Today, I discovered a change on one of their specials: Leaving a comment on PaidContent now requires authentication through Facebook. Not good, as I explained in an email to PC's executive editor, Ernie Sander:
Ernie, a comment, and a question, about comments:An issue that I didn't touch on is why PaidContent (and other publishers, including TechCrunch) have turned to Facebook comments:
I have no problem with leaving my real name on PC comment threads, but I do not want my Facebook identity used here. I am hardly alone in this regard: PC is part of a professional network, and FB is purely personal, and there are very good reasons for keeping them separate.
I certainly don't want friend requests from random people, or my comments here showing up in my FB profile (yes, I know comments appearing in news feeds can be controlled, but frankly the rules and processes change so much I can't honestly remember if I set them up the right way, and can't be bothered to hunt down the latest checkbox in FB to figure it out).
Question: Is there any other way to leave a comment besides Facebook, such as LinkedIn or Twitter?
Thank you,
Ian Lamont
- It provides a real name (most of the time), which cuts down on trolling, flamewars, and low-quality comments
- It hooks into Facebook users' networks, by sharing the comment on their feed (unless, as noted above, the user manages to figure out how to turn off the feature). It's free advertising for the publisher brand and can result in more clicks (and therefore more ad revenue)
- For those publishers which have used installed commenting systems it potentially saves technical staff (and sometimes editorial staff) the trouble associated with securing and maintaining these systems. For instance, if the publication uses Drupal, installing and maintaining Akismet (a spam-fighting system) can be a pain)
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