Recode.net drops comments from its stories

Nov 20, 2014

Recode.net's reasons for dropping comments are similar to Reuters's reasons for announcing recently that it dropped comments from news stories: the discussion occurs on social media.

http://recode.net/2014/11/20/a-note-to-recode-readers/

... we concluded that, as social media has continued its robust growth, the bulk of discussion of our stories is increasingly taking place there, making onsite comments less and less used and less and less useful.

Our writers are all active on services like Twitter and Facebook, and our official Re/code accounts on social media post our stories all day long. ... and you are likelier to be able to interact with us there.

In effect, we believe that social media is the new arena for commenting, replacing the old onsite approach that dates back many years.

Reddit claims that it's "the front page of the internet."

Maybe Twitter is the message board of the Internet.

Opposing viewpoint posted on Nov 19, 2014 - Publishers Without Comments Sections Are Losing Out on Revenue

I suppose comment sections increase page views, which means more advertising revenue for the media org. The comment section may also dramatically increase the pain-in-the-ass factor. So the pros and cons must be weighed.

I rarely if ever read the comment sections for a publisher. I'm only interested in what the writer of the article wrote.

An obvious community site that allows anyone to start new threads is a different animal.

Interesting discussions that ironically are occurring on Twitter. Hah! The critics are proving recode.net's point.

https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/535545818271735808

https://twitter.com/emilybell/status/535523547587031040

https://twitter.com/fmanjoo/status/535540125057691649

https://twitter.com/dansinker
#comments - #media