Comments on Never Read Passively: Should we reunite fragmented conversations?

Came across an interesting video from O'Reilly ignite that lead me to The Aggregation Conversation. I liked the examples of aggregating food (parts of the hamburger) and clothes (shopping malls).

Interesting -- we were having a conversation in th...

2008-09-16T05:52:00.000+10:00

Interesting -- we were having a conversation in the office this morning on this topic. Although it was a bit closer to the angle that engagement measurement solutions that only take one piece of the equation into account (e.g. traffic) are missing a big part of the picture, and thus are not well serving their audience (i.e. publishers).

I concur that consumers, for the most part, couldn't care less about fragmented conversations/content, though I wonder, too, whether it would be meaningful and popular with them if aggregation was done clearly and well. (At present the best we've got is a bigger/better fire hose...)

Of course, "Communities form, and users particulate in conversations around content with other like-minded users." brings me back to my frequent pondering about ranking and filtering relationship engagement -- among community members, social sites, etc.

Delightfully thought-provoking article, thank you. :)

You're absolutely correct when you say that fragme...

2008-09-15T15:46:00.000+10:00

You're absolutely correct when you say that fragmentation is good for the consumer. It makes sense for conversations to fragment or relocate to venues that are more appropriate. That's why a lot of informal conversation has been moving to FriendFeed -- but I think it has also moved to services where it can be discovered, followed and shared. Most comments can't be discovered, followed or shared easily; that's why I co-founded BackType.

"Comment is King" looks interesting. We'll be releasing an API soon; you should use it to include our comments. Right now we're focused on blogs, but we'll be doing more in the future (e.g. we already do HN)