One of the things that has always been a driving force in the movement forward of the whole blogging experience is that it was about having conversations. Important conversation, mundane conversations, political conversation or tech conversations it didn’t matter - in the end it was the fact that we were able to go that one step further and start conversations.

Along with this came the idea of people being able to provide feedback to these far ranging posts by way of the comments that could be attached to posts. One didn’t need to have a blog or a web site of any kind. One only had to have the desire to be a part of the conversation that had been started; or was already in full swing. Comments allowed this to happen.

Now neither of these two concepts are new or earth shattering after all we’ve had newsgroups and web forums for longer than we’ve had blogs and conversations have going on in those format for a very long time. But in many case either of those two required - especially in the early days - for a lot of money to be put out by the persons who were setting up the newsgroups or forums. Blogging; and RSS, changed all that and made it possible for the average person of average means to be able to start a conversation on the Internet for next to no expense.

The right technology at the right time.

As much as the idea of conversations and social media is being centered around bloggers and the blogosphere there is an additional layer of communication that goes on in the background. Not much is said about commenter’s whether they being doing it on blogs or as participants in forum threads after they have been started. The thing is though that these people have as just as much passion and power as the bloggers who have taken center stage in this whole conversation medium.

Without them the blogosphere, forums or even if you go back far enough the newsgroups would never had been successful. They truly would have been empty echo chambers of one or a very small group. As Mathew referred to them in a post today these are the members of the comment-o-sphere and their world is about to change and in turn change our whole conversation medium.

Up until now comments, web forums or newsgroups have been conversation silo’s not only for the main players but also for those members of the comment-o-sphere. Comments made within each of the different silos we as commenter’s might have made stayed there which is fine except then it required commenter’s to have to remember all the different places they had made comments or participated in conversations. Having to work at remembering all these silo locations makes leaving comments less appealing so the conversation can stagnate.

Companies like Disqus, IntenseDebate and sezwho are just a few of companies that have realized this and have created what I would call the commenting platform that bloggers can replace their existing format with. As more and more blogs see the advantages of the service provided by these companies the whole landscape of internet conversation will change.

It will change because  - as the actual creation of the blog platform changed the conversation for those that wanted to be initiators of conversations these commenting platforms are enabling people who have a passion for being a part of a conversation to be easily involved.

As it becomes easier for commenter’s to participate in the larger conversation; not just individual conversation silos, we will see another major shift in how conversations are held on the Internet and that bloggers no longer have the only voice that needs to be listened to … in a way this will be the democratization of the whole internet conversation sphere.

Conversation Tags: bloggers, conversation commenting, Disqus, IntenseDebate, sezwho