Cuban Kills Blog Comments

Dallas Mavericks owner and blogger Mark Cuban has disabled the ability for readers to leave comments. In a post about being called names he finishes by saying:"For the record, Im not turning on comments, they have devolved to the point where they add no value."

Mark's move is quite surprising. He has been open to feedback throughout his entire career, especially after he became a billionaire. In fact, his consistent approachability is nothing short of remarkable. He answers many of the thousands of emails he receives. I respect his decision, but I think there's something bigger going on here.

Cuban is the second influential blogger to openly poo-poo comments this month. Earlier, Seth Godin made similar remarks. I wonder if in part this is because the tools for moderating and mining comment data are pitiful.

This is one reason why some - myself included - don't find intra-blog conversation nearly as valuable as the inter-blog dialogue. I can search and measure the latter in ways I can't with the former. Blog comments are great and valuable to read, but still hard to sift, sort and respond to if you get a lot of them. Hopefully some smart entrepreneurs will fix this soon. When a blog like Mark's gets hundreds of comments per post, you need something to help you mine it all.

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