Google News to Allow Comments

Wow. This is a big one. Google News plans to allow readers to post comments in reaction to news items. The trial begins in the U.S., allowing only persons directly mentioned in the article to submit comments.

Still, what a step! Many online news sites do not yet allow for comments, sensitive as many traditional media organizations are about public feedback and the anarchy of the masses. This allows for the creation of communities (a sticky, valuable substance online that holds some websites and, yes, some business models together). Even with regard to online news services that provide comment submission, Google's aggregation of news feeds (with the coming enhanced comments features) may have sufficient total benefits that outweigh those individual benefits of directly visiting the sites, like context, familiarity and running across poorly indexed items, like multimedia content.

Interesting goings on... Here are more thoughts by Phillip Lenssen.