about power to the people and you'll be fine.
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In my view, the "Comments" is where the most interesting stuff happens on a blog.
From the perspective of the blogger, it's where you get to listen to your community and hear what they think. Because, well...you already *know* what YOU think!
Posted by: Ann Handley | 28 June 2006 at 11:58 PM
Great point Ann - we've been having a discussion about this internally about our official team blog and I've posted about it here: http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/2006/06/process_check.html
Posted by: Peter Kim | 05 July 2006 at 09:25 AM