TechCrunch has information on a service that I know will interest some ProBlogger readers seeking to create discussion around their posts. It’s called 3bubbles (to launch next week) and is an Ajax based chat system that you can add to your blog posts (via your templates) which will allow readers to have a chat (live) about the post.
What is doubly interesting to Pro Bloggers is that they are planning to integrate advertising into the system and will share revenue earned with bloggers.
It’s definitely an interesting idea and one that will be especially useful on highly trafficked blogs where there is critical mass to make it work, particularly on their most recent posts. I know that comments appear on my posts within minutes of me posting here at ProBlogger and so it could well work and help create a more dynamic environment – however on some of my less popular blogs I’m unsure how it would go.
The other implication of 3bubbles will be upon comments sections which one would presume would be used less. One of the advantages of comments is that they become a permanent part of your blog’s page – a permanent record that is easy to find and that becomes indexed in search engines along with your post.
From what I can see of the screen shots of 3bubbles they do allow readers to view previous messages.
I’ll be interested to see what this service is like, particularly the way that they allow bloggers to deal with chats that get out of hand (I don’t particularly want people using a chat window on my blogs to abuse each other, promote their own stuff in a spammy way etc).
I’ve got my reservations – but will hold off on judging it til I get to see it in action.
I’m making my ” reservations ” with you.
I’m more inclined to want comments that are permanent, have value, add links and add depth to the conversation I statred with my post.
The fact that a lot of great comments come days after the initial post is even more reason to think this isn’t for me.
This also bring a whole list of new issues, for example, moderation, flameing, dealing with childern under 13 (COPA), and much more. I’m not sure this will run successfully. If heavy traffic is hitting the chat session, I’m not sure the server can take it since this is not a thick client chat application but just a AJAX running server code.
Another problem is that a comment driven blog will require moderation and owner part!
This means that the owner of the blog will spend more time participating in the chat or moderating the chat versus working on the blog.
The dynamics of a chart is different from the dynamics of a blog and I fear that this tool will ultimately detract from the usefulness of a blog.
Certainly there are valid concerns about this type of dynamic chat feature – but it’s still amazing to me that we’re watching things like this become possible where a year or two ago they might have been pipe dreams.
I look forward to giving 3bubbles a shot!
It will also empower the trolls. With comments you can manage them and the process to a degree, but on a site that tempers get frayed rather easily, you would be assaulted without the protection of moderation and live chat that is accesible from the masses.
This is quite interesting. They should make it so that it saves a history of whatever people say, and close the chat after some time. Any future comments can be made like regular comments.
Hey Darren,
All the above, not to mention different time zones, your yesterday is my today…(or is that your tomorrow?)
I don’t see how it could work except for people in the same TZ.
Joe
I don’t know if this is such a good idea.
Instant chats give lots of opportunity to trolls and content spammers.
IMHO instant chats are are not conductive to thoughtful conversation.
For obvious reasons adding a chat to your blog or website is something that needs to be thought through. However, having worked as a journalist and editor since 1991 and webpublising since 1998, I´m sure of one thing: Using a chat-plugin on your blog to make the experience of reading your blog richer, plus having your readers hook up and become richer by network – I´m really struggeling to see how a chat-plugin can be a bad thing. If used the proper way.
Now some of you I´m sure will not agree, but for me the only way of using a chat-plugin would be to offer this to members-only and thereby control spamming and “stupid” users.
what it do
Very nice system. I was waiting for this thing and it is finally available!