Writer-turned-venture-capitalist MG Siegler recently reignited a long-standing debate over whether blogs should have comments or not. Critics argue that comments are mostly noise and are a waste of time, but blogs… Read more »
A new commenting system at the New York Times has drawn fire from readers, but the motivation for the move is sound. If media companies want to behave like communities (which… Read more »
Some news sites such as The Huffington Post use badges and other kinds of reward systems to encourage user engagement and positive behavior in their online communities. Could doing this help… Read more »
Some newspaper publishers have said that introducing Facebook comments has cut down on offensive commentary and boosted traffic. But it’s worth remembering that Facebook is not the cure for bad behavior,… Read more »
While plenty of newspapers and other media entities are happy to use social tools like Twitter and Facebook to promote their content, few are really engaging with their readers on a… Read more »
Online anonymity has been taking a beating recently, with the Gay Girl in Damascus affair and a recent piece by the former ombudsman at NPR criticizing anonymous comments. But allowing people… Read more »
Newspapers seem to have a hard time accepting the “social” part of social media — a case in being the new policy introduced at a major Canadian newspaper, which tells its… Read more »
Facebook’s acquisition of group-messaging service Beluga and its rollout of enhanced commenting features to websites such as GigaOM are two further signs of the social network’s plan to become a key… Read more »
The new version of Digg, which launched yesterday after more than a year of development, doesn’t seem to be winning many fans. The most popular comments on the site’s relaunch are… Read more »
Blogger John Gruber of Daring Fireball says that he doesn’t believe that comments on most blogs add any value, and that they are often just “cacaphonous shouting matches,” which is why… Read more »