I have spent the last couple of months exploring other forms of discussion, including Linked-In discussion groups, Google groups, Twitter, Kyte, Wikis, Facebook, Plaxo, Spoke, conventional listserv discussions, and plain old email. My sense is that Linked-In discussions for the most part spin down with only a few comments in a thread. Facebook is more personal but isn’t particular suited to discussion. Twitter marks stuff that’s interesting, but is more like a head’s up service.
Perhaps it’s difficult for folks to see a post and reply, as they would with email, since they have to click on a link and perhaps sign in before they can make a comment. The posting and revising resources also aren’t all that great. For instance, the edit function of the Linked-In discussion is much too limited–one can’t edit for style or show changes (after 15 minutes), as one can with a blog post or a wiki. One also can’t see the number of views, can’t link into existing comments, or adjust relevance (such as with collaborative filters). It’s also hard to supply a deep link to a discussion in these forums, as they are rather captive groups–you have to be a member first with some of them.
The most robust comments activity seems to be in the comments sections after news articles and in review areas in places like Amazon and Newegg, which are sort of out of the way for research enterprise stuff–though having some great book reviews all in one place would be worthwhile! There we also find some of the most inane stuff, but it is useful to recognize what we are, collectively.
Perhaps it’s not necessary or even desirable for there to be a bunch of comments on any given posting. But in terms of social media, it may be worth considering how we interact with this stuff, what good it does (if any).
Meanwhile, I’m aiming to bring back some of my work from elsewhere and redevelop it here, so it tracks all in one place. Downstream, I’ll try to do a better job of developing ideas here, and cross posting versions as it seems worthwhile. Thanks for following this thread of ideas.