One of the great lessons I’ve had to learn over the years of doing business online is that of “standing in the stream”. In essence, what that means is that people are looking for stuff they want/need online…and they are going to search for it in whatever way makes the most sense to them. In the old-school model, you first needed to create a perception of need and then brand your product so that it was tied (in people’s minds) to your product as the solution. But, in the internet age, it’s backward…if you’ve got a product that meets a need, you find out what “they” (the peeps) are looking for already, and then you get out there and “stand in the stream” where they are already searching.
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Those who have spoken up over the past…oh, however long it’s been…about the “dangers of do-follow” are focused on the evils of spam and the increased maintenance side of things. Yes, if you’re going to manually monitor and approve blog comments (as I still do), it adds a bit of time to your daily routine. But I think this perspective is missing the point. Blogs are about self-expression, yes…but they are also about community. For me, if you don’t want community on your blog…TURN OFF THE COMMENT FUNCTION and just use it as a newsletter.
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Okay…I know…I’m usually the last one to know about these things. So this probably isn’t BREAKING NEWS to anyone (not that that would stop Rita Cosby from using that sound effect of hers!). But someone has finally created a plugin that does what I’ve been saying was needed for the last couple years.
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