Thursday, June 9, 2011

Comments, Tweets, FB, or Phone Calls

I got a call earlier this week from my husband's cousin. She lives about 4 1/2 hours from us, so we don't see her very often. Mostly on holidays and other special occasions. But she's great. Want an example? Well, that call that I got earlier in the week, it was to tell me that she reads my blogs. She doesn't always comment (do any of us?), but wanted to let me know that she does read them and really likes them. Is that not the coolest thing ever? It totally made my day.

I know that lots of bloggers really prefer the response to their blog posts to come in the form of comments. I, too love comments. (Even though I can't get my new comments to work quite the way that I want them to just yet. *sigh*) So if you're feeling so inclined, please leave a comment. But I also know that sometimes leaving comments is probably the least user-friendly way of responding to a blog post. You have to enter your name and your email address and your web address. Sometimes you need to need to login through some other account. Some people have (gasp) captcha. I do a lot of blog reading from my iPhone, so jumping through all those hoops on my tiny little screen is an even bigger pain. OR if I read blogs through my Google Reader iPhone app, it's an even bigger pain, since you have to leave the Reader format to go to the actual site, but when I get there, Google still makes me login even though it knows it's me since I'm logged into Reader, just to leave a comments. In the end, a response tweet or a comment through FB is just SO much easier.

And then there are all those blog posts that you read that make you smile or think or that you just kinda like, but don't have any really deep response to. And it makes me think that what I always thought of as the stupid Facebook Like button maybe wasn't such a bad idea after all. Because sometimes all of those hoops you have to jump through just to say, "nice post" just aren't worth it.

So I'm going on record. I love comments. Feel free to leave me one. But if you'd rather respond via Tweet or FB or even by giving me a call, I'm totally cool with that, too. (I realize that most of you don't have access to that last option. Sorry about that. And no, I'm not giving you my phone number.)

And to cousin-in-law Becky: Thanks. You made my day.