There are two types of blogs. There are community blogs, where readers leave lots of comments and the discussion in the comments can be as interesting and informative as the actual blog itself. Then, there are information blogs, where the destination is about the information. Community blogs have lots of comments. The discussion is often happening between those leaving comments rather than with the author. Fred Wilson and Chris Brogan are excellent examples of community blogs. Information blogs are destination blogs, where people visit for the content. They read, they leave. They rarely leave comments and there is little dialog happening on the site.
I like community blogs better. I love the interaction. I dig the dissent and conversation. Community blogs do just that, they create community. Community blogs improve the content and promote interaction through the dialogue. Community is what makes blogs better.
I was talking to a reader of this blog today, and asked him why he doesn’t leave a comment. He couldn’t tell me why. He wasn’t sure. He said he shares the information with his non blogosphere network, but he doesn’t leave comments and he didn’t know why. He committed to think about it and get back to me. I’ll update this post with his thoughts when I hear back from him. Or, maybe he’ll leave them in the comments.
What do you think? What makes a community blog a community blog? What happens, that turns an information blog into a community blog? When do you comment and when don’t you? Why? I’d love your thoughts, you can leave them in the comments.