Some of the folks I know from Twitter have declared this coming week to be “comment on blogs” week. In an effort to get folks to break out of their Twitter twibulation mode of “retweet but don’t comment”, people this week should make an effort to tweet only after commenting, and then retweet the specific link with the hash tag #icommented
Good luck with that. I just realized that after Wednesday I’ll be off in the woods, and I’ll be missing out on all this lovely commenting, assuming it happens. So if you were going to comment here, better do it before Wednesday. Otherwise, your comment will sit in the queue for a while, waiting for my return.
Jul 09, 2012 @ 10:31:46
“Likes”, to me, seem more of a positive acknowledgement rather than a comment. It’s easy to “like” something with no further thought required. A comment needs substance behind it to be a true demonstration of someone’s thoughts/beliefs.
Jul 09, 2012 @ 09:41:47
This is my first comment for Comment on Blogs Week. Thanks for posting about it. Do you think a ‘like’ is a comment?
Jul 09, 2012 @ 09:51:20
I’m not sure what “Like” adds to the conversation, William. I suppose it’s akin to nodding at the dinner table when someone makes a good point, but it doesn’t bring an end to the fish course or get dessert to the table any faster.
if all that anyone does is “like” stuff, it doesn’t create a range of conversation.
I wonder, though… We have a sense of how Google works… It creates a list of terms of significance that appear in given web pages, right, and then another list of how many times that page is linked to. So Google also has “clouds” of interlinked pages. Comment, likes and retweets all make a given cloud larger, and make it more likely to be linked back to, or to reappear in search engines, right? So even though I’m disdainful of likes, they may serve a purpose of ‘congealing’ favor around a given web page or meme.
That said, I still think comments are more useful than “likes” or retweets. An idea is rarely strong enough to stand on its own until it’s gone through some criticism or development, and it’s hard to get that criticism without human input.
Jul 09, 2012 @ 11:31:39
I agree, comments are where it is at. I usually rt things when I want it to go to my audience (usually larger than the original tweeter.) Sometimes I rt because I am showing support.
Jul 08, 2012 @ 23:13:44
Duly noted!