Chris Brogan recently blogged about the addiction of giving one’s opinion. As I read it a few questions and thoughts entered my mind on why we comment.
- Do we comment for the sake of commenting?
- Are we going through the motions of commenting because we know it has an underlying effect on our social media status?
- We really want to engage in a dialogue.
- We want to meet this person.
- We want this person to notice us.
- We want business
- We want something from this person
- We want others to notice us.
- None of the above. I like reading blogs
I think that the nature of why people blog has changed over the last 2 years. When Groundswell came out, the reasons we blogged were because it was clearly a way to express and connect with others. The conversations were pure and lasted longer than the current, I post, you comment-we’re done model.
Twitter has in effect reduced blogging to more of a long form vehicle for self expression only, whereas in the past it was a catchall for all thoughts both verbose and sound-bite’ish. But it has also exposed blogging to the masses as a way to promote one’s self and not necessarily one’s intellect.
Conversations through the comments section of a blog have been rendered to nothing more than a self promotional back pat and a scrawled autograph by the author.
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