I keep hearing people say "if you're arguing against comments being on FriendFeed, you Just Don't Get It", but nobody's actually bothered to say /why/ comments on FF are a good thing. It's just /assumed/ to be good. - Chris Anthony

Here's my answer: http://bhc3.wordpress.com/2008... - Hutch Carpenter

why do the comments on FF have to be justified? Is the people who don't like them the ones who need to defend their position. - Alejandro

I like friendfeed comments just fine and think they are vastly better than pulling in all the disaggregated comments as Allen suggests. But I hope Allen will raise some cash, hire some software developers and build the thing that he thinks is 1000x better. - Robert Seidman

What stolen conversation? I'm of the opinion that very few blogs actually had conversation in comments section on a consistent basis in the first place. - Shey

Shey, if your opinion is backed up by a wealth of data, doesn't that make it fact? ;-) - Robert Seidman

Shey, do the blogs that didn't have significant comment conversation in comments have significant comment activity on FriendFeed? - Chris Anthony

Alejandro, if anyone needs to do any justification, it's the entity making the change, and that's FriendFeed at the moment. - Chris Anthony

Jason, yes, under this model of thinking they are. Why focus on FriendFeed in the post and the conversation? Because FriendFeed, to use Malcolm Gladwell's term, is in the process of tipping. - Chris Anthony

Chris. Huh? FriendFeed is a service where people can talk about stuff. If people don't want to talk about stuff here, they don't have to. If people want to talk about YOUR stuff here and you don't like it because you can't control it that's not any different than people talking about your stuff at a conference where a bunch of people are chatting about it in a hallway. - Robert Seidman

Robert, I have no idea which of my comments you're responding to. (That in itself is a limitation of FriendFeed - although really, it's a limitation of any non-threaded comment system.) Where did I talk about controlling the conversation? You're putting words in my mouth. - Chris Anthony

Robert, I prefer to /see/ the conversation. I don't care about /controlling/ it. If we're supposed to treat FriendFeed like it's an extended conference conversation, that's one thing, and we can all relax a bit. But that's not how people are treating it - and it's not how FriendFeed is behaving. - Chris Anthony

The more I think about it, the more I think FF could change that perception - of item comments as decentralized blog comments rather than hallway chats - by simply changing the term "comment" to "conversation" (or "converse", in the verb form under a given entry), or something similar. As it is, by this point we associate "comment" with "blog comment", which is why people are getting so riled up about it. - Chris Anthony

Chris, if it's just a preference then just like my preference that Angelina Jolie would think I'm cuter than Brad Pitt, you're probably going to have to get over it. How is FriendFeed behaving? In a way that allows people to have conversations about something you wrote that you might not wind up seeing? <gasp> - Robert Seidman

Robert, in the future, please read my comments before you reply to them. - Chris Anthony

Chris, I read your comments. I disagree with you. In the future, please feel free to ignore differing opinions. That's something that actually is in your control. - Robert Seidman

I didn't know someone owns the conversation. I'm gonna start asking for permission every time I discuss something with a friend. - Alejandro

look at all these comments which belong on my blog! Robert, you brought up the one thing that I knew someone would say - which is that people can chat offline about my post and I can't control it. Truth is that FF can build the best tool that does exactly what I've suggested, it doesn't change anything about the interaction here at all. What it does is let the x people who aren't on here understand the entire conversation. There's no reason they can't do it - unless of course their business model is in the conversation. - Allen Stern

Allen, we'll have to agree to disagree. "Look at all these comments that belong on my blog!" I don't see them as "belonging" to your blog. I'd lean more towards "Wow, look at all these people talking about my blog, cool!" - Robert Seidman

Robert it is cool, it just belongs across the street so that everyone can play together - i want you to see and be part of the entire conversation, not a fragmented part. And I want everyone to be part of the entire conversation - it's possible. - Allen Stern