Goodbye CommentLuv

21 Replies Christopher Roberts

“…blogging has changed, and the blog itself is no-longer where many people read and interact. Read in the feed and comment on social media. Blogging is still there, but I think comments are slowly dying…

A feed and social profile were luxuries years ago, however now it seems they are part of blogging itself – if you don’t have them do you have a blog at all?”

That is a quote from a comment I left in June this year.

Digital media explorer Ari Herzog has noted how blog comments are evolving, and he now offers his readers the ability to leave a comment via the standard (vanilla) WordPress commenting system, as well as via Facebook and Google Plus.

Blogging is still very much alive, however as my opening quote suggests, the way authors go about publishing content and how readers then go abut digesting and debating this, has changed significantly in recent times.

CommentLuv

Just over two years ago I wrote a post detailing why you should use the CommentLuv plugin. Today very few 0f the reasons I state still hold true.

I have now deactivated CommentLuv on Technology Bloggers for these simple reasons:

Two comments with CommentLuv links

Two great comments with irrelevant CommentLuv links.

  • CommentLuv looks messy – take a look at the two comments to the right. They are both great comments, but they are followed by an untidy, irrelevant link. If someone is interesting in your site, they will check it out anyway.
  • CommentLuv promotes spam – having looked through our comments, very few of our genuine visitors actually take advantage of CommentLuv, yet almost all the spam comments we get include a CommentLuv link.
  • CommentLuv increases load time – you know how obsessed I am with speed, so much so, any plugin which significantly impacts load time is now under scrutiny. CommentLuv is quite a heavy plugin which I have found has a big impact on page load time, and that extra lag isn’t justifiable for what it offers.
  • CommentLuv is bad for SEO – one of the key things Google has been clamping down on of late is irrelevant links. If you run a site about lawnmowers, and you have a large number of links coming from a technology website, it probably doesn’t do you any favours. Similarly, if I have written an article on something tech related, comments with random links introducing irrelevant keywords, dilute the content and probably don’t do my article any favours.
Google SEO chart

CommentLuv is arguable bad for SEO.

CommentLuv was once a great plugin, but its time has passed. The web is changing, blogging more so than ever, so it is time to say goodbye to CommentLuv.

Protecting Our Coral Reefs

5 Replies Jonny Hankins

Last month the US military announced that they had dropped four unarmed bombs into Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park last week during a training exercise that went wrong. Two aircraft dropped two bombs each, one an inert practice bomb but the other an unarmed lazer guided explosive bomb into the World Heritage marine park. The bombs fell into an area away from the coral and the military report that they did not explode.

The action obviously caused outrage within the environmentalist and marine protection community, and it led me into looking into the state of our reefs today.

According to Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network we have lost 20% of the planet’s coral reef in the last 20 years. They also sate that a further 35% is in serious danger. We are talking about an area in total of 284,800 square kilometres of the seabed that is currently inhabited by coral.

A Coral Reef

A Coral Reef

Anyone who has ever been to the Great Barrier Reef will have seen the effects that mass tourism had on the reef in the past, before it became better regulated. Large parts of the reef lie dead. Overfishing is also one of the major causes for concern, as is climate change, the change in sea levels and the ever growing problem of rubbish (particularly plastics) that float around the reefs.

Recently however scientists at the University of Marche in Italy have discovered that some of the substances used in suncream could damage both the reefs and other maritime life. This presents another serious problem, as millions of us splash it on before going into the sea, washing zinc, various nanoparticles and petroleum derivatives into the water and over the reefs.

We could call it involuntary pollution, and we can debate the risk factor (risk to my skin versus risk to ocean life), but you will be pleased to hear that some cosmetic companies have started to produce a more ecologically sound form of suncream.

%CODEVIMEO1%

The UK based company Aethic for example produce an Eco-compatible suncream called Sôvée, and they are working with King’s College London to develop a suncream that mimics the capacity that coral naturally has to protect itself from the sun’s rays.

Any development could have multiple uses, and at least help to remove one of the dangers that are threatening these structures.

Calling While Driving

9 Replies Jonny Hankins

One of the problems with humanity is that we all believe that we can do things safely even if others tell us that they are not safe. People who drive fast do so because they are good drivers (so they tell us), people claim that they can drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs when the statistics prove otherwise, and even making a call or texting does not distract some super-drivers.

Governments take some action in some form or other to try and stop people doing these things, but it is selective in nature. Let us take texting while driving as an example. In some countries it is illegal to drive and text at the same time. In the USA it is allowed in some states and prohibited in others. In some states you can talk on the phone, in others not you need a hands-free system.

The law though seems to be selective. Last week research published in the Science journal demonstrates that it is not holding the phone to text or speak that is the problem, it is the conversation itself that causes the distraction.

 

A typical sight today

A typical sight today?

The research showed little or no difference between the rate of accidents when people are using a hands-free system and when they are physically holding the phone. The type of conversation does make a difference though, the more the driver has to concentrate on the subject matter or think before replying, the more chance there is of having a crash.

They also found that any type of interaction, even listening to the radio, effects reaction times and attention paid to the road. The radio is the least invasive because it does not require a response, but I wonder if listening to a news show or a discussion that you have to concentrate to follow causes more distraction, a logical line of thought would seem to imply so. Interestingly enough voice to text is the most dangerous type of technological interaction addressed.

So there are laws against texting, and not holding a phone (I must add not everywhere) but why not make speaking hands-free illegal too? And we should bear in mind that cars are ever more designed for connectivity, and that means distraction, maybe this should also be regulated.

Well that would require a change in business practices and take away personal freedom some might say, but we should remember that driving is not a right, it is a privilege that is governed by rules.

This is a serious piece of research that uses eye monitoring technology to measure distraction and driver awareness. The findings are clear and there is plenty of supporting data from other sources, but how would you feel about not being able to make a call at all though while driving?

At least your boss couldn’t call you while you were on your way home.