The point of Blogs?
- Started
- Last post
- 10 Responses
- mg33
Serious question here:
In your opinion, is the point of a blog:
a) only to provide an easy way for a person to provide information on given topics.
or
b) to do the above but provide readers a way to interact and comment and share ideas on the given topic through the use of comments.
In my industry (law firms) I see so many legal blogs talked up, and I see so many articles saying "Lawyers need blogs, etc. etc." and what they are good for, yet 99% of them never have comments enabled.
At that point (and I dealt with this often as a marketing coordinator when I worked for a law firm) you are only publishing content, and my thought was that there were other more valuable ways to do that: publish web site articles, write and shop around articles to print publications, newsletters, etc.
Would love your thoughts on this - but I've always though that successful blogs were measured by comment interaction because they demonstrate that people ARE reading and thinking about the topic(s).
What do you think?
- Jaline0
People are looking for the opportunity to tell their stories in a mediated forum to a potentially large, though distant and invisible, audience (which has to do with self-expression/validation). At the same time, blogs are obviously meant to be read in some way. Lots of bloggers monitor the number of people who come to their site and encourage users to post comments about their initial postings.
I recently read an article where a researcher noted, "intelligent commentary on a video could stimulate closer social connections, if the video maker continues to communicate with and interact with the poster of the commentary".
True, but not always the case.
- Jaline0
video maker = postings on Youtube, but it applies to blog posters in general.
- vague0
80% of design blogs are circle-jerks for 17 year olds who depthcorify all of their work. the other 20%, like formfiftyfive.com, tend to fixate on boring contemporary/modern graphic design.
yawncakes.
- utopian0
Blogs are used for propaganda, self expression and or but rarely used for "thought leadership" on a specific issue, theories, products, ideas, etc... Blogs are now considered the new SPAM tool of the trade.
- Dublao70
We just launched a blog as a replacement for our full site (see awww crit me). Soon we will be launching a normal site to flex nuts, but for the meantime....you get a blog. I like to think of it as a conversation starter / extension for our existing clients. It's not really for anyone else. Also it allows me to practice design as I've committed to making covers for all of our posts. Most people probably wont care about what we have to say unless they know us personally. I do secretly hope to make new friends with it though...shh
- mg330
I'm definitely talking more about content blogs, articles, thoughts on topics, that sort of thing.
There are now thousands of lawyer blogs discussing just about every legal topic that exists. So many of them do not have comments enabled. It's just always been amazing to me that they cut out the opportunity for dialog, which, as I said, tends to be a good indicator (to me, anyways) of a blog's value.
When comments are enabled, and no one has ever commented, I tend to think that a) no one reads that blog, and b) the blog owner is wasting their time (because other options exist for getting their ideas out there with a much better return on the fact that someone WILL actually read it.).
- a_iver0
Maybe it's just someone's idea of professional practice that spread amongst the lawyer-folk? I don't know.. I would certainly think that some kind of dialog would be useful, but who knows. Maybe they think they can find all the answers or that it would break out into a flame war or something.
- A Lawyer blog breaking into a flame war? NEVER!!!!!!MrOneHundred
- Jaline0
I don't know. I have a blog and I like comments, because a lot of things I post have to do with links to other sites, but I don't mind if there are no comments.
A person can say "OMG, LOLZ I <3 THE LINK YOU POSTED!!!! only so many times.
- 23kon0
Sometimes law firms may put a blog on their site to enrich their content on the site.
For example say a new law was about to come into action "The QBN law" - then this law firm could write an informative blog on this new law. Firstly this would show that they are well informed about it and secondly, people from businesses or the public who want to find out more about this new law they have briefly heard about somewhere, where is the first place theyl try - Google. The page they come across might be the blog page of the said law firm.