Chronology

Blogs have traditionally distinguished themselves by a personal viewpoint shared on a timeline. A river of content. Blogs grew up, redesigned to better suit our info-overload visual space. Look at Engadget or Joystiq to see what I'm talking about.

But comments are still chronological. The best sites are breaking out of the plain river, but comments, save those which are voted up/down (like digg and slashdot), are still largely put one after the other. In my world this winds up rewarding the opportunists. All too often these are the quick and dimwitted of the group. Throw in a healthy dose of "got no life" for many and it's a recipe for ignorance and vitriol.

So this is something I think about a lot. In no small part because I gave up watching "the news" all the time because most news "networks" are a sham (hence the quotes, designed to be read as air quotes in the most sarcastic of tones). They regurgitate the "top" stores with ever-widenening divergence of sense. My point? In the race to be first with the news, but lacking proper context, the solution is to "add commentary" to a story.

See where I'm going?

The first commenters are ill-informed but full of opinion. It's not just a blog problem.