Blogs are nothing without the communities surrounding them. Listing your blog in directories and other social sites, as well as linking and trackbacking to get noticed may be good and all, but without reader feedback in the form of comments, you’re essentially talking to the wind.
The good news is, it’s not always your fault. A lot of people find the process of commenting cumbersome: having to register, leave sensitive information (such as one’s email address), and come up with an original comment.
Jakob Nielsen analyzed audience participation and published his finding in a post called Participation Inequality. According to Jakob:
- 95% of readers dont contribute
- 5% contribute from time to time
- 0.1% participate a lot
Source: ClickComments Test Blog
PostReach attempts to make it easier for casual visitors to leave feedback on your blog posts with ClickComments. Once installed on your blog, your visitors can choose to leave a “comment” by clicking on one of the icons after the post.
Each icon corresponds to a phrase that your readers can send more quickly compared to traditional commenting, e.g., “Cool Stuff”, “Inspired Me”, “Entertaining”, “Write More”, “Creative”, “Insightful”, “Touched My Heart”, “Great Find”.
Your readers can click on more than one icon. Statistics for each icon are updated almost instantly so you have a good idea of what others think of your post.
All of this happens without registration from users whatsoever. Of course the downside is not being able to tell which person clicked on what icon, but if your readers want themselves to be recognized, I think it’s better if they left a real comment.
PostReach assures us this commenting system is spam- and troll-proof. It also promises to promote blogs using ClickComments on their website (as any Web 2.0-minded company should!).
As of now, ClickComments supports Blogger, WordPress, and TypePad. Register on their website and you’ll receive instructions on how to install it. Take note that as a blog owner, you’re not required to enter your own email address either!
Visit ClickComments for more information, if at least for their really geeky video demonstration! A live example of ClickComments at work can be found on their test blog.
Originally posted on June 8, 2007 @ 2:36 am
