My dad used to yell at me for what felt like hours. I was always pretty sure that he liked to hear himself yell, and impressed himself with his arguments.

At least once, if not twice, during his yelling at me (I think it was often after my seventeenth mumbled “yes”) he would say:

“Micah, are you listening to me or just hearing me?”

“Shit dad,” I used to think to myself, “everyone in the neighborhood can hear you!”

“I am listening,” I would say, shuffling my feet, hoping his tirade would be over soon.

Now I find myself thinking the exact same thing when I see companies attempt to reach out to their communities. Are you listening? Or are you just hearing your community?

Today, Intense Debate, a company that I have been both publicly and privately critical, showed me that they hadnt just heard what I had to say, hoping that my tirade would soon be over and I would move on to other targets, but listened. Really listened.

Even though I know the team and investors well, and have watched them grow (and go through growing pains) ever since their time in TechStars, I chose to go with their competitor, Disqus. My decision was not based on features, it was based solely on one fact: Daniel Ha, CEO of Disqus listens and responds to his community. Intense Debate did not.

I wrote a blog post about my decision.

Offline, given the proximity of Intense Debate to me, there was much discussion. I havent changed my mind, Disqus is still on my blog. From a feature perspective, the two products are basically the same, it really comes down to preference (whether its look and feel, or a specific feature, etc.), and my preference is for a company that listens to my needs, evaluates them and innovates or iterates around them.

It seems that Intense Debate heard me. Recently, they release a feature where a tweet was sent every time a person left a comment. I wrote that I felt it was a good step, but way too noisy. Intense Debate heard and iterated. Now the commenter can decide at the point of commenting to send it out as a tweet, or not.

Great move guys. Hope to see more of it. I hope you will see the benefit of listening to your community rather than just listening.

Later in the day, I got an email from my friend Ari Newman, CEO of Filtrbox, showing me a prototype of a new feature they are looking to launch. (I so wish I could talk about it, but Ari promised to kill my dogs if I leaked it).

What was gratifying for me, was that two days ago, I IM’d Ari that I had a great idea for his product, and wanted to show him what I had come up with. Two day later, the feature was implemented. Two days.

In a very private way, Ari did what all great leaders do: listened to my suggestion, evaluated its value to the product and its users, and made a decision. He had listened me. And even more so, took the extra step Intense Debate did, and did something about it.

I am very impressed with both companies and their leadership. In the span of twelve hours, two companies, two friends, took steps to make me feel both welcome and valued, which is how all community members should feel. I hope they both continue down this path.

If you are a startup, and dont think you have the time or resources to listen to your community, you will not survive. Even Twitter finally realized the error of their ways. And, companies like Get Satisfaction make listening so simple.  There is really no excuse to do it right.

So remember, any company that hopes I become part of their community and use their product:

Are you listening or just hearing me?

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If you are interested in either Intense Debate or Disqus‘ comment system, they are in an open beta, head over and install. They are both great, and its even better than they can be searched from the Lijit search bar in my side bar.

If you are interested in Filtrbox, which is in a closed beta, Ari has given me a special code: douchebag. Funny Ari, very funny.

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