Quick! You Have 140 Characters To Tell Me How Much I Rock: Go!

Hey, and welcome if you came for the Ultimate Blogger Party! What? Over here, in the corner. What am I wearing? Oh. It's not a lampshade! ..it's a hat. Whut? Never mind! Grab a drink! And some chocolate, don't forget some chocolate. Let's talk about blogging, because, well, what else would you talk about at a party for bloggers? And remember, this is a conversation, so your input is wanted...

In the beginning, when I started three years ago, comments were currency. You "paid your respects" by leaving a quick comment for the owner of the blog. It was your calling card. If you cared enough to read, you left evidence that you had been there. In return, the blog owner often would visit you once in a while. It was a lot of fun.

As the Blogosphere ballooned exponentially, it was no longer possible to comment on every blog you visited. It became harder to get noticed and find a core readership. When the marketing of blogging took off, suddenly, blogging was a business, not just a pasttime, and everyone had a blog. Who had time to comment?

I have been noticing for a while now that though my comments have decreased, my traffic has increased. While I love that new people are finding me, I would really like it if you came out of hiding, so I can get to know you. I started blogging for the community, and the connection to others. But I have noticed that unless you are one of these rock star awesome bloggers with a legion of loyal subjects, your comments won't be where most of your interaction comes from.*

*Barring giveaways to entice people to your blog and "extra" chances to enter contests by tweeting your link, subbing to your feed in order to increase your exposure...all things I won't do here. I may, from time to time, do a giveaway, but I won't force you to tweet my link or subscribe to my feed or blog about my contest... that feels disingenuous to me. It's not the way I roll.

::tap, tap, is this thing on?:::

But if you're like me, you will keep writing, and hope the writing pulls the unsupecting victims minions worshippers readers in, and that your wit and aplomb keeps them here.

Enter twitter. With 140 characters to say just what's on your mind, twitter revolutionized the blogging scene. For some, it became a time suck, and their blogs weren't so important. We call them "microbloggers." For others, it became a way to stay connected to those they blogged with and meet new bloggers. There were almost as many ways to use twitter as there were twitter accounts!

Jump to today. I will often tweet a blog post, and it would seem that twitter has become the new blog comment forum. Followers will comment on the post, via twitter, and not on the blog itself. So I will check stats and comments on my blog and feel mildly discouraged to find few (compared to last year when the comments were more plentiful) Then I will remember that comments and kudos came through my twitter stream. It would appear that Twitter is the new comment system.

But I think I kind of miss the old one.

Just an aside, I think Comment Luv is one of the best things to happen to blogging. I love clicking on the last post that someone links through my comments. Might it be you?

T, who says come out, come out, whoever you are

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