In Here, You Can’t Talk Too Much.

conversationFred Wilson and Seth Godin are two of my favorite bloggers. They each have huge followings and yet each have very different approaches to comments.

Seth does not have a comments section on his blog. He purposely doesn’t take comments. His reasoning; it will affect his blogging. With comments enabled, he finds himself writing for the user and not for himself. He finds comments influence what he writes more than he would prefer. So he doesn’t take comments.

Fred does allow comments. He loves them. Fred is all about the conversation. His Union Square Ventures is an investor in Disqus, a blog commenting start-up. (I use Disqus on this blog) Fred gets 100s of comments per post. Many times, the comments are actually better than the post itself. Fred admits this and likes the value it brings to the conversation.

I agree with Fred. The value is in the discussion, what others think, what others are doing, and what others know.

I started this blog for the discussion. I want to know what my readers are thinking. I want to understand the “other side” of the discussion. I want to listen as much as I want to tell. Fred says it takes tough skin to listen to your readers tell you, you are wrong. He’s right, but you learn an awful lot.

It’s too quite in here. It’s a new blog, only 2 1/2 months old. However, readership has been growing at 50% month over month. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to understand your perspective. As my readers, what would you like to see? What recommendations do you have to get more conversation going in here?

To me, it’s all about the conversation. It’s all about discussion. I’m listening, if you’ll start telling.

Keenan