This week, I’ve been focusing my blogging time mostly on getting my new blog, The Right Conversation, off the ground. I’ve been pleased that it’s been attracting a fair number of comments.
Here’s what’s been going on over at that blog…
JAN 5: The Elevator Speech for Conversational Media
My good friend and mentor Catherine Dold pointed out to me yesterday over lunch that the phrase “conversational media” means little or nothing to most people. Damn it, she’s right.
So I’m trying to figure out a very sort way to convey the core concept and value of conversational media in, say, ten words or less. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far – but I could sure use your help.
JAN 4: Where Did “Conversational Media” Come From?
The phrase “conversational media” has been kicking around for awhile, although it hasn’t been very widely used. I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge some people who were mulling this emerging field over long before I heard the term.
JAN 3: What a Cross-Blog Conversation Looks Like
A cross-blog conversation is a public conversation that starts with a posting or comment to one weblog, and then spreads to a posting or comment in a different blog. This can get difficult to follow unless everyone involved makes an effort to include specific cross-links – and even then it can get confusing! If you’re not sure what a cross-blog conversation looks like, here’s a very simple example.
JAN 3: JournURL Combines Blogging and Forums
In a comment to my posting “I Wish Blog Comments Were Easier to Follow,” fellow blogger Amy Bellinger mentioned a free blog-hosting service, JournURL, which offers some pretty cool options that provide rich support for online conversations. They do this by combining features of blogging tools and online forums. Back in August, JournURL creator Roger Benningfield explained some of how this works. Here’s what he said.
JAN 3: I Now Have a Working Comment Feed
Well, after hunting around for options, I finally found a way to successfully generate a feed of the comments to this blog in a way that is apparently valid and accessible to any feed reader.
Why does this matter? Well, a comment feed is a crucial conversational-media tool, since it makes the content of your weblog comments as easily findable as your blog posts. This is because you can submit your comment feed to popular feed aggregation services like Technorati or IceRocket. When you do that, your blog comments will appear in their search results.
It’s just one more way to clue people in to the entirety of conversations that happen on your blog. The easier it is to discover those conversations, the more likely it becomes that more people will join in. Here’s what I did.
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