Blog comments are dead?

Robert Scoble rants about blog comments being dead. I can't really say if this is true or not because I've never had that large of a following where comments flowed freely. I'm lucky if I get one or two comments every 20th post.

Regardless, he brings up an interesting point. Where is the conversation happening? Where are people interacting? Is it Twitter? Is it FriendFeed? Facebook?

I think it's a combination of both. Most, if not all bloggers, are hardcore RSS users. Basically, they never visit a blog or a website, they just aggregate all their news into one application and read in-line with other subscriptions. In my experience, I only visit a site to post a comment for two reasons:

1. The post is so compelling and I have something to refute, support or add to what was written.

2. It's on a popular blog and I'm going to comment with something witty that will drive traffic back to my site.

So then, if this could be said for most bloggers, how does the conversation take place is the better question. 

Again, I think it's a combination of people using multiple social media applications, services, etc. Most popular bloggers are on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, etc. The key is figuring out a way to use the multitude of applications so your head doesn't start spinning. The conversation is happening in many places, all the time, and it never stops. Keeping up with it is a pain in the you know what, to be honest with you. As someone who is forehead deep in social media (because I love it and because it's part of my job) I find that I've had to scale back who I listen to. 

My advice to those jumping into social media is to take baby steps. Follow the people you know or the people that you're inerested in reading. Don't just connect with folks to build a "friend" base. If you head down that path, it never ends. Streamline your feeds people. 

You've been warned.