From Dimes to Dollars

by Ben Lopez

That’s it.  Enable comments.  There are a multitude of reasons to do so, and not a single reason why you’d want to intentionally disable them, short of looking to explicitly avoid criticism.  I hope no one will take offense to this entry; none is intended, friends.  I’m saying this today because it’s something that needs to be said, and I have yet to hear another Tumblr blogger address this persisting issue.  Comments give bloggers an interactive incentive to their readers, and the readers are able to further contribute and share thanks when you provide useful, engaging content.

Before I joined Tumblr, I had never HEARD of a blog that didn’t have the option of commenting, at least not by default.  To be fair, I realize some Tumblr users are not aware that their comments are disabled, it took me a while to notice it myself.  When I started here on Tumblr, as much as I loved the community, I found it absolutely unbelievable that MANY themes intentionally exclude the ability to comment.  For the Tumblr staff not to set minimum functionality requirements that designers must include in their themes seems grossly irresponsible to me, and it is hurting the reputation of both Tumblr and its users.  Some blogs don’t even have a permalink button!  Can you imagine?  A non-Tumblr user visiting a Tumblr-powered blog and scratching their head, “Are you kidding me, I can’t leave a comment?  What’s the point of blogging like that?  It’s like you’re talking to yourself.”  Or what if one of your friends on Facebook suddenly did not allow for status update comments or wall posts?  Chances are you’re going to be visiting that friend’s page a heck of a lot less, if at all…why should it be any different for blogs?

I’m sure some of you are saying by now, “Oh, shut up, you!  I’ll run my blog how I please!”  And I get it.  I’m not fond of criticism any more than the next guy, but please trust me when I say you have everything to gain by enabling comments.  Why has social media become so successful?  Because it’s social.  Please do not interpret this entry as an act of spite or harsh criticism, this needs to be said for the greater good of the Tumblr community.  It’s fairly often I find a really great blog that I can’t comment on at all, which is a shame.  I’d love to be able to tell that person how much I enjoyed reading their work.

Take a look at some of the top blogs here on Tumblr.  You’ll see that most of them not only have comments enabled, but include a multitude of commenting options (Yahoo, Disqus, Twitter/Facebook Connect, etc) in addition to a standard form so that anyone can comment very easily.  They are some of the most-read blogs for good reason; that interactive element is a crucial incentive that gives birth to conversation beyond the original article and brings those hungry minds, those taking pleasure in quality conversation, coming back for more.

For bloggers without comments, did this article change your mind?  If not, let’s hear your views on why you still would like to restrict comments.  For those that agree with my rationale, I ask that you consider ReBlogging this entry to spread awareness.  

Bring forth your comments, questions, and criticisms.

If there’s one social media giant that has hit a snag lately, it’s Youtube. Actually, “snag” is a wee bit of an understatement.  Twitter may have received a small amount of flak for their rollout of Promoted Tweets, but like I mentioned HERE, it was done tastefully, only implemented after careful deliberation and listening to lots of feedback.  Youtube, on the other hand, seems to have done completely the opposite, and placed themselves into a figurative minefield of complaints.  There were articles saying there was a new interface in the works, but they were largely speculation, because Youtube had not been open about what the proposed changes were.

We’d be here all day if I were to go over every pet peeve, so let’s just cover a few of the main issues:

Video Response:  The placement of video responses is now buried FAR below the threshold, under the top rated comments.  Drastically fewer users are going to see these responses in such an area of the page, leading to significantly less incentive to post a video response from now on.  Video responses will decline even further because of the difficulty just finding the area to post a response (it is invisible until you click the text comment box).  This can be considered a limitation of one of the main interactive elements of Youtube. 

Rating System:  Switching from a 5-star rating system to an overly-simplified thumbs up/down system means there are less choices for the user.  In the standard star rating system, you could specify more accurately how you felt.  What if you feel a video is only mediocre and doesn’t really deserve a thumbs up or thumbs down?  Chances are, you’ll opt to leave no rating at all.  Again, limiting interaction options equates to less incentive for the user to interact at all, resulting in less time spent on the site, and a sense of disappointment, which should be evident from the continued public outcry.  One other related issue to note is that ratings are no longer displayed next to search results!  If any of my readers can imagine how removing ratings could possibly have any benefit, I’m dying to hear it in the comments…

Comment Rating:  A big incentive for chronic commenters is to not only check back for replies, but also see what their comments were rated, what even the non-responders thought of their convincing argument.  But now those ratings are only for the select few, the very top choices.  For everyone else, you will receive absolutely no feedback on your comment ratings.  ”If people don’t rate my comments, why should I bother rating theirs?”, many will ask.  Yet again we see the cause and effect relating to declining incentive.

“Related”/”Additional Videos From User” Sidebar:  The once-simple, organized sidebar has been replaced with a hideous jumble of videos that are determined by unknown criteria. Sounds like the “Related Videos” section they already had in place; why do we need to go to the top of the page to find the user’s other videos when they grouped so well with Related Videos before?  Even worse, this right sidebar section is not even labeled!  There is no framing anymore either, so it looks sloppy, as if the page has failed to load completely.

What we can LEARN from this:

This is a classic example of a business not listening to their customers.  They implemented changes that they thought people would want instead of asking.  For instance, how often in the past have you heard people complaining, “Man, I just can’t figure out this confusing 5-star rating system. Youtube really needs to simplify this”?  Not very often.  It was Google’s vision to (attempt to) bring things down to toddler intelligence, not the Youtube users, and you can see now the backlash of such a decision.  Remember, it’s not only possible for media giants to make blunders of this magnitude, it’s actually more likely for them because so many stop communicating with their customers once they reach a certain size, gradually becoming out of touch.  No company, no matter how large, is invincible.  I don’t care if you’re worth $10 billion as of today, keep neglecting your customers, keep ignoring their words, and you’re bound to fail.  Think about the vast amounts of criticism, time, and money Youtube could have saved if they had just followed such a basic principle, and reached out to the community.  When I launched this blog, one of the first things I did was ensure I allowed users to post comments from a variety of platforms, and find a theme with a very large, visible button indicating that readers are free to ask questions.  If I’m doing something totally stupid that perhaps I didn’t notice, this gives them the opportunity to set me straight, easily and directly.

So, in a nutshell, how can you find out what your visitors/customers want and get it right the first time?  ASK.  Directly.