September 23rd, 2009

ZDNet breaks down the comment wall

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 11:10 am

Categories: Blogging Best Practices, Community Management, Social Media

Tags: Blog, Wall, Blogging, Internet, Jennifer Leggio

I was talking to my friend Michael Brito the other day about how I don’t get a lot of comment traction on this blog even though I get my fair share of readers. “Why doesn’t anyone want to talk to me?” I whined. I surmised that part of it is my accessibility on Twitter; I almost always respond to commentary there. Not to mention the fact that my coverage is a bit left-of-center for the usual super-techy ZDNet reader. Then Michael reminded me of a big issue with ZDNet: the Comment Wall. “But it’s not an issue anymore! The wall is gone!” But no one knows that. I had my “aha” moment. Thus, this blog post was born.

I realize it’s slightly meta to write about my blog in my blog but this applies to all ZDNet blogs. We no longer have the gargantuan list of questions you need to answer in order to comment on the blogs (or even subscribe to the newsletters, for that matter). The readers complained (heck, the bloggers complained because, believe it or not, we want to talk to you) and CBS Interactive listened. Don’t believe me?

See how few the fields are? And then you just need to do a little verification:

Granted, it’s still slightly more work than just filling in your name, URL and email address (which most reputable blogs require) but you only have to do it once and you can stay logged in should you choose.

I thought it was important to write about it in this blog because I get a significant amount of flack about said wall from my friends. “You’re the social media blogger? Yet no one can talk to you without filling out three pages of information?” I KNOW, I KNOW. The forced hypocrisy has ended. Now we can all “engage.”

Hey, now let’s work on getting them to move to Facebook Connect. Or am I just being greedy? Tell me by leaving a comment. I dare you.