Comments are a strange part of blogging. I love ‘em, and I hate ‘em. The majority of comments I get seem to fall into the camp of: “Gee, Micah, I really liked what you wrote.”

But, the comments I love are the ones that extend the discussion. Sometimes those comments spill over onto Twitter, or direct emails, or lunch discussions the next day. And those are the comments that I would love to capture. Those comments I would love to extend beyond my blog. Those comments I would love to make interactive.

When I started to get back involved with the Colorado tech scene, I got to know one of the founders of Intense Debate, Josh Morgan. Fantasic guy. Clearly in over his head, but a hard worker. His partner, Jon Fox, is a brilliant developer, but needed direction. Still I really liked what they were doing.

So, I added Intense Debate.

After a couple of weeks, Intense Debate began to really bog down performance wise. Plus, it didnt have trackback support.  Knowing the guys, I finally made the decision to pull it off my blog, and go back to the default comments. I explained why (performance and lack of trachback support). I figured the default comment system would be good enough.

Over the months, I watched Disqus continue to grow and Intense Debate languish. “They will do what they are going to do,” I thought to myself. “I hope that ends up positive.”

And, Disqus continued to innovate and extend their reach. And, finally, Disqus got funded.

And while there has been minimal innovation with Intense Debate, Disqus has continued to add features and even developed an API (which as a non-technical person always means to me that one can do more cool stuff with the product).

And, even more importantly, more and more of the blogs that I interact with were using Disqus.

Still, I stayed loyal, and added no comment system to my blog.

Fast forward several months.

My blog has grown. Many times, I get a dozen or so comments on posts. Its no 100+ that some people get, but its more than 1 or 2. So, I started reviewing comment systems again.

For those that dont know, I run business development at Lijit Networks, and one of my roles is finding additional content sources for our technology to index. At Lijit, we are content agnostic. We will index any RSS/OPML feed or URL.

I often say, “Google wants to index everything. At Lijit, we only index the information you care about.” So, if you want to index Disqus or Intense Debate comments, we want to make it easy.

So, I emailed Daniel Ha over at Disqus and Tom Keller at Intense Debate.

Five minutes later, I got an email back offering development and business development support. Access to a private API, basically whatever we needed. (It didnt hurt that Daniel and his business partner were both UCDavis–my alma mater–*ahem* almost grads).

I was completely amazed at the speed and willingness of Daniel to make sure that the two companies worked well together and produced a superior integration.

And even then, I didnt add Disqus. I stayed true to my word, not adding any comment system.

This post: http://www.jangro.com/a/2008/04/08/hacking-disqus/ became the straw that broke the camel’s back for me personally.

Why? Because the community had begun to choose which comment system they wanted to use by hacking it, and if you read the comments, Daniel jumped right in and has taken some of the hacks, and integrated them into the system. Disqus had embraced the community right back.

Then, with the addition of video comments (something I want to play with, and would rather do than write a comment), Disqus became too good to not use.

So what does that mean? Its simple enough. In this world we all work in, if you dont embrace (and be embraced by the community) you cannot succeed. If you dont continually innovate, you cannot succeed.

Moral to the story: If you dont embrace the community, and you dont innovate, you die.

And that is why I chose to add Disqus comments to this blog. Will they stay? I dont know. It will depend on if Daniel and team continue down their current path. Could Intense Debate produce something that is interesting enough for me to walk away from Disqus? Sure, and frankly, I hope they do. But, for now, Disqus it is.

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Over the past several days, I have engaged in multiple conversations about business ethics. Mostly discussing situations where, from the outside, individual actions seem to take on shady tactics.

Before I go on, lets define what I mean by Shady Tactics.

Shady Tactics: When there is a clear “right” path, the actions of an individual or company are clearly circumventing that path with the intent to gain an advantage.

Here are three examples, you decide if they are shady or not:

1) Someone develops an event. This event occurs quite often and is quite successful. The person gains a ton of recognition for the event they are running. Suddenly, copy-cat events start to launch. In specific, a person that has asked a lot of questions about how to run such an event starts one of their own. When asked about applying attribution, or not infringing on trademarks, this person says “But, we are completely different!” and proceeds to trash the original inventor of the event?

Shady? Its a tough one.

2) Someone builds a successful business in a neighboring town. A second person, under the guise of interviewing them for a local blog, comes down with a video camera, and does a walk through. Two days later, the second person announces that they are launching an identical business in their town, without ever telling the first person of their intent or plans.

Shady? This one is not quite as tough.

3) This one is probably the most appropriate to bloggers. MG Seigler of ParisLemon, wrote about tactics he believed he saw another blog employing. Read it. He explains it better than me. He has now written an update as well.

Shady? This one is the most tough of them all.

I would love to hear shady stories in the comments, or thoughts on the three situations above. But, before you leave a comment, let me just say this.

The “right way” is ALWAYS clear.

Never, not once, no way is a defense, “I thought I was doing the right thing.” Because you are not. If you really want to succeed in business, life or whatever, take this lesson to heart.

The “right way” is ALWAYS clear. Some people just choose to do it another way.

Yes, even douchebags have mothers. I assume that often people are unsure of that reality when it comes to me, but the truth is, even I, the #1 douchebag on the internet (Google says so!), has a mother.

And, on Mother’s Day. I like to read all the posts about how wonderful people’s moms are. The quality of the posts never cease to amaze me, but the tone is often the same.

Everyone likes to write about how wonderful their mothers have been, but I havent seen anyone write about how wonderful they have been to they have been to their mothers.

Until now.

I, Micah Gabriel Baldwin, have been extraordinarily wonderful to my mother. How, you might ask, have I been able to do this? Well, lets start at the beginning.

I was born.

My birth was relatively easy, 8 hours in total (not quite as easy Marissa, my sister’s birth, which clocked in at 2 hours, or Natalia, my youngest sisters birth which clocked in at 18 minutes). Most importantly, I was born at 10:08 in the am, which enabled my mother to not miss an episode of her favorite soap opera, All My Children.

I was the man of the house.

From the age of 1.5, when my parents got divorced, until 2 years old, when my mom started dating Rich, my step-father (now adoptive father), I was the man of the house. I supported my mother as she moved from Colorado to California, and made every attempt to help out. I shit less, cried less and ate less. I was quite the man of the house.

I approved her marriage.

At the age of 5, Rich and my mother sat me down at our little wooden dining room table. “Micah,” Rich started, “I would like to marry your mother, and be your father. Are you okay with that?” With a simple wave of my hand, and a slight nod, I said, “Yes.” They have been married for 31 years now.

I stopped asking for money.

After college, I moved to Washington, DC, and soon got a job. The job didnt pay well, but it pretty much began the moment I no longer needed to ask for money. It was a good thing too, because my younger sisters were becoming quite the drain on the wallet, and it was important for me to help out my mom by being less of a deadbeat.

I moved back home.

At the age of 28 or so, after spending some time in Washington, DC and Southern California, I knew my mom was missing me staying at home for long periods of time. I could tell, because two weeks after I left for college, my room was turned into a study, whereas my sisters rooms were left as shrines to them. So, I moved back in while I was starting a new job and new company.

I moved out.

After about eight months, I moved up to Oakland, and realizing that the strain of me being so close, yet so far, was too much for my mom. So, I packed my things and moved to Colorado. Where I live to this day.

I sold my company and got a real job.

Making the ultimate sacrifice for my mother, I sold my company last year and got a real job with benefits. You see, for my mom, benefits are the most important thing, after all one doesnt know when a truck might hit one.

And, most importantly, I call her periodically.

It seems, that my mom loves to hear the sound of my voice. Take today for example. I have called her three times to wish her a Happy Mothers Day, and each time the answering machine comes on. She wants to record my voice! How sweet. So, I left heart warming messages such as:

“Mom, I know you are there, and just not picking up the phone. Why you have to be so mean?”

“Look woman, its Micah! Pick up the damn phone!”

and my favorite (its kinda an inside joke)

“I hope you have a long and painful death. Love, Micah”

You see, today is not just about honoring our mothers and all the wonderful things they’ve done and will do for us, but its about what we have done to help them out.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I know you know I rock.