If you spend long enough reading blogs -- or even newspapers, for that matter -- you will eventually come across an essay about how a site is struggling with the question of whether to allow comments, or has decided to shut them down. The latest example of this genre comes from former Gawker Media and Wired staffer Joel Johnson, now managing editor of an arts and culture site called Animal New York, who says comments are worthless…
So, I've debated this myself. I often read and recently started commenting on posts. I find that the experience varies from site to site. I only visit ZDNET now because of the comments section.
I'm often put off when a site closes the comment sections. I don't personally have a large Twitter following or even care to use it and 140 characters is just not enough. I thing MG might be a little out of touch (and I like MG).
I do like GigaOM's approach to comments. The full integration with wordpress.com gives me the ability to know more about my fellow commenters and I have the option of re-blogging or just commenting. I’m finding the overall experience pretty rich.
