Reasons why people don't comment on Blogger blogs?

Found this interesting and worthy post on How to live Online. As the title says, it's about Why people don't comment on Blogger blogs. Thanks to Thiru, the owner of the main post. Read on -

These 5 reasons apply to the users of Blogger service only. I have to admit that commenting on some blogger blogs is not an easy task. There are few hurdles a reader need to cross before they comment.

If you are a blogger user and want to get more comments, please sort out your commenting options.

• Your blog says "You need a Blogger ID to comment on this blog"
  
  What if a reader do not have a blog, but wants to leave a comment. :@ I am sure, there are some billion people who read blogs but do not have a blog. Fix this by logging into Blogger.
  

  From dashboard, go to Settings --->Comments
  select 'Anyone' for 'Who can comment?'
  Click 'Save Settings' at the bottom of the page.

  
  By this way, people can comment anonymous. Anonymous comments sometimes provide good feedback for your posts.


• Your blog shows a 'Word verification' AND you moderate the comments as well.
  
  If you have set 'Enable Comment Moderation', then you need not set 'Word verification' for commenting. Because, the word verification feature is not liked by non-techie people (and lazy :x commentors like me). I have removed the "Word verification" option in my comments section, but I am not receiving any 'spam comments'. The frequency of comments have gone up since then. Since you moderate every comment, you can simply 'reject' any marketing messages or spam comments.
  
  Tell your readers that you have removed the "word verification" on comments. Try it for few weeks, you are going to loose anything.
  
  [ Both settings available on the same page ]


• You moderate your comments "once in a blue moon"
  
  No one wants to leave the first comment. So, if a reader sees a post without any comment, they wont probably leave a comment. :( Frequently check if anyone has left a comment for moderation - at least once in a day. There is a better option in Blogger that allows to receive notifications when someone comments on your blog.
  
  Use a separate email-id for receiving such notifications, and you can use this email-id to subscribe 'comment replies' from other blogs as well. Log in at least once a day and check if you have any comments waiting for moderation.


• You never reply to a genuine reader's question (applies to all bloggers)
  
  You need to reply to a comment that says, "Excellent post', 'Wonderful words', 'Pretty pictures' etc. But, if a reader asks a genuine doubt or a questions, you need to answer them. Otherwise, you are not rewarding your fans who leave comments. When you answer them immediately, they feel their opinion is valued and answered, :$ this will encourage them to leave more comments in the future.
  
  One extra step you can take, is to visit their blog and leave comments.


• Your comments open in a pop-up window.
  
  While, I click on 'comment on this post' link and wait, your comment box opens up in a pop-up window and I close your blog window thinking there is some problem. At the end of browsing session, I see your comment pop-up window hanging - but, I have forgotten already what I was about to reply to your post.
  
  Set 'No' to "Show Comments in a Pop-up Window?". [ Setting in same page as before ] It helps your readers.


• And an additional reason:
  
  Not inviting your RSS subscribers to comment on a post. You can include a footer, that invites your readers to your blog to write comments (be nice and friendly!). If you are publishing your blog feed with Feedburner, you can build interactivity into your feed. There are plenty of options, 'Comments count', 'Email the author', 'Share in facebook' etc.

One additional point from me [Bikram here :) ] -
We need to go to a different page to comment. There's no option to comment from the post page itself. There are hacks for this which shows the comment window using iFrame. [as used in this blog. See comment window below] But this doesn't look good. Casual visitors just hate to go on clicking for no apparent reason. It'd have been better to have the comment box just below the post - ala - wordpress style.


What other things annoy you as a blog reader and what stops you from commenting on certain blogs?

Blogger added email notification of comment follow-up

Blogger has just added a much sought-after feature in its commenting system - Subscribe to comments via email. What a relief. I actually found out about it while I was posting a comment on my friend's blog. I saw the new "Email follow-up comments" option in her comment box. :# I thought maybe it's a hack that she's using. So, I pinged her up on GTalk and asked what hack has she used. She was dumb-founded; as if I'm speaking latin. Anyways, I headed back to my blog and was replying to a comment there. That was another shock of excitement. That "Email follow-up comments" option was available in my comment box also. That's great. :o

I came back to my blogger dashboard and there it was - the blogger-buzz news.

That's one feature we all have been looking for a long time. Following comments was a real problem earlier for blogspot blogs. Wordpress users were much lucky in this regard. Say, I come upon a random blog post and find it interesting. I leave my views there as comment. Now, I'd surely like to see how others react to my comment. But that was one hell of a job till now. I used to bookmark that page and visit it time and again to check for new comments. Sometimes, I didn't want to do all that task - so simple left my comment and moved on; thus lost track of it. :@ Subscribing to comment feed isn't good enough. But now, the email subscription is here. And with this, following comments is lot more easier. :)

There's some insufficiency though. Only google account holders can use this feature. :( They say -

In order to receive follow-ups via email, you’ll need to post your comment using your Google Account. We only send comments to your verified Google Account so that someone else can’t use this feature to send you email you didn’t sign up for.

Well, their argument is viable. But still, it robs others of the chance of email follow-up. Same option for others would be appreciated.

Anyways, one more feature that we all are expecting Google to integrate. That is - providing the comment box just under the post - just like wordpress blogs. That way - we can write a comment from the post page itself and won't have to navigate to a separate page for that. That's a really bad drawback of blogspot. Hope google see to it soon. :$