Why Not? Google+ Comments…

Notice that all the Kool-Aid is gone!    Google 貼牌冰箱(Google Refrigerator)
Google 貼牌冰箱(Google Refrigerator) (Photo credit: Aray Chen)

April 23, 2013: In the past week, Google+ has blazed its way into the Blogger comment world. Initially I was really happy to see it. Your comments here appear on your G+ stream, giving them an audience to your followers. The promise there is an easier way to spread your work across the social space.

Update May 2019: Wow, what a difference six years makes to older content. Zap! No more Google+ and commenting is so controversial these days. I struggle with this. Is commenting even a thing anymore? Sure it is.

Why Not?!

Notice that all the Google Kool-Aid in the fridge is gone.

I started seeing discussions and interactions on my G+ stream instead of just the one-liners and direct links to everyone’s posts. Leading into the posts from the comments gives me an even more targeted or curated selection of links to explore.

I said I was “initially”happy, because my jury is still out. I’m still looking at it. When you have an occasional party that people aren’t showing up for anyway, you have lots of time for experimentations like this. The real tests will be by those who have a huge audience to lose if it the commenters don’t follow you into the Google space. (But who doesn’t have a Google account these days? Who doesn’t have a couple by now for work, personal, research, etc.)

Do you use Google+?

Did you notice the change on peoples’ blogs?

Did you notice that you could change your whole commenting scheme at all? Care?

Did you switch it on just to see what would happen?

(If you usually have 50+ comments on your blog, did you see more or less after switching?)

Did you go back?

If you have a link a poll. I’d love to see it.