I don't know if you're referring to my comments, but I've made that point here a few times.
Great comments come from great communities. Building a great online community is hard; online forums and social media platforms have succeeded far beyond any content website I can think of.
So: the technology of a commenting system is the least hard part. The challenge is social: why would people come to the WashingtonPost or NYTimes to build human relationships? I don't think people relate to newspapers that way.
In contrast, social media and forums are optimized around enabling human relationships. So I think the wave of the future for content publishers is to optimize their integration with those existing communities. Otherwise they are basically trying to compete with them directly--in addition to producing great content. Good luck with that.
Great comments come from great communities. Building a great online community is hard; online forums and social media platforms have succeeded far beyond any content website I can think of.
So: the technology of a commenting system is the least hard part. The challenge is social: why would people come to the WashingtonPost or NYTimes to build human relationships? I don't think people relate to newspapers that way.
In contrast, social media and forums are optimized around enabling human relationships. So I think the wave of the future for content publishers is to optimize their integration with those existing communities. Otherwise they are basically trying to compete with them directly--in addition to producing great content. Good luck with that.