Ever read something on this site and feel like you need to respond? Apparently, you’re not the only one.

In the past two weeks, I have received at least ten emails or Twitter messages asking me why I have disabled comments on Eloquation I Tell Stories; most of them requested that I open up comments and allow the conversation to grow around my writing.

I’m thinking about it. But before I do, some context…

Learning from history

I disabled the ability comment on individual posts on Eloquation just over a year ago. (I have, however, always allowed people to leave trackbacks or pingbacks to any post on the site.) There were three core reasons behind my decision at that point:

• My blog was a personal publishing platform: While many argue that the blog is a space for conversation on the web, my primary goal in creating Eloquation (or Wholesome Goodness or On A Day Like Today, the iterations that came before this one) was to have place to publish my thoughts and my writing on the web. I was using other spaces on the internet to initiate conversation and discussion.
• People had other places to respond: I’ve always been a big fan of the concept of trackbacks. Creating a cross-linked compendium of related ideas (rather than collapsing ideas in one comment thread) across the web feels like a much richer way to create conversation to me. In the past little while, I’ve experimented with adding Technorati links or Twitter replies to my posts as well, to show how conversation happens outside the blog.
• Nobody was leaving comments: There’s only so many “Comments (0)” you can see on a page. Of course, I knew that this is largely my own fault: if the content I create isn’t engaging enough to incite conversation, then I shouldn’t be expecting many replies. That being said, the content was personally important enough for me to publish it, so the compromise was to remove the option for commenting altogether.

That’s some context as to why the comments disappeared. But should they come back?

Learning from others

I’m not the first to have this internal debate over the validity of comments on a blog. There’s a multitude of opinions on both sides of the fence.

Dave Winer most famously said:

In fact, to the extent that comments interfere with the natural expression of the unedited voice of an individual, comments may act to make something not a blog.

Echoing those thoughts, Joel Spolsky has said:

You don’t have a right to post your thoughts at the bottom of someone else’s thoughts. That’s not freedom of expression, that’s an infringement on their freedom of expression.

Russell Beattie agrees with my thoughts on disparate conversations:

What these people don’t get is that I wrote a post on my weblog, they read it and responded on their weblog, and now I’m responding to them again here. That’s a conversation - no comments needed.

Of course, people like Jeff Atwood vehemently argue for the other side:

If readers want to have a public dialog with you, then your readers must have blogs of their own. This strikes me as awfully elitist. […] Are you really comfortable saying, in effect, unless you have a blog I am not interested in what you have to say?

Mathew Ingram, of course, sums up the other side’s argument well:

What makes most blogs interesting isn’t so much the great things that the writer puts on there (as much as I like to hear the sound of my own voice), but what kind of response it gets, and how that develops, and who carries it on elsewhere on their own blog.

Needless to say, there really hasn’t been any real consensus as to necessity of having comments on a blog yet. And that’s why I need your help.

Learning from you

What do you think? Do you think I should bring comments back on I Tell Stories? Should I open up comments on all posts, or just selected content? Should I keep allowing trackbacks?

I’m opening up comments on this post to see if any of you have some thoughts about the topic. Feel free to contact me through Twitter, email, SMS, or trackback if you feel so inclined.

I have a friend who lives in London that makes me incredibly happy every time I see her. Not only do we always have a wonderful time together, but she always challenges me, asks me questions that get me thinking about the world and my place within it.

Last night, as we were out for a few drinks at Jewel, she asked me a question that has actually been on my mind for a few days: “What are your magical goals and dreams?”

Funny enough, this wasn’t the first time I was thinking about my childhood dreams in the past few days. Early last week, I came across an inspirational video of a lecture delivered by Randy Pausch entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”

For those of you that haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend downloading the high quality version of the lecture on iTunes for free.

In light of my friend’s question and Randy’s lecture, I decided to think about my childhood — actually, teeenage — dreams. More specifically: what were my great goals for my life ahead when I was thirteen years old?

Confessions of a teenage cheeseball

I recently found an old school project that I had done in eighth grade where I had listed my life goals. If you laugh, I don’t mind: I know I was a little cheesy and cutesy back then. The funny thing is, I still am.

• Be published (preferably regularly as a staff writer) in The New Yorker.
• Make someone (even a stranger) smile and really feel happy every day.
• Be the kind of father where my child honestly thinks I’m the world’s greatest dad.
• Always be aware of the beauty around me and the inherent goodness in everything and everyone.

Done laughing at my mushy schmaltz? Well, that’s a glimpse into the mind of Sameer Vasta at the age of thirteen.

Confessions of an adult cheeseball

The scary thing I need to admit now is that the mind of Sameer Vasta at the age of thirteen isn’t much different from the mind of Sameer Vasta at age twenty-six. To this day, those four dreams are still very much alive and still drive my every action every day.

And for those of you that think I’m being under-ambitious and have picked dreams that are too easy, let me tell you that getting published in The New Yorker is probably the easiest of tasks on my list. Think about it.

The other three require constant reflection upon the things I do and the way I interact with the people and places around me. They are, as my friend said, my “magical goals and dreams,” and nobody says magic is easy.

Working Class Heroes makes sleeves for your laptop and other electronics from high quality wool felt and leather. Their products combine quality craftsmanship with excellent aesthetics and protection and come shipped with care from Austria within a few days.

The Experience

After buying my Macbook Pro, I spent a good two weeks looking for the perfect sleeve to keep it protected. I have a tendency to bang my laptops around a bit, so I needed to find something that not only looked great, but offered some serious protection. After two weeks of pretty intense research, I found Working Class Heroes and I was sold.

Made with high quality wool felt and leather, the sleeves are hand crafted in Austria with impeccable craftsmanship and an acute attention to detail. The sleeves are sturdy, beautiful, and absolutely functional. So much so that I bought three of them: one for my MB Pro, one for my iPod Touch, and one for my Moleskine.

Ordering the sleeves is remarkably easy, with several payment options (including Paypal) and low priority shipping charges. The products arrive quickly, and each package includes a Austrian chocolate wafer bar as a nice little treat.

The Gotchas

There is very little I can say about the Working Class Heroes products that is negative. The only thing I do warn everyone about is that fact that the sleeves are actually thicker than they appear in the photos on the website. While that’s not a problem (in fact, it’s a marker of the high quality of the materials they use) it’s an important tidbit to remember when you’re ordering so you can plan your pocket or bag space accordingly.

And I hate to harp on price, but these things cost a pretty penny. I can substantiate paying a premium for this kind of craftsmanship, but they are on the expensive side when it comes to laptop sleeves.

What It Costs

These sleeves are not cheap. The cheapest among the laptop sleeves costs about 60 euros, and even little things like the Moleskine cases will run you over $75 US. Luckily, shipping is pretty cheap, and the customer service is fantastic, but be prepared to pay a premium for this kind of quality.

Recommended If You Like

Wool, felt, leather, keeping your computer and gadgets well protected, European craftsmanship, Austrian wafer chocolates, having something cool that your friends will probably never see with anyone else.

This Unsolicited Testimonial has been inspired by (shamelessly stolen from?) Anil Dash’s series by the same name. Please see that post for more information and background.

Andrew Baron’s decision to sell his Twitter account has caused quite the stir. And while I’m not quite sure if this is an elaborate hoax or a calculated PR stunt, I do know one thing:

It’s a very bad idea.

Buying a pre-packaged community is a bad idea, clearly, but selling your audience is just as bad. I know this because it has been done before.

Selling your soul

This whole situation reminds me of the companies and marketing firms that buy lists of email addresses in order to send their messages to a large (but, I’d argue, disinterested and unengaged) crowd.

The practice of buying email lists demonstrates a blatant laziness and lack of true customer care from the company purchasing the list: instead of taking the time to create conversations and engage with the community, they instead decide to effectively spam people who have not signed up to interact with them in the first place.

Undoubtedly, this leads to negative feelings toward the company or marketing firm, and — at least this is true in my case — an immediate ignoring of all messages they may send, even if they are pertinent to my current situation. This also leads to a distrust and dismay towards the people that sold the address as well. They lose credibility, and most importantly, loyalty.

When you buy tickets to a Prince concert, you don’t want to see David Hasselhoff on stage just because The Purple One got a chunk of cash to give up his audience. That’s bad news in the end for both Prince and the ‘Hoff.

Communities are not for sale, and people that think that they can sell an engaged audience are setting themselves up not only for disappointment, but derision as well.

Saving grace

Andrew’s not being shady and selling your engagement behind your back. He’s being open about it, and people have the option to leave the community if they wish. (Which makes me wonder all the more about his motives for doing this in the first place.) He may be spared the backlash because of his openness.

Let’s hope, for Andrew’s sake, that he is. He’s a really nice guy.

But I still think that if Andrew really wanted to make a bit of cash from Twitter, the better option would be for people to pay him to tweet (with complete transparency) about products and services. That way he wouldn’t be compromising his community.

Right now, he’s selling you and me for a quick buck. Not only does that reflect poorly on him, but it’s just a bad idea that’ll never work.

This tale took place some months ago, but I was inspired to share it with you all by a post Michael Sippey on his recent experience at an Apple Store Genius Bar.

Once upon a time…

…I was sitting on a table in front of the Apple Store Yorkdale, using the free wireless to catch up on a few emails and some work before I got on the subway to head downtown. Even though I know the staff don’t mind if people just stop by to use the free wi-fi, I’m always hesitant to log on without having bought anything.

Because of my hesitancy, you can imagine my apprehension when I was startled by an Apple “Genius” (I really think that Apple needs to rethink the ‘genius’ label. It just seems silly to me.) tapping me on my shoulder and staring at my Macbook. Instead of chiding me for using the wireless, he instead pointed to my computer and said,

“You’ve got some serious discoloration on your Macbook. Want me to change that for you?”

Three minutes later, he emerged with a new casing panel for my computer and replaced the old, discolored part for a shiny new white replacement. Once he had finished that, he asked me if I had any other problems with the Macbook. I told him about my declining battery life, and after running a quick diagnostic check, he pulled out a new battery and replaced my old one on the spot.

And we all lived happily ever after.

I quote this example when people ask me why I’m such a die-hard fan of Apple products. Sure, they may make products that look pretty and have remarkable user interfaces, but that “genius” that day showed me the core of the Apple philosophy: be proactive in engaging with your users and fix problems before they become problems.

You can definitely argue that Apple has failed to do that in certain cases, but on the whole, the focus on the customer — over and above what is expected from regular customer service — is what makes me such a fan of Jobs’ company.

So here’s a thank you to that “genius” that made my day.

The end.

For now.

Jason Kottke recently linked to an article about people saying words wrong on purpose. It’s quite a fun article, and the comments on Kottke’s post are great.

From the article:

I sometimes say “muscles” so that the ‘c’ has a ‘k’ sound (the same way the cartoon character Popeye says it), computor instead of “computer” (after Ned Beatty’s exaggerated pronunciation of “Mr Luthor” in the Superman movies), and I occasionally say benimber instead of “remember” because it was something my cousin Paul said more than 20 years ago.

Personally, I’m known to say aminals instead of animals, anyhoo instead of anyhow, supposably instead of supposedly, vegematables instead of vegetables, and skizzurs instead of scissors.

Yeah, I’m a freak like that. But now I know I’m not the only one.

Kris Krug is a fantastic photographer. Trust me. If you don’t believe me, then just ask him. He’ll pull out his iPhone and prove it to you.

Like many of us, Kris keeps photos on his iPhone. But for Kris, who works as a professional photographer (among many other things), the photo feature on his iPhone isn’t simply a place to store photos of his family and that great party he went to last week.

It’s his portable personal portfolio.

When Kris meets a potential client or someone that’s just interested in his work, instead of pointing them to a website, he can pull out his iPhone and set up a slideshow so that they can see his photographs right there on the spot. Instantaneous gratification.

Which got me thinking: I can see the use of the iPhone (or iPod Touch) for carrying the portfolios of photographers and artists, but what about other kinds of content creators? How can they carry their portfolios in their pockets?

For example, my writing portfolio doesn’t translate all too well to the small screen (maybe it should?) and I feel as though I’m limited to just giving people a card so they can visit my website. While I Tell Stories looks great on an iPhone, the mobile device still isn’t conducive for consuming large amounts of text.

I’m exploring ways of making my writing portfolio more mobile and easier to consume. If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.