I am a Community fanatic. I believe in the power of the Community and the benefits we can reap from being a Community. We human beings are community-oriented and community-minded beings by nature, hence, we say “No man is an Island". If you do not know, Im a strong supporter of Free/Libre Open-Source Software or FLOSS. It is one aspect of a Community - we help and share for the greater good of all.
But let’s talk about another aspect, the Web Community.
Probably by now you are aware of the debate going on about “comments” being fragmented. Out of this comment fragmentation came the different web services trying to address the problem. But first, for those who are not in the loop, here’s a short list of what’s happening right now:
- Author post a new article or blog post
- Someone likes it and seeds it to FriendFeed (and other similar services)
- His/her network also likes it and started posting comments
- Their comments are restricted to their platform of choice only (example: FriendFeed)
- The original Author is then out-of-the-loop of the great discussion going on around and about his/her article or blog post
It doesn’t stop there, there are possibly other sites where a discussion sparked, which the author and his site readers will never know about. Fragmentation. Thoughts and opinions disconnected. Who knows, if all these can be read together regardless of platform, some new revolutionary idea and movement would have formed and changed the world? And it sounds familiar right? Yes. It’s been going on like that since closed communities started on the web - Forums and Bulletin Boards.
It also extends to supra-sites/portals who “re-publishes” or post excerpts of someone else’s posts, perfect examples of these are Digg.com and Slashdot.org. Most people leave comments on where they first read the article or where they don’t have to register (ie they’re already registered) or where they feel at home (ie Community member). Attribution and link back to the source aside, comments and discussions were already fragmented for a long time.
Here comes DISQUS. Trying to defragment the web-comments and web-discussions. Giving the people the choice to post wherever they want on their platform of choice, but keeping these under the original topic/post. And recently, news came out that DISQUS and FriendFeed are planning to open talks with each other, which many are hopeful, will result to FriendFeed’s comment system changing to DISQUS. One giant step of defragmenting discussions. If this works out, other similar services can join in, no services or platforms are excluded, everyone is welcome!
There is also DISQUS and SezWho going to start talks, again hopefully something good will come out of it. And I like to add Outbrain to the mix. Imagine this:
- DISQUS: defragmenting discussions
- SezWho: discovery and rating of ‘commenters’
- Outbrain: discovery and rating of ‘articles’
- FriendFeed: aggregator; networking
To me, it is a close-to- perfect mix of services that will bring us all together regardless of platform we want to use. We end up building a One Web Community, and I think we will have less use of “forums” when this becomes a reality and once other platforms join the mix (e.g. Intense Debate, the different CMS, the different Blog platforms, websites). Why?
Comments 2.0
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Forums 1.0(?)
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Original Post
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Thread Starter
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Defragmented Replies
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Replies to that Post, only on that specific forum
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As you can see, such a mix will overshadow forums. A defragmented discussion is in itself a type forum discussion. We will be creating a world-wide-web forum community. An OPEN Community. Best of all, freedom to use your own platform of choice. Want to read and comment via FriendFeed? By all means do so! Want to do it via Plaxo? Feel free! Maybe via Google Reader? Hey, that’s possible!
We are entering the era of Comments 2.0 where comments are not just comments anymore but a discussion. Where comments are not fragmented anymore. Where comments are now a Web Community.
Comments 2.0
- Defragmented / Interconnectivity
- A discussion
- Freedom of platform
- Trackable
- Reputation Ranking
Out of Comments 2.0 will come Forums 2.0. This is a new type of forum system where people can post original sources, and it will show the defragmented replies in a forum-Interface (as opposed to a comments-interface). These forums can also choose which “topics” (say by tagging or keywords) they will aggregate automatically (great help for new forums to start discussions). Then still allowing for creation of original topics (hence, ‘forums’), and these original topics are also part of the One Web Community. I can for example, post their topic source on my blog, and their replies also shows on mine.
Possible? I strongly believe so.
Forums 2.0
- Shows aggregated topics in a forum-interface
- New topics created in the forums can be aggregated elsewhere
- Replies from other sources shows on the forums and vice versa
Welcome to the era of One Web Community!!
Other great reads about this topic (in no particular order):
Should Fractured Feed Reader Comments Raise Blog Owners’ Ire?
SezWho CEO Jitendra Gupta Speaks on Tejit Buy
Disqus’ Partner Strategy: Is FriendFeed Integration Up Next?
Just a wacky idea
Web Discussions: Leaving the Instigator Out
Add your Disqus profile on FriendFeed
How do bloggers hold onto the value they’ve created?
Bridging the Blogging 1.0 and Blogging 2.0 divide
A Commenter’s Rights
With RSS ads is it right to form communities around feeds