Showing posts with label Facebook Connect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook Connect. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

On Disqus And Disqussions


Fred Wilson's blog post today is about comments: Some Thoughts On Comments. And my blog runs a real danger of ending a satellite blog to the AVC blog. (Kidding, of course) Yesterday I put out a reply blog post, this is another. (The Inbox Could See New Life This Year) Usually I stick to Fred's comments sections.

I think there might be a tinge of self-consciousness I might be feeling after having applied for a Union Square Ventures job. (Union Square Ventures Job Opening: I Am Applying) More important, I am thinking new thoughts.

I have complimented Fred's being a wonderful blogger several times before. He is my favorite solo blogger. And his comments sections are a great hangout place. If I get the USV job, two of the things I might want to do would be (a) produce a 30 minute video of Fred every week, and (b) organize offline get-togethers of the AVC community. It might not be monthly, but it would be a good idea to have them a few times a year. I think I appreciate the important role Fred's blog plays in his management challenges. Talking through a blog post might be a great way to communicate to some of the portfolio companies, not to say super efficient. And it does not put them on the spot. It is an open platform. There is a free rolling comments section that chugs along.

I made the observation a few days back that AVC collects more comments per post than most posts on TechCrunch, and that is remarkable considering the huge disparity in traffic levels between the two blogs. And there is no concept of The Regulars at TechCrunch.

So, Disqus

I got excited about Disqus before I learned it was one of Fred's portfolio companies. I have to tell you about what Disqus means to me. I use Disqus more often than I use so many of the better known social media platforms. I am not going to name and shame them. And Disqus is frankly half the weight at the AVC blog. Fred reads every comment anyone ever leaves at his blog. I think that is really something. But that is also a big part of the reason why there is a sense of community at AVC. Once in a while someone will show up and do a drive-by shooting, but the community has learned to take care of itself. The Regulars feel protective of each other. Dissent is okay, even celebrated, but slander is not. But I come from the free speech before decency school of thought. So I am okay with a little bit of background radiation.

Disqus Next

What could Disqus do to take itself to the next level? That is a tough question for me because the number one item on my Disqus agenda is to see its wider adoption. I wish every blog I ever visited had Disqus. I know of a lot of people who will not even bother leaving comments at a blog if it does not have Disqus. Mashable has Disqus, TechCrunch does not. I think Disqus has been part of the reason Mashable has done so well so fast.

How do you better organize the 100 comments a blog post might accumulate? I don't know. My blog does not have that problem right now. And although AVC regularly accumulates over 100 comments per blog post, for me that has not been a problem. I usually end up reading all of them. And when the intent is to read them all, chronological works best. You start from the first comment and end up with the last.

But I can see why you might want to read only 10 out of 100 comments and ask Disqus to figure out what those 10 should be.

One could be the like button. Comments that have been liked bubble up to the top. The one with the most likes are at the very top.

Two would be the option to follow people on Disqus. So if I follow Fred Wilson on Disqus, his comments show up first no matter where I might be in the blogosphere. Or you could integrate with Facebook Connect. My Facebook friends show up first.

Three would be a way for a blogger to decide on the hierarchy of his or her commenters. The default setting might be that the commenters who have left the most comments overall bubble to the top. Or a blogger would have the option to give stars to his/her top commenters. These are the five people who are my top commenters. When they comment, place them at the top.

An odd one would be length. Long comments rise to the top.

Disqus Enterprise

This is where I smell money. Say I am a small business. And I want Disqus to be my primary customer service software. What will you do for me? One option to have would be for the comments to not get displayed at all. I want to see the feedback. Maybe I don't want the entire world to see the feedback. How about comments that are tied to specific transactions? What if you could see the five items I bought from you before I left you that snarky comment? Or what if Disqus would read and categorize the comments for me? Great product, thanks, should not be in the same category as, you need to change the color scheme of your front page. And there should be a quick way to respond.

A lot of Google customer service is Q&A pages. Disqus should make it possible for any business small or big to roll that out. Let customers be each other's customer care for the most part. Let them answer each other's questions for the most part. Make repeat questions unnecessary.

Disqus The Savior

Blogs and sites that routinely get thousand plus comments per post need help, and they need help now. Find me the 10 comments out of that pile of thousand that I might want to read and possibly reply to.

Disqus, A Microblogging Platform

Considering I use it so much, I might as well call it like it is.

New York Times: News Sites Rethink Anonymous Online Comments
Tereza
Kid Mercury

On another note, I was just thinking, if Geocities has been Fred's best deal so far, that was a M&A. Yahoo bought Geocities. If Twitter is going to be Fred's first IPO, I am now even more excited about the idea. :-)

Twitter is the best deal Fred ever did. And how he did it is a remarkable story.

I was also thinking, if you have 28 companies in your portfolio, you probably work extra hard to make sure the not so star companies do feel the love. It also helps that companies that will bring the biggest returns need the least hand holding.


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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

If The Tweet Is The Atom, What Is Location?


The tweet is to the web what the atom is to the universe. Twitter was hot for the first half of last year. This year the heat/buzz seems to be with the location space people, FourSquare leading. What is location? Location is one of the sub atomic particles: electron, proton, neutron. Begs the question, what are the other sub atomic particles? And where are they? Are they in the works?

The mobile web is growing faster than the regular web, and location is so very fundamental in that space. It is so much easier to check in than to tweet out. When you are on the move, even 140 characters can feel long.

Maybe location is in a league of its own, maybe there are no other sub-atomic particles. Or maybe the tweet is the atom of the regular web and location in the atom of the mobile web. The atom metaphor can only be taken so far.

Check in is a basic feature. FourSquare has to try to own it, it has to extend that feature to other web properties. Google took over the web with Google ads. My blog and your blog could run Google ads. Facebook took over with Facebook Connect. FourSquare needs to do something similar. There is a much lesser incentive for my check in to exist on the FourSquare website than it is for my social graph to primarily reside on Facebook.com. You want to be able to take your check in with you to many other places.

I made this point in a comment I left at the official FourSquare blog when the Please Rob Me controversy was raging. (Location! Location! Location!)

More recently I came across a blog post by Robert Scoble that was another aha moment for me as far as FourSquare is concerned.

Only a few days before that Robert had put out a blog post that was rather hostile to FourSquare and the location space in general: Malleable Social Graphs And Mini-Mobs: Why Facebook Could Destroy Foursquare And Gowalla With One Check In.

Basically what he was saying was Facebook was going to offer location, and that was going to kill FourSquare. I left a comment saying Robert, dude, you are so missing out. A few days later he put out a blog post that blew my mind: Are Location Geeks At Where 2.0 Off The Path To Real Money?

In this post he was saying he wanted to check in into future locations. He wanted to be able to say where he was going to check in a week or a month from now, and that that check in was more monetizable. I agree. I wonder how FourSquare will respond to that.

Craig Newmark, Dennis Crowley, Jennifer 8 Lee: Koreatown

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Friday, December 18, 2009

Time, Facebook Connect, And Comments

Image representing Facebook Connect as depicte...Image via CrunchBase
I just noticed now I can sign in with Facebook Connect and leave comments at the bottom of Time articles. This is quite a moment. This must be a new thing because I don't see too many comments. I must be one of the early ones.

Time: Tiger Woods' Sponsors: Will Any Stick by Him?


Now I can leave comments at Time like I have been leaving at TechCrunch. Time has been saved. Time "gets" social media. The New York Times could learn from Time. Leave social networking to Facebook. You just use Facebook Connect.

People signing in with their Facebook comments are less likely to leave comments that might need to be moderated.

Sites and blogs where I can't sign in with Twitter, Facebook or Disqus, I don't even bothering leaving comments. That is extra true of Wordpress blogs. 

[WordPress #336657]: Not Being Able To Leave Comments

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