There was some pretty big news in the blogworld yesterday when it was announced that Deadspin is going to start cutting commenting privileges from even more people, making it the least accessible sports site in the history of the internet after USS Mariner.
I am a big fan of many of the older writers on Deadspin, most of whom have started their own spinoff blogs. It’s hard for me to bash the big blog in the sky because they were one of the first and are certainly the biggest and I have nothing but respect for all of the cleverness that was born because of the those early posts. But lately there have been changes, both in the quality of the posts and the direction of the site that leave me nonplussed.
A few thoughts:
1. Aren’t half of deadspin’s posts these days just a picture and a link? Don’t those posts exist exclusively for commenters since there isn’t anything unique added by the editing staff? And if that’s the case, doesn’t it behoove the editors and marketing department to allow as many people to comment there as possible to increase pageviews? Comments start conversations which causes people to refresh their screen repeatedly creating new impressions and increasing revenue. Isn’t that the point when the only thing you’ve posted is a picture and a headline with a link to another website?
2. And if this does go through, do you expect those people who were booted to stick around and read the comments from the outside? Or do you expect them to come back and bitch and moan about it through facebook. Congratulations on creating a second class commentariat that will despise the site. Read the rest of this entry »
