Blogging Sueblimely

When I read about ways to reward those who comment on blogs I always enthusiastically try them out. I see comments as the life blood of a blog, providing a distribution system for so many other aspects of blogging. Their are plenty of blog posts around about the benefits of leaving comments but what of the benefits we gain by receiving them?

Benefits of receiving comments:

Communication Needs

• Comments are a concrete way of showing that your blog has readers, particularly interested in your blog, rather than just passing trade. The passing trade do comment too but you can distinguish these from your regulars. A hello and thank you to my regulars.
• Satisfaction – Stating the obvious – no one wants to run a blog that is not read by others, for whatever reason we blog. – stats may indicate visitors and readers but figures do not provide the same sort of personal satisfaction.
• Motivation – to keep writing posts and to keep going with the blog itself – many blogs are abandoned (probably too early) because of receiving few or no comments.
• Egos are stroked – a natural human need to one extent or another (not because bloggers in general need ego strokes more than anyone else)
• Social advantages/Social Networking – we get to know others, we develop contacts outside of the blog itself, we can develop friendships, contacts can lead to more contacts and more friends who also come to comment on our blogs – the Blog Loop.
• Networking – again to develop contacts but done for business, professional or money making reasons rather to satisfy strictly personal needs.
• Networking + Social Networking – those who start blogging for the above reasons often find it is the social aspects that motivate them to keep on going.

The Blog Loop and how it goes wrong

This post is not just an off the top of my head type now – it has really got me thinking and I even created an image. Do some of your blog posts develop along these lines?

Feedback

• This includes the pat on the back type comments that help with the motivational and ego stroking needs mentioned above. We know deep down that some of these type are not sincere but how many of us ignore this and choose to appreciate them anyway? This does not include the "nice post", "well done", "I am not adding saying anything else because I just want you to visit my blog" type. These are just a drag and for delete or the spam folder. I notice some of these have snuck into some of my older posts – they will be ex-comments soon.
• Learning which of our posts are popular with our readers. It does not necessarily mean posts that draw the most comments but also those which elicit the more valuable comments – what is valuable depends of course on your own particular blog and your own blogging needs. Being aware of which posts fit these criteria is an enormous help in showing us how to improve and meet the needs of our readers. By aware I mean not just knowing which posts they are but thinking about why they are popular and how to reproduce the success again. Looking at our unpopular posts can be similarly helpful.

Research and learning

• Finding other blogs in our own niche areas can advance our learning of the particular subject we cover. Blogs tend to beget contact from similar blogs. Following your comments and the comments left on their author’s blog can be a source of valuable knowledge.
• Even if you blog on a particular topic by following comments you can find wonderful blogs to interest and entertain you; to satisfy leisure and personal learning needs.
• Comments that give us information, add to the topic, or add things we may have missed are a valuable learning tool (the latter is only of positive use for perfectionist types who do not beat themselves up about missing something.). And to prove that I am not a perfectionist I am going to end here and ask you to add any other positive things you can think of – (Ok the truth – I don’t particularly like missing things but I ran out of steam and ideas and I even like getting comments that tell me what I have missed, as well as ego stroking ones.)

Benefits of Leaving Comments

Simple – just take account of the benefits you gain from receiving comments and bestow these on others – not only will you feel good about yourself you will receive backlinks, kudos, recognition for your own blog, more visitors, readers, increased page rank and all the other stuff you can read one of the many blog posts already written on the subject.

I started this post only intending to tell you some news relating commenting tools but not wanting to lose your attention I will write about these next. I have a real talent for (problem with!) getting completely sidetracked.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Entrecard has just joined forces with SezWho. “SezWhat?” you may be saying – I will explain what it is later in the post but firstly want to talk about Entrecard itself and why this partnership may be very useful to bloggers.

Entrecard has been a great way of bringing visitors to blogs and creating a means for members to get known but it has fallen short in producing significantly extra comments and expanding individual blog’s reader communities. Entrecard has always had higher aims, with goals of bringing not only traffic but also audiences, readership and community participation. I agree with Graeme, the mastermind behind Entrecard, when he says that “Commenting is the second most important thing for you to do after writing quality posts. It was due to his aim to use “The same credits that power our culture responsible for millions of blogger-to-blogger visits each week … to help power a culture that comments on posts as well” that has resulted in the partnership with SezWho.

Now on to SezWho itself:

SezWho is a commenting/comment rating tool, which calls itself a profiling service and engagement platform. It creates a ‘profile’ for your commenters; hovering over their profile image or “check me out” link brings up a box which shows you the latest comments they have made and their SezWho ratings. It allows you to rate posts and the the comments and follow comments via RSS. If you are not registered or logged in when rating then the rating will be processed as anonymous but this has much less impact on member reputation scores. You do not have to have your own site to register with SezWho.

The Profile that pops up for Colin Campbell’s comments.

Its use is aimed at giving highly rated members “web-wide recognition for their insights and expertise”, “thought leadership”, and an increase in traffic. The theory is that the number and quality of comments on your blog will grow.

The Entrecard connection is that credits are awarded to members who comment on SezWho enabled sites. The amount of credits given is based on how highly the comment is rated by those who vote on it – ranging from 1 to 10 Entrecard credits. The idea is that quality comments gain the most, quick meaningless comments left merely for backlinks and spam comments will luck out.

will give SezWho users who receive ratings of 4 stars or more with credits to advertise on its network of blogs. This is an interesting approach, as it connects reputation with a direct reward.

How to integrate SezWho with your site (currently supported platforms are WordPress versions up to 2.6 (2.6 is beta still), Movable Type, Blogger, Drupal and phpBB):

• Create an account with SezWho
• WordPress – download and intall the SezWho plugin by upload to your plugin folder, activate it. Then enter the blog id sent to you with your registration confirmation email in the SezWho plugin’s setup.
• Blogger – add the provided code to a HTML/Javascript page element.

You can view your own profile on your SezWho page:

Colin must lead thoughts to better places than I do

As I have only just installed the plugin I do not have any ratings, I do have ‘Star Power’ of 2.5 as this “community ranking” is not purely based on ratings?

Advantages

• If this new system takes off and more Entrecarders do comment, rather than merely dropping on you, your blogs bounce rate will improve.
• SezWho does not host any site content. All published and user-supplied content remains on – and is controlled by – the original site. It does not make off with your comments like some similar programs do.
• Backlinks are created for yourself and commenters.
• If you are an extraordinary commenter, a thought leader among bloggers, then your reputation will spread far and wide. If you are average then it may not make any difference to you, although I am sure the word will get round if particular blogs have generous comment ratings. I am open to that word . In my case I am sure I will not want to favor one regular commenter over another so will rate them all well, just because I am pleased to see them here. If you are new then I should imagine that I will vary my ratings although I love my comments so much that no doubt I will be generous – it will most likely depend on the mood I am in and if you are using a name that includes such words as casino. (my jury is still out with regards to the keyword luv plugin but I will save that for another post)

Disadvantages

• Receiving low ratings could lead you to have less confidence in your writing, even though it may be that your particular commenters do not want to use the system.
• It could be looked upon as bribing people to comment *
• If you write quality posts you are going to get plenty of comments anyway (I do not believe this always to be the case as it depends on your type of blog and readership)
• Adding to your workload by commenting on blogs just for your ratings is yet another way to divert you from writing and concentrating on your own readers.

Reading:

• On Entrecard’s blog Announcing the Partnership of Entrecard and SezWho
• Entrecard fan Joe Tech’s Top 10 reasons why the Entrecard – SezWho partnership is Important for Bloggers gives a positive review. The 70+ comments on the post show agreement with this view.
• * Entrecard + SezWho = Meh on Monkey Fables and Tales which talks less favorably about SezWho and not wanting to “bribe” people to comment. The 50+ comments on the post show agreement with this view.
• SezWho in operation on a phpBB forum on the SezWho Support Forum

To give you an opportunity to try out SezWho on this site I am will pose some questions.

• Based on this post or on your usage of SezWho are you in favor or against?
• Do you think this partnership is a positive or negative step for Entrecard.
• Are the multitude of peripheral blogging activities available to us now having a general effect of

• reducing blog posting frequency and quality or:
• taking us away from commenting on blogs? Is blog conversation moving to social media sites instead?

Popularity: 7% [?]

I have recently been trying out PhotoCrank, a kind of annotation/comment system for web images, and have had some fun browsing blogs that have installed this feature.

PhotoCrank allows the addition of word bubbles, graphics, comments and tags to any photo on any website. Those who have installed the browser extension can use the feature on any photo of any website.. In addition to the actual cranks, comments can made relating to those cranks.

If you add the Photocrank engine to your blog then any reader can use the feature on the images you have enabled for its use. You retain control over the comments and can delete those you do not think suitable. You can of course add your own annotations too. A widget is available for websites which shows the Cranks you have created yourself. PhotoCrank has been out for a while but a new version has recently been implemented with extra features.

An example is probably the best way to explain the concept: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, by the fake Steve Jobs, uses Photocrank and I think his blog is a prime example of good usage. Some of the comments are hilarious. You can see an example of the PhotoCrank widget in his sidebar too: Here is an example from his post entitled:

Confession: I have a really hard time deciding what to order in restaurants

Image before pressing the play button:

Image combining three of the comments

Total Diatribe is running regular “photo caption contests” using PhotoCrank

There are hundreds of images and blank bubbles to chose from. When you find those you like you can add them to favorites to find them again easily. Here is an example from one page of my favorites library:

The “Cranked” photos are displayed on the PhotoCrank website and your crank’d photos get syndicated throughout the PhotoCrank network of blogs, providing some extra link love for your site. Members can “follow” others I can see some blogs would find this a useful plugin to create a conversation around their published images in general or as a feature to use on designated posts only. Personal bloggers could write posts specifically for publishing images to be cranked. One blog I think would be ideal for the plugin is MagnetoBoldToo – little to her knowledge I have added cranks to a couple of her recent posts.

(For anyone already using PhotoCrank on their blogs, a new method of disabling cranks on individual images has just been implemented. In the PhotoCrank Options Menu on published photos (the gray button on the bottom right of the photo) click on Adminstration and uncheck the Allow Image To Be Cranked option)

PS – This is for Kelly who was keen to find out what PhotoCranks I had left on her blog images. The first is on the Mosh post and the second on the Be afwaid. Be vewy afwaid Sweet Potato image. Very corny I know.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Since my last post I have been investigating Google’s plans for including OpenIDs as a logging in method for commenting on blogspot Blogger blogs. The OpenID system can be a little confusing so I thought I would whip up some information for you.

The aim of the OpenID system is to give users a single digital identity to be used throughout the internet, ultimately eliminating the need for you to use multiple usernames across different websites. For sites that support OpenID’s, you can log in with your OpenID user name instead of having to register. The first time you log in to a particular site using your OpenID you will be directed to your your OpenID provider to confirm that you allow the site to access your OpenID. OpenIDs typically take the form of a URL. For example “http://youridname.claimid.com” or http://youridname.myopenid.com
If, like me, you struggle to keep up with different usernames and passwords, OpenID is really handy for logging in purposes. Having been subject to security breaches recently,
on a website I run for a client and on Windows Live Chat, I am keen to change my passwords much more often. Having to change only one would be much easier; although it does make it more important that you do change passwords frequently.

There are various providers offering OpenID’s, which means you can choose one that best meets your needs and one that you trust. Your OpenID name can stay with you if you move to a different provider. If you are cluey with coding you can even set yourself up as your own provider/provider for others using your own server but as that is quite complicated I am not going to go there. I mention it in relation to ensuring you sign up with a trusted site. I signed up for an OpenID a year or so ago with myopenid.com but have now changed my provider to claimID.com because of the more detailed profile information that I can add. You can see my OpenID profile here at my OpenID address of http://sueblimely.claimid.com - I am in the process of adding more information about where to find me on the net.

You can find up-to-date details on which sites are supporting the use of OpenID’s at the OpenID Directory, that is, sites where you can log in using your OpenID. It will be a while before we can rid ourselves of multiple login identities but more and more sites are joining up with the system. Some examples:

• Magnolia – bookmarking site
• Jyte – Social Networking Site
• Zoomr – Photo Sharing
• Wikispaces – Wiki
• Netscape news portal
• twitterfeed
• Stickis

You may actually have an OpenID without having knowingly registered for one. Your identities with the following sites are already OpenID’s. For example:

• AOL Your OpenID is – openid.aol.com/screenname
• LiveJournal – username.livejournal.com
• Technorati – technorati.com/people/technorati/username
• Vox – member.vox.com
• WordPress.com

This means that you can sign in to OpenID supported sites using your username from one of the above sites. For example if you have a WordPress.com blog you can use “yourusername.wordpress.com” to log in to a Magnolia.com account . One problem with this is that the OpenID belongs to your blog or than being yours individually. This has implications if there is more than one editor of your blog or if you wish to change blog platforms. You could, however, sign up for another OpenID and link your WordPress ID to this.

More information in case you want to get into this subject in more detail and complexity:

• List of the providers that you can sign up with to obtain an OpenID – Public OpenID providers.
• Information for WordPress.com users
• The OpenID Directory Blog
• A warning about backing up and changing passwords your paranoia is justified
• Simon Willison says that OpenID is moving towards a more secure system – Designing for a security breach.
• Reading this – The problem(s) with OpenID has me concerned about its security aspects.
• Run your own identity server Running your own identity server allows you to act as an OpenID Provider for just yourself or for others – this is quite complicated.

The impetus for writing this post came about because Blogger is testing support for using OpenID, which is good news for non Blogger user comments. It is possible to link your blog site with your OpenID account so that the links to your non Blogger blogs , lost by the recent Blogger comment form changes, are re-established. I will post about this separately.

Related Posts

• Blogspot Blogger comment form change unfair to ALL bloggers
• Using your own Blog URL as your OpenID

Popularity: 3% [?]

Do you look forward to checking to see if you have had new comments? I know I do. Not only does it reassure me that someone has been reading what I write but it develops the feeling of being part of a community. I find that once a person has commented they tend not to come back to the post again. Comments requiring a response from those who have already left a comment remain unacknowledged.

I always had the intention to revisit posts I had commented on but found it hard to keep track of what I had written where. Subscribe to comments plugins are a help but can create masses of emails with disjointed content. You cannot follow the flow of a conversation easily without revisiting the post again. This feature is not available on the majority of blogs in any case.

Enter coComment. I now use it for every comment I leave on other blogs. coComment keeps track of all comment conversations you wish to follow, saving them to your own page on the coComment site and informs you whenever something is added to a conversation. Clicking on a browser button tells coComment you wish to track a post’s comments. (It does not have to be one you have left comments on yourself.) I subscribe by email to my coComments feed but I tend to just head to the site now and again to see what is new.

There is a social networking side to the coComment site too. You can add friends and keep track of their comments, join groups and follow other members comments via tags. As well as supporting blogging platforms such as Blogger and WordPress it works with other applications such as Digg and Flicker. Here is a list of what is currently supported.

The beauty of tracking comments is being able to go back to posts where the author or others have responded to your own comment and follow up where needed. If more people used this sort of tracking system blog comments could become much more dynamic, conversations more vibrant.

Do you have any methods for tracking your comments?

Popularity: 4% [?]