When Blogs Become Too Successful

Well-known blogger and Yahoo staffer Russell Beattie found the demands of multiple channels of information so demanding that he has turned off comments in his blog, along with deleting hundreds of existing comments. Is it a blog without comments? Beattie Comments were taking up too much time to manage, and too many mental cycles as I processed them in addition to emails, IMs, SMS, Phone Calls, etc. I've gotten over 680 comments since Jan. 1st. That's an average of 20 a day - though sometimes many more - and I get at least 2 or 3 anonymous idiots per post as well, and the occasional spammer. Dealing with the comments takes time, and considering that I'm disorganized already, it's something that needed to be cut. For some reason, Beattie went a step beyond turning off comments. He deleted all the existing commentary on all of his blog entries. "All of the old ones, and no more new ones. All gone bye bye, he said. Trashing those old comments could be problematic, as the Mobile Jones indicated why it would be more desirable to leave a comment on a blog rather than creating a post on one's own blog to link to Beattie's, the model he suggests going forward: Sure, you can comment' on a blog post by writing your own blog post - but not everyone has a blog. And those who do often have themed' blogs where a certain level of on-topicness needs to be maintained. Can a blog be too successful? For one person with interests and work responsibilities beyond the blog, certainly. Beattie makes a good point on the multitude of ways people can be on the receiving end of information. But going back to the question of what makes a blog, comments seem to be the deciding factor. Taking them off a blog turns it into something that looks like it belongs on a different Gawker model of only permitting comments by invitation only. That would eliminate issues like comment spam and other anonymous posting hijinks. Now the question is, which of the more popular blog owners, well-established in here.") Drag this to your Bookmarks. Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") | Yahoo My Web David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.