Hey Scott, I was just blogging yesterday about BW's interactions with bloggers. And also about The Atlantic Monthly, by way of comparison.
You make a good point: BW should certainly have allowed Michael a chance to respond to his commenters. I think he has responded well on his blog, but people who only read the print magazine should see his responses as well. And some of the comments they chose made me scratch my head. Not exactly the best of the blogosphere, there.
I don't know what Old Media Principles might be at work, but I know BW is drawing me closer at the same time other magazines push me away.
David Utter
· 3 years ago
The problem with maintaining conversation in blogs stems from how an individual blog grows over time.
If a blogger posts once a day, every weekday for example, that's 110 new "conversations" started in a year. Should our blogger suddenly find A-listdom thrust upon himself/herself, readership increases and visitors start delving into the archives, maybe offering thoughtful comments that merit responses on year-old posts.
Going forward, new posts receive all that heavy traffic now. Taking your example, let's consider a minimum of two comments per post that merit a response from the author. That just tripled the writing the blogger does in a given week.
Eventually, the overwhelmed blogger may choose one of three options: quit blogging, turn off comments, or limit or stop responding to comments.
And there goes the conversation.
Scott Karp
· 3 years ago
David, good point, but that's the problem with the "one person band" approach to independent publishing, i.e. blogging. There's no one "on staff" to sort through all those comments -- maybe the media institution is still good for something.
Anne, BW is one of the only magazines I still pick up in print, even though I only read a handful of the articles, i.e. it's as much Old Media inefficient as any other print pub. But I still pick it up to keep an eye out for innovations like this.
Since you brought up The Atlantic, I'll say two things. First, you shouldn't indict the entire magazine just because you dislike Caitlin Flanagan. Second, the Atlantic's Letters to the Editor section is one of the most popular in the magazine because it embraces a robust dialogue with readers -- and it did so decades before anyone imagined blogging or participatory media.
Tish Grier
· 3 years ago
Hi Scott,
you're very right that conversation is difficult out here--and for many reasons. When a blog is small, it's easy to see that the commenters are looking not just to comment but also to converse. When the comments begin to sprawl, or turn into anonymous invective, is it really conversation, or just a shouting match? Having experimented with many forms of social software over a seven year period, I have a sense when something is not worth my time. But, if the unbiquitous "they" of big media have never played around with forums, or chat rooms, or internet dating, "they" might have a difficult time understanding which coments are legit and which are simply random snarking.
And your right about BW being one of the few pubs to honestly delve into the realm of interaction--as is the Washington Post (regardless of the garbage they've taken lately.) There is an overwhelming amout of lip-service given to interaction, but few who honestly follow thru.
David Utter
· 3 years ago
Scott, once there is a staff for a blog to go through comments and respond to them, is it still an individual's blog or a media company? :) And wouldn't the use of staffers to respond to commenters tend to devalue the conversation?
If I leave a comment for you, and get an answer from say, Caitlin, I'm probably going to be disappointed I didn't get an answer from you. That's certainly not a criticism of Caitlin, I promise! It's hard to have a rewarding conversation at one remove, even if Caitlin answers as close to what you would say as possible.
Seth Finkelstein
· 3 years ago
I keep saying, "conversation" is an *extremely* misleading metaphor. It implies an intimacy and equality that just isn't present, in mutual pontification. It's used to market punditry. When critically examined, it just doesn't work. You can't "converse" with a huge number of people, except in the most strained and meaningless sense of the word.
Scott Karp
· 3 years ago
David, sounds like the "cult of personality" theory of media -- and as many blogging A-Listers know, one individual can only carry so much. Would you be disappointed if you got a response from Publishing 2.0? Or do blog brands not really matter? (And if so, tell that to Wonkette or The Blog Herald.)
Seth, what metaphor WOULD be constructive to describe to potential to create value through interactivity -- or do you not believe there's value to be created?
Mike Mandel
· 3 years ago
Hi
Thanks for the comments. I thought a lot about how to structure the feedback piece. As the writer of the original cover story, my initial impulse, of course, was to respond to all criticism. As the author of the feedback piece, I wanted to be fair and expose the print readers to a healthy selection of the online conversation, leaning towards the negative since that's the part they hadn't seen in the magazine yet.
In the end, since I had plenty of opportunity on my blog to address criticisms, I decided to err on the side of presenting opposing views. By the limitations of print, that meant restricting the presentation of my own views to leave as much space as possible for the critics.
This is all a work in progress. Who knows? The next time we might do it the way you suggest and see how it comes out. Thanks again.
Seth Finkelstein
· 3 years ago
What's wrong with the English words which have served us up until now? There's no big push to say "Writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper is a conversation" (occasionally that might be heard, but it would be recognized as particularly high-flown and flowery). It's hardly a "conversation" when a favored few have big megaphones, and everyone else is squeaking down at the bottom. Bluntly, what people often mean, if they mean anything, is something more akin to "data-mining".
But to point out a simple example, the sentence:
"The best bloggers will actually write a new post to sum up or reflect on the conversation from a previous post."
Really means, in less marketing-affected standard English:
"The best bloggers will actually write a new post to sum up or reflect on the reactions to a previous post."
See? Why use the misleading marketing word? (well, obviously, that's a rhetorical question :-().
Brian
· 3 years ago
I thought that this post had a interesting take on the illusion of media conversation, and how it even occurs in the real world when so-called "unequals" are in a context that allows for the illusion of "equalness."
Scott, good point about the 'who' behind the answer, but it looks like we're entering one of those vaunted Star Trek:TNG temporal loops now. I think the response to "is it a quality answer based on who answers it" is "it depends."
InfoWorld still publishes a Robert X Cringely column, even though the real Cringe isn't writing it. For me, the acceptable version is the real one, not the Dread Pirate Roberts version in the magazine. To a reader who doesn't recall when InfoWorld was a huge publication and Bob Metcalfe and Stewart Alsop wrote the backpage columns, it's probably not a big deal, subjectively.
There you go, the Blog 2.0 strategy: launch your blog as a brand if you want to keep the aura of the "named blogger" conversing or whatever we need to call it going forward. And hope no one notices the trademark symbol next to the blogger's "name."
Matt Martin
· 3 years ago
Good conversation requires community. An *intimate* community is difficult (but not impossible) to create online.
This post of mine will get lost. I will not be back to check its progress. Why? Because I am not part of this community -- is there even a community here?
Without a community, without investment in each other, we are all just spouting our opinions into a void.
All Comments
You make a good point: BW should certainly have allowed Michael a chance to respond to his commenters. I think he has responded well on his blog, but people who only read the print magazine should see his responses as well. And some of the comments they chose made me scratch my head. Not exactly the best of the blogosphere, there.
I don't know what Old Media Principles might be at work, but I know BW is drawing me closer at the same time other magazines push me away.
If a blogger posts once a day, every weekday for example, that's 110 new "conversations" started in a year. Should our blogger suddenly find A-listdom thrust upon himself/herself, readership increases and visitors start delving into the archives, maybe offering thoughtful comments that merit responses on year-old posts.
Going forward, new posts receive all that heavy traffic now. Taking your example, let's consider a minimum of two comments per post that merit a response from the author. That just tripled the writing the blogger does in a given week.
Eventually, the overwhelmed blogger may choose one of three options: quit blogging, turn off comments, or limit or stop responding to comments.
And there goes the conversation.
Anne, BW is one of the only magazines I still pick up in print, even though I only read a handful of the articles, i.e. it's as much Old Media inefficient as any other print pub. But I still pick it up to keep an eye out for innovations like this.
Since you brought up The Atlantic, I'll say two things. First, you shouldn't indict the entire magazine just because you dislike Caitlin Flanagan. Second, the Atlantic's Letters to the Editor section is one of the most popular in the magazine because it embraces a robust dialogue with readers -- and it did so decades before anyone imagined blogging or participatory media.
you're very right that conversation is difficult out here--and for many reasons. When a blog is small, it's easy to see that the commenters are looking not just to comment but also to converse. When the comments begin to sprawl, or turn into anonymous invective, is it really conversation, or just a shouting match? Having experimented with many forms of social software over a seven year period, I have a sense when something is not worth my time. But, if the unbiquitous "they" of big media have never played around with forums, or chat rooms, or internet dating, "they" might have a difficult time understanding which coments are legit and which are simply random snarking.
And your right about BW being one of the few pubs to honestly delve into the realm of interaction--as is the Washington Post (regardless of the garbage they've taken lately.) There is an overwhelming amout of lip-service given to interaction, but few who honestly follow thru.
If I leave a comment for you, and get an answer from say, Caitlin, I'm probably going to be disappointed I didn't get an answer from you. That's certainly not a criticism of Caitlin, I promise! It's hard to have a rewarding conversation at one remove, even if Caitlin answers as close to what you would say as possible.
Seth, what metaphor WOULD be constructive to describe to potential to create value through interactivity -- or do you not believe there's value to be created?
Thanks for the comments. I thought a lot about how to structure the feedback piece. As the writer of the original cover story, my initial impulse, of course, was to respond to all criticism. As the author of the feedback piece, I wanted to be fair and expose the print readers to a healthy selection of the online conversation, leaning towards the negative since that's the part they hadn't seen in the magazine yet.
In the end, since I had plenty of opportunity on my blog to address criticisms, I decided to err on the side of presenting opposing views. By the limitations of print, that meant restricting the presentation of my own views to leave as much space as possible for the critics.
This is all a work in progress. Who knows? The next time we might do it the way you suggest and see how it comes out. Thanks again.
But to point out a simple example, the sentence:
"The best bloggers will actually write a new post to sum up or reflect on the conversation from a previous post."
Really means, in less marketing-affected standard English:
"The best bloggers will actually write a new post to sum up or reflect on the reactions to a previous post."
See? Why use the misleading marketing word? (well, obviously, that's a rhetorical question :-().
http://www.namesatwork.com/blog/2006/03/04/soci...
InfoWorld still publishes a Robert X Cringely column, even though the real Cringe isn't writing it. For me, the acceptable version is the real one, not the Dread Pirate Roberts version in the magazine. To a reader who doesn't recall when InfoWorld was a huge publication and Bob Metcalfe and Stewart Alsop wrote the backpage columns, it's probably not a big deal, subjectively.
There you go, the Blog 2.0 strategy: launch your blog as a brand if you want to keep the aura of the "named blogger" conversing or whatever we need to call it going forward. And hope no one notices the trademark symbol next to the blogger's "name."
This post of mine will get lost. I will not be back to check its progress. Why? Because I am not part of this community -- is there even a community here?
Without a community, without investment in each other, we are all just spouting our opinions into a void.