My Suicide Girls column, and the problem with social networking
My latest Suicide Girls column is live. This one has some bad words and talks about erotica, so I am lifting my usual “the site isn’t safe for work but the column is” statement.
And I’m very pleased with this one. I planned this for several weeks, thinking about what I’d say, how I’d write it. I think this is one of the best I’ve done for the site. It’s funny, edgy, and talks, tangentially, about sex. Kinda fits with the SG theme, right?
The thing is, the column has gotten three comments. Three very good comments, but still only three. I got more when I talked about prom queens. But I know it resonated with people, because when I posted the column on Twitter, I got a slew of replies, a couple of DMs (direct messages, for you non-twitter-users), and some comments via IM. So people read it and enjoyed it.
But my editors don’t know this. They know it got hits, but they don’t know what people think of it. Because people are talking about it away from the SG site. They’re talking about it on Twitter, where they know for sure I’ll see it. After I post this, you can talk about it here on my blog, and Facebook (where it x-posts). But in my editors’ opinions, they want discussion on their site.
I think this is one of the problems with social networking. Sure, I can use my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Digg to point lots of people to this column. But that also means people will use my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Digg to discuss it instead of focusing discussion on the SG site where, some may argue, it belongs. And we have created this – all the better to spread the word, right? I am not complaining; I know I have brought several readers to SG because of my columns. I’m also not going to try to ask people to comment there instead of somewhere else- I know I can’t force that. It’s just an interesting realization.
You can lead a reader to your site, but you can’t make them comment. They’ll talk about it wherever they want.
Category: Writing
Doesn’t posting on SG require a subscription?
I was halfway through typing you a Twitter response to this before realising the irony. (Though I guess here you don’t have editors who’d be missing out on demographic information.)
It’ll take a more savvy mind than mine to figure out a system by which a site could usefully gather the feedback from other social networking sites and solve the problem, but I’m not sure it’s insurmountable or particularly jarring. Scalzi disallows comments on his blog posts about his weekly column, and it doesn’t seem a problem asking people to discuss it over there rather than his own site. Lots of tweeting might just add to the overall conversation, rather than discouraging people from leaving comments. If you let people know your preference, a few more might at least leave a quick thumbs-up note on the original post before carrying on their own Facebook conversation about it.
Or not. Like I say, savvier minds. I liked the column, even though I didn’t tell you.
Very true Mur, very true. We had that very problem with Mine (Hutch’s pop culture site). People were commenting on Twitter like mad, but not on the Mine site. It’s a pity I don’t know of a way to funnel comments I get via Twitter on my projects to say my blog or iTunes. There should be a way darn it.
Never thought about that. I’ll comment on the site in the future, in addition to anything elsewhere.
I haven’t read your suicidegirls article yet because I can’t access it from work and I forgot to read it last night. However, I have starred both of the twitter posts where you linked to it, so I should get to it sometime soon.
——– (note: the following may not apply to the suicidegirls website–it’s been a looong time since I was there)
Now on the business of commenting on blog articles in general: The problem is the spammers and the trolls, right? I mean spammers and trolls force blog admins to require authentication to comment. But I can barely manage my existing username/password list as it is. When I have just finished reading something I have an opinion on, I have an urge to add my voice to the stream of comments already at the end of the article. But then I see that “you must be registered” thing and I think, “I haven’t got time. I was already supposed to be doing something else 20 min ago.” And so my voice goes unheard. My $0.02 un…cented or something.
I think a lot of these social networking site problems will resolve themselves in the next 6 – 24 months (wide time margins help make predictions come true). Specifically–to the commenting problem, it would be neat if all of a given individual’s comments could be hosted at some central site and then that person could just create a link from an article they want to comment on back to that central comment server. But, the neat trick would be, the comment would still be automatically displayed on the site where the article appeared. I’m thinking of something like an IMG SRC tag or new ENCLOSURE tag for comments basically.
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Furry cows moo and decompress.
That’s an issue, so many channels to have your voice heard – it becomes disparate.
The same goes with viewing TV – in the UK the viewing numbers per show are way down as people now have so much choice. On the commercial networks that means less eyeballs watching, less advertising money, less expenditure on the programes (production, research, fact-checking).
Thank heavens for the BBC!
That’s an issue, so many channels to have your voice heard – it becomes disparate.
The same goes with viewing TV – in the UK the viewing numbers per show are way down as people now have so much choice. On the commercial networks that means less eyeballs watching, less advertising money, less expenditure on the programes (production, research, fact-checking).
Thank heavens for the BBC.
Hey Mur. I just read your SG post on the Kindle. Have you tried releasing your novel as a DRM-free eBook? Consider. Readers love the format plus it’s shareable. Seems reading is cool again…if you can do it on your iPhone in public view. I’m all for it. Mini-screens are the new paperbacks??
There’s a Kindle version of BIRTHDAY GIRL for those who shelled out for the device but there’s also a DRM-free ePub version for everyone else. Check them out and email me directly (or Twitter dianejwright) for the hookup. It’s not porn (sadly), but people tell me it’s still a good read.
djw
http://birthdaygirl.fatbrain.ca
Diane, I have several version of my book out- free PDF, Kindle, iPhone app, podcast, and print. I’m a big fan of Creative Commons.
You can find them all at http://www.playingforkeepsnovel.com
Problem is also to reply to the SG site one must be a member this is something not everyone can do
It’s an interesting point and you’re right on the money here — you can’t direct how and where people will respond. Perhaps it’s just a matter of SG won’t see the feedback directly, but will still see the benefits. Or maybe it’s a matter of time. After enough columns written, maybe **your** loyal audience will become an audience loyal to **SG** as a whole, and then they’ll sign up and leave comments on the SG site. In that case, the social networking deal just means it will take a little longer to see the comments directly on the site.
Dutifully, I went over to Suicide Girls to read the post. I went to comment on it… clicked “Comments.” Nothing happened. Took a minute or two to find out that I have to register with Suicide Girls to comment. I don’t even remember if I have an account with them… and it was just enough of a hassle to figure that out that I gave up and came over here.
I experience the same phenomenon with my blog posts — I have more comments on my post about a silly and ill-advised attempt to charge used booksellers a fee when they sell a used book in the LinkedIn Groups where I linked it than on the actual post. (Yow, that’s a horrible sentence but you get me.) People also comment in Twitter, on Facebook… especially on Twitter.
So I turned off the requirement that people register on my site to comment on my blog. Suicide Girls should do the same if they want a membership base that’s interested in more than looking at nekkid people.
Yes, I know they want to harvest users to show their advertisers how big their audience is. That’s kind of what my initial rationale for requiring registration.
But! What I finally figured out, and what SG needs to accept, is that it’s the conversation that drives traffic, builds brands, inspires loyalty.
There should be a WordPress plugin that links twitter comments to a blog post. But I leave that to the people with the chops to build such a thing.
I’m with Nobilus on this one. I was going to comment on the article, but couldn’t find anyway to do so without subscribing. Frankly yours is the only column I would read on SG, so it would not be worth the $4 a month subscription fee (not that YOU aren’t worth $4 a month, but I’d sooner give it to you directly than something like SG). If they want more feedback on articles then they should open up the comments to everyone who can view them.
Mur, when John Scalzi posts his AMC movie columns on Whatever, he turns off comments on the Whatever entry and specifically asks people to comment at the AMC site. You may lose some comments that way, because not everyone will click through, but it’s worth a try.
For most bloggers (who are active on Twitter), Twitter has killed the blog comment.
Commenting as a means of figuring out how successful your work is ends up being a pretty problematic way of gauging that anyway. When I wrote for a blog that had fairly high traffic,I would frequently write posts that only got 3 or 4 comments– the way to get up in the 60s and 70s was to piss everyone off. If you’re going by comments alone, those are ridiculously successful posts, but if I did them regularly I would (hopefully) lose all of my readers. (Unless they just enjoyed being angry with me)
I am one of those who went to comment on the article but realized you had to pay $4/month to do so *and* I was quite willing to do so just to comment (and look at nekked chicks) but alas, I don’t own a credit credit card or live in the US. SG should accept PayPal. Therefore you will get my comment here:
I loved the article Mur. You put whatever the hell you want on your Kindle. I bet PT’s friends father has a stash of fuck me magazines somewhere in his house. Hell, I do
I’m glad you’re loving the Kindle though. As someone who is much like yourself and prefers dog-earring or beating up my favorite novel however the hell I want, I’m not sure if I could make the switch.
One question: Do you think you would have eventually bought a Kindle if not given one for a present?
Keep being you!
[...] Tuesday’s post about social networking and the link caused some discussion! I want to bring up a couple of [...]
Ironic — I read this post yesterday, and today I hear about a potential solution. Someone has written a WordPress plugin that traces Twitter comments about your post that include links to the post (called Tweetbacks). http://danzarrella.com/wp-tweetbacks-plugin.html
It looks like it’s an early version, and since I haven’t migrated to WordPress yet I can’t attest to how well it works, but it certainly sounds like a step in the right direction.
Now if someone can reverse-engineer it to include Facebook, MySpace, etc. etc. ad nauseum, we might have all our bases covered