4.15.2009

twitter for comments.

There's been a fair amount of talk regarding using Facebook Connect comments, since they launched in February.  I was somewhat excited at first, because it attached comments to a fairly persistent identity, which has the potential to curtail some of the negative (or anti-social) behaviours associated with online commenting


I'm starting to think that a comment box that used twitter accounts, and actually connected to the usual twitter feed, would be substantially more useful.  The reasoning is fairly simple; twitter is a conversation tool, where facebook was once about the social graph, and is currently confusing me as to it's focus.

If the point of attaching an identity to comments is to create accountability, facebook connect is undoubtedly the better choice.  Facebook can easily be a window into a personal social circle.  Tying comments to that social circle might reduce some of the more absurd aspects of online comments.

If the point of attaching an identity to comments is to create a dialogue (which can also create accountability) I would suggest the use of a service that is essentially a lightweight dialogue tool.

This came to mind when I was reading a blog post over the weekend, and before I thought to comment on the page, I had opened TweetDeck and started to type.  When I think online dialogue, I think twitter.  I'm probably not the only one.

[This could also be a potential means of monetization - if a customized twitter interface is embedded on every post, a small percentage of ad revenue shouldn't be completely out of the question, assuming twitter develops, maintains and supports the specifics of the service to an acceptable degree.]

0 comments: