November 23, 2005
Thank Your First Commenter
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
This is a great idea — for Thanksgiving, “Thank Your First Commenter.” Since this also happens to be my blog’s birthday, I thought it was an especially appropriate thing to do. And so, a special thanks to … the first commenter on this blog in its original incarnation at Blogger … none other than Jeff De Cagna, an early booster and supporter who also added the first comment to a post on November 29, 2004.
Because I screwed up transferring data, the comment is no longer available on this blog, but it was a post about blogs and how I don’t think they really “replace” anything, and Jeff — in the first of many thoughtful and interesting conversations — wrote, “I both agree and disagree with this post.” Now, that sounds familiar … 
Thanks, Jeff, for that first comment and all the others, and to everybody else. I should sign off now because I’m coming dangerously close to pimping for comments….
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
- Trackback by High Context Consulting on November 23, 2005 @ 9:46 am
- Trackback by The Alchemy of Soulful Work on November 24, 2005 @ 11:55 am
And happy birthday to your blog, as well! May it be happy and healthy.
Kevin, I truly appreciate your thanks and I very much admire your hard work as an association professional and blogger. You’re a credit to our community.
I look forward to Association Inc being around for a long time so we can have more thoughtful and interesting conversations in which we agree AND disagree! Happy birthday to the blog and Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Mine was Bob Gable, 8/1/03. I had all of three comments in the half year that TSMR was up and running - and went 8.5 months between my third commenter and fourth. That was disappointing considering my previous blog from Sofia (Xiled in Sofia: Please Send Mexican Food) had beaucoup comments and it was only live for two months.
Thankfully more were to come. 71 in ‘04 and 143 to date in ‘05. I’d like to think that’s because I’ve gotten better with choice of content, but it’s more likely it’s simply because more people in our arena are reading and writing blogs.
As you’d expect, the most commented upon post was on blogging (”Bribes for Blogging”) - for which I have you, Jeff and the rest of your association posse to thank.
I think you’re right, Rich, it’s a matter of who your blog audience is — and though I love the discussions that comments initiate, it’s a mistake to think that a blog is only valuable if it’s getting them. Whenever I talk to associations about organizational blogging, they almost always ask about “how can I control comments,” and the answer is always 1) you should control spam, but not comments, and 2) don’t worry about it, because you probably won’t get many!
As people within a certain sector get more comfortable, like in the show sector with you or association sector with us, comments become more likely, but even then it seems the “interacters” are a minority of readers.
I remember once in Sue’s blog — I forget what the post was about — she had a great line like, “There’s a controversy brewing in the blogosphere that only four or five of us care about …” LOL, but I think there are lots more people who care about the things we all discuss — some of them just read and don’t comment, and a lot of them haven’t found us yet.
Happy blog birthday, Mac Daddy.