One side effect of this challenge is that I’m pummeling you, my dearest reader, with posts that are not “on topic.” I wonder what your thoughts are on that. Is this a totally self-indulgent exercise? Is the quantity and frequency of posting driving you crazy? Do you wish I’d not sink all my energy into this challenge, so that I’d have some energy for writing more topical posts? Regardless of your perspective, I’m so dangerously close to being only a day behind, I’m plodding onward.

The day 18 challenge involves further analysis of commenting patterns on your blog. Because I’ve lost my entire comment history from the Movable Type days, I have a pretty limited set of posts from which to draw data.

* Which of your posts have generated the most comments?

Well, the one where I went fishing for comments on Twitter received 30 comments.

The launch of video commenting drew 21 comments.

My Thoughts on Managing My Social Network post garnered 18 comments.

The big winner though is my Stepping Into Marketing post, which generated 38 comments.

* Which has generated the best conversation? (The last question is about quantity; this one is about quality.)

I think the marketing post clearly had the most mojo and generated the best conversation between commenters. One of the commenters took the conversation over to his blog, where I continued the discussion with him at considerable length. The video commenting also introduced some nice back and forth between commenters, which I enjoyed immensely.

As an aside, if you haven’t tried out the Seesmic video commenting plugin on this blog and have the technology to do so, please do give it a go. So much fun.

* Are there any patterns to the commenting on your own blog? Do certain types of posts generate more comments than others?

I think the posts where I ask/ponder the types of questions that people are already asking themselves and each other draw the best comments. How do we manage our social networks? Why do I use Twitter so fervently?

But really, it’s just plain hard to predict what people will talk about, as Walt Crawford observed during the first comment audit. For example, only two people commented on my comments on librarian rock-stardom, but Walt picked it up for the latest Cites and Insights. Never know who will respond to something you’ve written. But you gotta put it out there and see what sticks.

* If you do see a pattern or commonality between posts that generate good comments, what can you do to increase those qualities in other posts?

I don’t believe that the primary purpose of this blog is to generate comments, so I’m not sure that I want to bring that mentality to every post I write. Sometimes I just want to share.

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