April 19, 2011
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Now You Know When All Your Friends Comment!
I'm a bit older than most of the people networking in the Xangasphere. Heck, I've been a member of the Xanga community for almost seven years. That's a lifetime itself on the internet. I've seen Xanga change for better and for worse in all that time, and for me, the best thing about Xanga is the first thing that attracted me to want to blog here.
Simply put, it's the comments.
The face of social networking is getting uglier, "in my humble opinion." I rarely even look at my "Facebook" newsfeed, but when I do it seems that every little thing that every "friend" does is trumpeted on the newsfeed. I never liked the little "gifts" Facebookers give each other, cause every time you "accept" one, you are asked to "approve" some third party application.
Xanga's "universal inbox" seems to look more and more like the Facebook Newsfeed every time I look at it.
On April 15th, The Xanga Team blog gave us this announcement:
New Feature: Recommending Comments on Xanga
Ever come across a comment so good and so profound that you wish you could recommend it to everyone? Or ever write a comment so scintillating that you wish you could share it with all of your friends?
Well, now you can! Today we're announcing two new features:
Comment Recs: if you see a great comment written by someone else, now you can click to "recommend" it
Comment Sharing: if you write a great comment (and let's be honest: they're all pretty great, aren't they?), now you can just check the box to "Share this comment" and it'll get published to your feed.
Here is the comment I left on the post:
Dear Team,
At this point in time, I'm not really sure if I would "recommend" this feature or not. I can hardly make time to comment myself, and rarely read the comments of others. What I predict are dozens more "recommends" in my inbox from the same Xangans who are constant recommenders. However without constant posters, and constant recommenders, we wouldn't have a community here.
So bravo for adding the feature. It's the "group" which makes a feature good or bad, not the feature itself.
One upgrade I'd really like to see would be to upgrade the video sections on Xanga so that I can post my widescreen HD content to my blog instead of embedding from YouTube. At one time Xanga seemed to promote video sharing and even had a "top blogs" sort of page for video content. (Back in the "boost" and "stars" days.) But the video pages are now woefully outdated, and the resolution is terrible, compared to YouTube, Vimeo, or other video sharing sites.
My jury is out on this one for the time being. I certainly don't think I'd want to "share" my own comments. A comment is personal, directed to the blogger on whose site I decide to comment. Sometimes I might make the time to read the comments sections of a particular entry, but don't know if I'd want to "share" any of them with my subscribers/friends.
Keep up the good work,
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
I might add that my comment has been recommended quite a few times, which is pretty ironic. This morning, not only are the comment recommends showing up in my inbox, but each time a "friend" comments on another blog, it shows up too! This is unnecessary and unwanted. I have read at least one blogpost this morning already wondering why this is happening.It could be a "mistake". Something in the coding for the inbox which is letting us know almost down to the keystroke everything every one of our Xanga "friends" is doing online. Or it could be part of the latest round of "upgrades" (which always send at least one of my browsers crashing at some point.)
When I make a rare visit to Facebook, I only look at my own "wall." On Xanga, I usually switch to my own "feedback" view. I want to know if somebody replied to one of my comments. It sometimes takes me a couple of hours to write half a dozen comments. I DON'T need to know if someone comments on another blog. If I'm on that blog, I'll see that comment.
The Xangasphere for the most part doesn't need constant "updating", which seems to be what I see in the "face" of social networking the closer I look. The Xangasphere always complains about "mass messaging". Well, now you don't need any mass messages. At least if this current "view" of the ubox is deliberate and not some glitch in the system.
I'll continue writing comments the way I have been doing so for the past seven years. And I'll continue hoping that my "friends" will drop by my blog from time to time, and check out my latest entry, and perhaps leave a comment. By looking at the timestamps on each "task" performed by each "friend" in the ubox, I could actually figure out exactly how much time some Xangans spend "here". Probably far too much.
Well, I have to go to the bathroom. I wonder when that kind of (TM) information will be standard practice on the internet social networking scene? Or is it already? Is there a "tweet" symbol on Twitter for "bathroom break"?
Comments (38)
I love your comments. They're always so thoughtful.
Anyway, I can see how this new feature might get problematic and annoying. But then again, maybe it won't be so bad
When I met up with the Xanga Team on Friday they were actually right in the process of making this change to Xanga. Someone mentioned if recommended comments had their own tab on the UI it might make it better, which they are considering.
Oh, after hearing about this change I immediately thought that you would benefit a lot from it haha. You do leave pretty well thought out comments.
I am appreciative of Xanga, blogging is done best here, facebook is more "like" oriented and has its place but Xanga is where I am most often!
Like your xanga-tisement!! Clever!
I don't mind so much when someone recs a comment that deserves to be recced, but a lot of users are electing to 'share' every comment they themselves make, no matter how mundane or just plain silly they are.
@Roadlesstaken - A separate tab for recced and shared comments would get my vote!
Yeah, I felt like xanga was becoming facebook..and honestly, I just quit facebook but to have it resurface it on xanga..I'm crushed really. Though I can see how bad it can get..I think social networking is really an excuse to encourage stalker like behavior. It's not healthy in the slightest. At least on xanga, you don't have notified every time someone makes a comment but it seems like it is now. I've been on here as long as you have and I'm shocked and probably disappointed in xanga. I won't ever leave xanga but I'll be on it a lot less because of this feature.
@buddly47 - Seems easy enough to add!
That's so true. I completely agree with your comment. Especially where you said, "it's the "group" which makes a feature good or bad, not the feature itself.".
Adding a rec comment tab would be the best option in my mind!
I agree with ya.
I have not rec'd a commet yetI will save it for something that I want everyone to see.
@buddly47 - Exactly!
I think I figured out why the comments are showing up on your inbox. Next time you post a comment, just after you hit submit, it will bring up a share button, which apparently will allow you to post your comment, not only on the blog in question, but on all of our inboxes. I'm finding that I'm a little grumpy about this new development. Good thing is only a few people are using it so far. I s'pose time will only tell if it becomes a really annoying problem. If it's not overused, it might be beneficial. We'll see, eh?
There's Bald Mike mugging with the tea, ha! ha!.
I agree with what you're saying, and they should have a separate rec tab. Great post.
yeah i agree and besides if there is something i wanted to share from the comment i wrote to that person it is just nicer to write a blog about it. i don't like it really. it annoys me to see my feed so clogged up now. more than before. @livexlovexlaughter - yes! if they had a seperate tab for recs so things weren't so messy then maybe i wouldn't mind so much.
@Roadlesstaken -@buddly47 - @throughsamseyes - Dear Alex, Harold, Sam, Not only should there be a separate tab, but I've always felt we should be able to customize which tab we see when we open the inbox. I always immediately switch to "feedback". Sometimes the default tab shows dozen of recommends from the same blogger, which fills up the whole page!
@seedsower - Dear Beth, I will not "rec" any comments either. And I certainly won't "share" any of my own comments. I think that's ridiculous.
@lightnindan - Dear Dan. So it's the people who are "sharing" their own comments, and it's not "automatic." Well, that's better, but like mass messaging, those who wish to trumpet their own commenting are going to be a pain in the side of most of us. I'm sure glad I cleaned out my friends list last month!
I have a blog presence on several blog servers but tend to use xanga most because it's still one of the easiest and least confusing to navigate.
LJ [live journal] is also pretty interesting, but seems to attract a more contentious element. One thing about all these recommended posts that appear on my blogsite - I can, and mostly do - just ignore them. Never yours, of course
My ocd is about to self-combust.
Rec'ing comments, not my thing.
It probably could be a positive feature, if not for the abusers, overusers and the narcissistic.
Is there a "tweet" symbol on Twitter for "bathroom break"?
I have learned to read rec'd posts only if I would have read them initially without the rec's (i.e. posts from people I 'know' or rec'd by people I 'know') -- rec'd comments perhaps will be similar when they settle in, but sharing comments is excessive. I agree that comments are from me to the person whose post I'm commenting -- if others read them, so be it, but the fact I comment on the post is sharing enough!
I agree with (and think I recced your comment about the comment reccing, one of the only ones I have done that with). With the amount of spam coming in from comments that I don't really care about I'm starting to think that the friends list needs trimmed. Keep up the good posting, at least when I see your face in my inbox I'll know it's something good.
Some people are better at commenting than posting, though. I like that the new system allows those people to be rewarded in some small way as well.
Mike, of course I was one of the people recommending your comment to the Xanga team. You made some good points. My first priority is still to go and read the Xangan's that who comment on my blog. Next priority is to scan through the feedback list and eye out people I know write exceptional quality and recommend exceptional quality. Most of the times I will follow recommends you make because they are usually well thought out rec's like your comments are mostly thoughtful. I am not yet a great fan of the new feature. I do not know if Xanga truly listen to what people want. Those are side irritation that is part of Xanga. I like the Xanga interface and will probably blog on Xanga till they pull the plug or...if my plug is pulled by the Creator.
I'm not yet sure how I feel on the matter :/ at first I thought it was dumb, not so bad now though.
I spend far too much time on fb doing nothing. I'm serious. I put on my status today to disengage and find pen and paper. Do people know what that is anymore
I haven't seen any of the new comment recommendation come up but I rarely look at "recommended" anyway.
great post and you're right... I guess time will tell what goes with this...
Bald Mike comments are some of the highest quality of comments in all of Xanga. I've recommended my share of comments - I try to keep them to things I'd only think others would enjoy reading.
Yeah, the recommending of comments kind of doesn't feel right. It's weird to click a link and leave a footprint on a whole other page just to read a sentence someone wrote. What I might like better would be some sort of "Like" button for comments, or eProps for comments. The good, old-fashioned "responding to the comment and saying that you liked it" was also fine.
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no wonder my inbox seems weirdly different... (haven't logged in from last friday)
I think the comment sharing and recommending was a good idea, many people have wanted it so I don't mind it. Haven't used it myself, though, and I'm not sure if I ever will.
Hi Mike!
Your comments shall always be great with or without recs!
Have a nice week!
Isabel
Although I try to keep up with Facebook, because there are so many people that I know, including many local and regional performers, I appreciate Xanga. I don't post every day, but I prefer Xanga for writing and posting. I have transferred, on rare occasions, my post to Facebook. It seems that Xanga has been adopting more Facebook features over time. Some may be good, but I really don't think Xanga should try to be so much like Facebook, However, if recommending comments would encourage comments that are related to the post, maybe it will be a good thing. Otherwise, I think the feature isn't warranted & we can do without it. ~~Blessings 'n Cheers
I didn't even know about this until I read your post. Thanks for the info...this is useful news.
I just joined Facebook this last week...and the only Xanga friend I have on there is the only one who comments. Not family or other friends....and right now, I'm trippin on sunshine and wish that people could just be happy for me. BTW, anyone tell you, you have pretty eyes!
338 views....yea, you're not popular!
and my oldest readers are 77 if that makes you feel any better!
I haven't even noticed this new feature until I read this post, it sounds unnecessary and simply annoying. I still use the old private home page, because I didn't like the new one. I'm glad I have that option
*joins the sharing party*
@theacematt2 - douche -_-
@pika_whoosh - ahah, couldn't resist. I'll refrain from it after this point.
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