Are Google Corporate Blogs Overcoming Comment Phobia?
Google, unlike many corporations, seems to embrace blogging as one of its chief ways of communicating their thoughts online. Blogging after all, is a quick, cheap method (unless you are paying for hosting) to mention new features, dispel rumors and even correct a few blunders without hiring a PR team.
But unlike some of the corporate blogs out there, Google seems to have shied away from opening up their comment section, despite the fact that competitors such as Yahoo have allowed users to post feedback for quite some time.
Even though Google’s main corporate blog has declined to open up their posts for reader reaction, it looks like over a dozen Google departments are opening up their comment section for the masses.
The list of Google blogs embracing comment openness include:
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- Blogger In Draft (aka Blogger’s Playground)
- Google Checkout API Blog (although the Google Checkout Blog does not)
- Google Desktop API Blog (although the Google Desktop Blog remains closed)
- Google Finance Blog
- Google Online Security Blog
- Google Public Policy Blog
- Google Sketchup Blog
- Google Testing Blog
- Google Librarian Central
- Google Sumer of Code Blog
- Webmaster Central Blog
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- Burning Questions (Feedburner Blog)
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Rolled Their Own:
Of course the last three blogs were “acquired” after Google, although the YouTube Blog did not open up their comment section until after Google bought them out (according to memory).
Currently most Google blogs require their users to either email comments to them (which is annoying) or post their thoughts inside a Google Group (which is even more irritating).
Hopefully the other Google blogs will catch the “comment fever,” as many users would probably prefer voicing their opinion directly on a Google post, rather than venting their thoughts on their personal blogs.
Darnell Clayton is a geek who discovered blogging long before he heard of the word "blog" (he called them "web journals" then). When he is not tweeting, friendfeeding, or blogging about space, he enjoys running, reading and describing himself in third person.