The Plus Button I Want

Yesterday, I gave thought-time to a bitch about blogging by Jonathan Rauch. A Buzz conversation ensued. Among Adam Gurri’s  responses was:

What a good blogger is obviously depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re a specialist, you want to read a blog that doesn’t insult your intelligence by dumbing things down and is written by someone who knows his stuff. If you’re an enthusiast, you want someone who communicates difficult concepts effectively and writes about things that interest you, and in a way that interests you. Then there’s blogs you just want to be entertaining. Etc.

There were a few exchanges, and Steve Amodio, who brought the thing to my attention in the first place, gave some aspect of the discussion a thumbs up. But that didn’t happen on the blog.

I’ve heard blogs are dying.

All I know is my gut says 'maybe.'

Justin Whitaker is wondering aloud about that.

Some tech giant ditches his blog, and everyones jitters like magnet shavings on a kettledrum.  Rather than mangle his words, I encourage you to read (and hear) the succinct, Do We Need to Rethink Blogging?

Too impatient for that? You probably read too many blogs. It’s the ADHD meds for you. Anyway the question he asks is this: If WordPress or Blogger is where your community is, then great. But if it isn’t, is there a point in even doing that? Why not go wherever the people – and conversations – are?

It’s just a straightforward question. I’ll bite, Justin, though I won’t bite Justin. My first thought is: Premature. My second thought is: maybe we’re getting Google+lust. They sell a cream for that, right?

My Process

There’s a point. I swear.

I write a blog post over the course of a few days or even a week or more. I make the calculation that it’s done enough, and so schedule the post for the following morning. It goes live. A micro-shame wave passes through my soul. But, if I don’t blog, I won’t get better at it, so I instruct my ego to kindly stuff it.

Quickly, I post to Twitter, Share in Reader (and therefore Buzz), submit it to StumbleUpon, and now Google+. RSS helps post everywhere else. Oh, and when it went to Facebook, it was through a page and not a wall. 

I could be doing even more, but to hell with that. I’m tired just writing that stuff. Bored yet?

This is something of an annoying ritual, but I’ve got it down. So, time passes. Presumably, a few regulars visit. One may even leave a comment on the actual post. (score!) 

"My eyes! The counters do nothing!".

Someone else retweets the link, another gives it the ol’ thumbs up. Then there are two exchanges in Buzz, three on Google+, or 6 really good, detailed exchanges in Reader. On rare occasion, someone will write a response on their blog.

Now, these things don’t necessarily happen in tandem, but – and here’s the wild thing – sometimes they do.

Time passes. For no reason, one day, I’ll scan through old posts. A few of them have comments. Wait? Didn’t I have a cool conv–

Probably. It’s gone. Well, not gone, just rendered routinely inaccessible. And who’s going to hunt? The conversational flow happening around my posts – conversations I’ve observed or nourished – are lost.

A Problem

I like to blog, and I like having a blog. I’ll sheepishly admit that I even like designing the homepage. That’s crucial for the 0.002% of visitors that read blog posts that way. Like cavemen.

When I’m occasionally and briefly lucid, I am earning Whuffee in some kind of hack-writer Wisecrack Bank. I don’t have a large audience and am contented with that. The longer I’m totally obscure, the more better I can become.

My problem is not a lack of comments or conversation. My problem is that a protracted conversation happened and none of it was captured.

I suddenly get Tumblr.

Yes, it’s dead simple to post to, but you get very clear feedback. People visited. If they contribute anything to that post, you know who they were, where it was forwarded, when it happened, if it was an affirmation. Hell, occasionally they write a note. It’s like when you’re attending a meeting or inside a hall. You hear the presence of others all around you.

Blogs aren’t irrelevant. They’ve just lost their focus on conversation. The  conversation is happening elsewhere. If blogs seem like the internet’s newest senile old fart, it’s probably because they need hearing aids.

I Want Another Plus Button

I want those conversations from Reader, Buzz, Facebook, Google+, hell Posterous, to show up under my post comments. And in that inevitable narrow-column, put the individual (though collapsible) +1‘s, Likes, Retweets, and any other form of digital thumbs up. 

It’s what we’ve all been wanting, right? This can’t possibly be an original idea.

You’d read something that links to your post, and click on a special plus button. It would magically send a request for inclusion in your comments. It would get some kind of handshake thing going on, then it would show up in its section at the bottom of the post page.

The blog page would matter, and not because blogs are Very Special Things. They’d matter because the stuff out there could be included in here. The post page would have value again.

Details. Details.

And how would it work? You’d ask.

Good question! I’d respond. I have, literally and completely, no idea.

Witchcraft, maybe. Some wormwood API. With elves. All I know is that, if I had this button, and it’s associated API-I-will-never-understand, I wouldn’t have comments problems.

I blew off an important personal project to spend hours writing this post, and I enjoyed it. And I did it in spite of the fact that I will have some small conversations, silently observed, that will effectively fade to nothing inside a month. Still, I keep blogging.

That can’t possibly be an original feeling.