I get a lot of email from listeners who would like to have a way to discuss IT Conversations programs after they’ve heard them — something more than our trackbacks, particularly since most listeners don’t have their own weblogs. So what tool(s) would work best?
About 18 months ago I installed one of those discussion-forum packages and linked it to the database. There was one discussion-forum ‘topic’ for each program. But after a few months, there was virtually no traffic to the forum and a whole lotta spam. Of course there weren’t many IT Conversations listeners in those days.
Should we just create a ‘comments’ feature? Should we try the discussion-forum idea again? A wiki? A blog with comments? Something else I’m just not thinking of at the moment?
Blogarithms 
A blog with comments gets my vote.
LikeLike
Requiring a typed-in verification code (like the one below) would kill most of the spam…my guess is that if rating/commenting is quick and easy, and helpful for the viewer, a lot of people will use it (c.f. Amazon reviews)
LikeLike
A comment function per show for registered users only. Good would be a system which allows threads.
BTW – I am not able to use the login function on the IT Conversations site. Am using a Mac with Firefox.
LikeLike
Comments would be good, as would transcripts… But I could be asking too much. [‘Whats in it for IT Conversations?’ is not really answered, except a bit more low bandwidth traffic, think of all the deaf people… I am really that low, to gratuously pull at sympathy strings, a big point to a small number of people though…]
LikeLike
1. Approximately 28 million people in United States have some degree of hearing loss that interfers with normal activites; that number was the population of California in the 1980s – not a *few* people, even for the 1 country among about 200 in the world; over 50% of the U.S. population is over 50 years old now, the leading edge of the “baby-boomer” generation; a ittle foresight might suggest the growth in population-number with some hearing loss might be more than a niche market. (even though trends in 3rd world nations has them with a baby-boom just getting started – wealth spreading?)
2. I like the 5-star follow-up e-mail to ITconversations programs requesting rating. Would it be as nice, and simpler to have this triggered as pop-up or on-page vote (active only after a complete listen/play through?
LikeLike