Comments on comments
The MeFi thread (where, inter alia, Meg complains about Blogger preventing anyone from starting a for-pay blogging system), and the voice of experience, Marcus commenting on commenting.
Blogger desperately needs some simpler way of adding comments. Using Blogtracker, I get to see all the ex-Blogger users making their first Movable Type post, saying “Oh boy, now I’ve got comments”, and I have to wonder what’s gone wrong, that so many people don’t realize that they can install comments for use with Blogger in just a few minutes if they have any sort of server-side scripting available (or even have a free account somewhere else with PHP, ASP, or CGI). However, I don’t think that privately run, remotely hosted comments are that simpler way. I suppose they do teach a good lesson, that anything you get for free and don’t control in any way can be snatched away from you at any time, but I don’t think that lesson really needs to be taught again. I just wish there were a few more free hosts offering enough scripting to run comments, since having Barrysworld as the only free PHP host, Tripod as the only free Perl host, and Brinkster as the only free ASP host makes running your own comment script on a free host nearly as vulnerable as using someone else’s script.
Is Blogger stopping development of for-pay alternatives? I don’t think so. I think that with all the frustration that Blogger causes any more, there’s plenty of room for a cheap but not free alternative. The problem is more how you get it started: people would pay for a reliable, feature-rich Blogger-Pro, but would they pay for PhilBlog-Pro, sight-unseen? Probably not. Would they try it for a month, and then pay? Eh, maybe, but I’m not going to quit my day job just yet. I think there’s more market for cheap Movable Type hosting than for PhilBlog-Pro. The benefits of blogging through a web app just aren’t that great, unless you have Blogger’s name-recognition and user numbers to go with it. Thus the lack of buzz about Big Blog Tool. If it costs $8 to take a look, I’ll pass.
[Update: Before Ruzz’s loyal followers come after me with the torches and pitchforks, let me explain what I meant: all I meant was that I think that BBT would be more popular if he offered a free trial, or even a free demo, so that you could see what you are buying. If he doesn’t want to be that popular, or if he thinks I’m just plain wrong, that’s cool, too. It’s not my business, it’s his, to run as he sees fit. Okay, flamethrowers on…]
Well, as I’m obligated to say, its your loss. In relation to your post above about comment systems, we are coming out with a free remote comment system that will have some great features. Take a look — http://bigcommenttool.bigguymedia.com
Well, it’s our loss, really. I mean, I might give up on my eight months of volunteer tech support for Blogger and become a BBT evangelist, but we’ll never know, because I’m not going to buy a pig in a poke when there are so many pigs being given away.
About BCT: I’ve been keeping an eye on the page, waiting for more, waiting to link to it, and guessing between the lines. Right now I’m guessing that I submit a comment, the form posts to your server, you ftp the file to the blog server. Sounds workable for low comment frequency with good ftp connections (I’d hate to think about three people commenting on one GeoCities blog at once at 4pm, while GC’s ftp servers are usually stuffed). Is there some good way of handling times when your server isn’t accessible (like maybe loading the comments locally and the posting form remotely)? Keeping the comment files local so that they are readable even when new comments can’t be added is a step in the right direction, for sure, but it’s a shame that html doesn’t really have any good way of dealing with remote resources: an <include> tag with a <failed>Sorry, commenting not available right now</failed> tag for when the <include> doesn’t load would sure be nice.
While/if you are still in the development phase, and thinking outside the box: what about optional email notification for commenters, and not just the blog owner? I had someone comment in one of my support comment threads, saying something along the lines of ”I assume I’ll be emailed if there is an answer”, (yeah, by copy and paste, if I’m in a good mood), and I have to say, that would be a killer feature. I’m not really planning on doing it, since unsubscribe would be a pain for a single-user php script, but maybe for you it would be worth doing.
Does ”free, some conditions apply” mean what I think it does? That would be an interesting twist on my theory of making blogging pay: pay for the basic tool, get free upgrades.
Phil, I will ponder your suggestions. I am still at the outside the box phase. The free, som conditions apply is about the fact there will be a text add included at the top of the read comments window, or some such thing. As you know Im not interested in doing work for free. If its a good service it needs to bring in some revenue, somehow.
Keep an eye on it. I have begun development and it should be a short development cycle, because its more volume than logic, really.
thanks for the in depth reply :)
woah, spelling errors. Sorry bout that, my kitten loves to attack my fingers as i type :P
Your kitten can post here any time s/he wants ;)
Text ads in comments? If you can sell it (the ads, that is, I don’t think there would be much resistance to the service), I like it.
In fact, unless you are working on an architecture that can handle an unlimited number of users, I’ve got an idea for your next step, once BCT is at capacity: sell the script, so that other people can start up a turnkey ”comments with text ads” service. While I like Hossein’s idea of lots of small providers of comments, I suspect there would be a lot more people lining up to be providers if there was some hope of a return beyond just lots of traffic.
more ideas. You need more work phil :)
I will give the distributed architecture some thought. I do have some concerns about bandwidth (even with the low use system Im implementing) but I was planning on managing growth as it begins to pay for itself.
And, due to some over scheduling beta will be pushed back a couple weeks. But I will keep you in the know :)
Just testing whether I can post from Feedreader’s minibrowser, while reading my RSS feed.