A favorite hobby of many in this industry seems to be telling people that they’re doing “it” wrong, whatever “it” is in the given conversation. Now that Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr are out ahead as the major social networks, it becomes harder to debate social platforms, though it definitely still occurs, especially with location-based platforms. One area that has never ceased to die down and has continued to be hotly debated is blogging platforms. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t read a conversation online debating WordPress, Tumblr and Posterous. Other blogging platforms such as SquareSpace, TypePad and MovableType enter the discussion too but the main focus has been between the big 3.
Some people want to debate the technical aspects of the platforms. Some want to debate the ease of use. Others want to debate which has the most active community. Debate is good. It’s healthy for the industry, especially as it continues to mature. However, telling people that they’re wrong for wanting to test new platforms and experiment isn’t healthy. It discourages the creation of content, which is where the focus should be.
I have public and private blogs on all three platforms and manage blogs that are based on other platforms as well. All of them have their pros and their cons. The one you choose is dependent on the type of content that you want to create and your preference for ease of use. There is plenty of fantastic blogs that run on each platform. Because they’re on one platform or another doesn’t make the content on them any different.
I have considered moving this blog off of WordPress and over to Tumblr to allow me to more easily share shorter form content such as quotes or post a quick video that I come across without feeling the need to elaborate at length about it. Whether or not I decide to experiment and transfer this blog will not be done because it is right or wrong, it will be done because of my desire to create content and deciding the type of content that I want to provide to the community at-large.
Whichever platform you choose to create content on, don’t be ashamed of it and don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong. Do research on the pros, cons and how each compares, decide what you want for yourself and your community and then experiment for a while with each platform. Deal?
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The Next Evolution of Comments
Prior to social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed, if you wanted to discuss a blog post, you would normally do it in the comments section of the blog post. Of course, you could discuss on the phone, in person or via email but on the web it would be discussed on that specific blog post. That still continues but what has changed is that many conversations are taking place around the post as well on these various networks. For example, someone could read this post in Google Reader, share it causing it to post to Facebook and FriendFeed. Then on both of those networks, separate conversations could take place that I would never be aware of. Well, that is changing and today Mashable announced the implementation of social media comments.
I have always enjoyed using Disqus on other blogs but have hesitated to implement on this blog or over on Prime Cuts. The reason for my hesitation was that even though the Disqus comments are integrated into the blog, the comments on my blogs would no longer belong or be in control of the blog…they would be in Disqus hands. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but, like I said, something that caused hesitation. However, now I am considering testing with Disqus as I really want to test the social media comments when it enters general release. It is currently being exclusively tested on Mashable over the next 2 weeks but there are plans to release it.
As of right now, this feature will only be able via the Disqus platform but is where the future of commenting is headed. We first had the aggregation of social networks into platforms such as FriendFeed and now we will see blog comments become aggregated.
So now I turn it over to you, what are your thoughts on this? As this eventually becomes a standard feature, what do you think will be the next big step for conversation on blogs and social networks?