No Comment(s) - Cool vs Hot Media
Sunday, October 7, 2007 
I've been writing FractaLog posts for almost two years now, and I've wondered why the number of comments per post is about as close to zero as you can get. Now I know that something is being read, or at least stared at (if I can trust the Squarespace statistics reports, or those produced by Google Analytics), so I'm left to wonder what's up. Are the posts written in such a way that discourages comments?
I read an interesting take on this situation recently by Phil Ford in his Dial M for Musicology blog. In his post Blog media hot and cool he writes that "I've often noticed how it's the posts that I took most seriously ... the ones that take 90% of my blog-related time, that end up being ignored in the blogosphere, while the ones I spend 5 minutes putting together get the mad blog love." Ford's post interests me because in it he brings up Marshal McLuhan's ideas of hot and cool media, with Ford's thesis that blogs are "cool media" , in the sense that "They're less "dense," less "high-definition," and offer a wider variety of ways one can react to them; they have open pockets, lots of interstitial spaces that others can fill in for themselves." Ford is writing his piece as a cautionary tale about the future of academic writing if too much becomes "cool" b/c of the growing market share of the blogosphere. (For an even more dire view, see Cool Media and the Virgin Mary by K. P. Hawes, the site that produced the image at the top of this post)
But how does this translate into whether comments to posts appear or not? It might be too simple to conclude that the actual posts are too long, filled with too many links, too discursive, i.e. they are definitely NOT COOL.
So I should definitely try to shorten my
Reader Comments (5)
Hi R.A.,
I believe you may be suffering from 'boy in the bubble" syndrome. You're audience is extremely limited. That coupled with the vastness of the web is a severe limitation. You need to spend at least as much time (and doubly so) promoting and linking your site to get attention from the masses. Unfortunately your subject matter is fairly well over the head of the general audience available on the internet (unless you try to tie your message to dressing puppies as Napoleon in drag as a hook on you tube.). I must say I have found your site vastly educational and entertaining.I'm in the present submitting to an online photography magazine and am addressing the metaphorical aspect of fractals as a theme.
This is what led me to your site.
My blog has a 'site meter' for traffic analytics and many people drop by and say nothing. In fact there are many that have no idea how to utilize the functins on a site and don't have the time,care or ability to figure it out. They may even have ended up at your site totally by happenstance.
In short ,you can't take it personally and forge on...
I've had my photoblog a scant month and am fielding over 3000 pageviews this month, yet the comments are far and few between.Commenting on a photograph does not require a high degree of intellectual grasp...simple emotional reactions will do. but they are hard to comeby.
You are making a valuable contribution in my estimation .
Thanks for posting and I've put you in my rss feed
so I can keep abreast of your new material.
The jordanquantam poetry link has made my whole day....keep up the good work!!!
eddie mchugh
Eddie - Thanks for your insightful post. I'm really not taking things personally, but it is nice to hear back from the wilderness. I will be sure to continue avoiding fractal puppies in Napoleon suits...
Please let me know more about your fractal work, and send me know your photoblog url so I can feature it more prominently here.
And are you a Quantum Mechanics or Green Lantern fan? Complementarity would say that they are both aspects of the same underlying reality.
Rich
Rich,
This has been something I've been trying to figure out since I first started checking out blogs. I watched one in particular go from getting fairly regular comments (not always a lot, but consistent) and now they get hardly any. My question/concern is how to keep the 'conversation' going. http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/ This (i hope) is a link to Jeremiah Owyang's blog. He gets comments on most of his entries.
marianne
I wouldn't count on conversation anytime soon. A combo of word of mouth, e-mail blasts to friends, participating in blog carnivals, and much more are basic sell-yourself and your blog activities that will take some time.
I've always heard that writing good content, frequently, is the best way to build and keep an audience.
rad
MOIRA Good is good, but better carries it.http://www.nicescarves.com/nice-coach-scarves-714.html