As I continue to publish more content on the Internet through my blog I have noticed a trend developing with responses and content creation. 
The majority of responses or comments that I receive regarding blog posts are through Facebook. I have linked my blog posts to an RSS feed, Plaxo Pulse, Facebook, LinkedIn, and a few other sites. So as I publish an entry, it is fanned out across these platforms. This allows me to distribute the content to a different group of people that I’m connected to through these various sites.
Blogs are setup to allow comments and additional discussion below the original content. Popular blogs with thousands of readers may generate a few to a multitude of comments based on the entry topic and the number of readers. Studies that I have read show that most readers of blogs do not create additional content, they simply read to find information on a topic or to follow a particular writer. In fact, many studies I’ve read in the past showed that most Internet users are content consumers rather than content providers.
This is changing though. The recent boom of Facebook and Twitter are increasing the number of content creators. What helps Facebook and Twitter are that they provide a framework for people to create short bursts of content. Unlike a blog, discussion group, or user forum Facebook and Twitter allow users to quickly push content without having to worry about creating paragraphs of information. It’s quick and easy. Everyone loves to talk about their kids, pets, hobbies, vacations, music, sports teams, etc.
So what’s the big deal? Well, while the amount of Internet content syndication is increasing, the ability to centralize all of the follow-on comments and discussion is not. The comments and discussion are only visible on the tool used to read the web syndication. So for example, the comments made by my friends on Facebook don’t show on the blog itself. So there is opportunity here for the creation of a new service to centralize and syndicate all of the comments and discussion. Ultimately this benefits everyone because all of the readers of the content can participate and learn from the full breadth of discussion.
What do you say? If you are reading this from within Facebook, do you not read blogs directly? Would you reply to a post on Facebook but not directly on a blog site?
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