John Cow dot Com » Blog Commenting

What Do You Mean I’m Accountable for What I Do Online?

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:10:45 +0000

Recently, there has been quite a kerfuffle over at the Brazen Careerist http://blog.penelopetrunk.com. In response to a Tweet she had written disparagingly about having a frustrating day at home with her kids, someone (that she didn’t know) responded by attacking Penelope Trunk as a mother, and saying that they would take the kids and appreciate them.

Incensed by this personal attack from a stranger, Penelope decided to find out who this person was, and then contacted them. She found out his personal information (quite easily, in fact), and proceeded to call him, both at home and at work. She then blogged about it, and included his full name and hometown in the header (which as we all know, made sure that it made it’s way into the Google index, forever connecting him to that post.)

There have been over 400 comments on this one post, some applauding her, some saying that she took the comment a little too personally, and overreacted in her blog, which delved deep into the issues and psychology of caring for kids, but there were a whole lot more condemning her for daring to breach this man’s privacy by contacting him offline.

Which begs the question – it is unfair to expect there to be offline consequences for the actions we take online? I think that a lot of us expect there to be anonymity on the web – which, why? While you can certainly use an alias online (shocker – John Cow is not my real name!) for the most part, people are fairly upfront about using their real names (and even mine is easily found on this site), especially when using Facebook or Twitter.

So, was it really the shocking and reprehensible act that Penelope wanted to contact this person in real life for an explanation of the comments he made online? Would he have said the same thing if he was in the same room, or on the phone with her? Why is it that we think we can say things online that we wouldn’t say in real life?

And, really, if you’re using your real name on your Twitter account, and you start making disparaging comments about someone you don’t even know, then what do you expect? Even the most calm and turn-the-other-cheek type of person will come out guns blazing when their abilities as a parent, or even worse, the love they have for their children, is questioned.

So, we’re a bit off topic today, but the question bears asking – Do you think that your online persona should have repercussions on your offline life? Or are the two completely separate? Or, if you think they should be separate, what kind of responsibility should people take for what they say online?

All New CommentMILK Plugin!

Jason Katzenback — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:55:41 +0000

>> Click Here to Download Comment Milk <<

Installation Instructions

Step 1: Download plugin and extract “CommentMilk” folder.

Step 2: Upload Folder and all the contents to “wp-content/plugins”

Step 3: Log into your blogs admin panel and navigate to “plugins” and activate the plugin “CommentMilk”

Step 4: Navigate to “Settings” –> “CommentMilk”

Congratulations, you have successfully installed CommentMILK!

Use Instructions

Example Image 1: General Settings

A) Latest CommentMilk News: This is a direct feed from JohnCow and will keep you updated on the latest updates to CommentMILK

B) Making CommentMILK Default: You can set it so that CommentMilk is active on all your blogs posts. It is recommended that you set this to “Yes” and then set your default campaign settings how you want them.

C) Current Running Campaigns: Each campaign that you create wil be accesed here. Click the “edit” ink to modify the campaign settings and “delete” to remove the campaign. You can not delete the default campaign.

D) Campaign Name: When creating a new campaign, you wil want to enter the name of the campaign here.

Example Image 2: General Settings Continued

A) Nofollow: You can select whether or not to allow the comment links to be “nofollow” or not.

B) Text to Display in Comment: The default text is…

[Name]s latest.. [link]

…This will then display the commentor’s name and then a link to the latest RSS feed link. The plugin automatically goes to the link entered by the commentor and looks for an RSS feed in the source code. It does this by looking for…

link rel=”alternative” type=”application/rss+xml”

…in the source code on the URL given.

C) Enter Keyword Phrase: By select “Yes” here, you will allow the people who comment on your blog, to check a box and then enter the keyword phrase they want to use to link to the URL they entered. This will then overwrite the auto linking to your site RSS feed and will instead just enter the hyperlinked Keyword Phrase under the comment.

D) Keyword Phrase Text: This is the instruction text that will be displayed if you select “Yes” to the “Enter Keyword Phrase” feature. For example, in the post you are reading, I have entered the text for the comments on this page as…

“Enter Keyword Phrase to Hyperlink to Above Entered URI”

E) Ignore this… it is getting removed

F) CSS Styling: You can decide how the text in the comments will appear. An example might be to enter…

border:1px dashed grey; display:block; padding:4px;

… this would but a grey box around the link under the comment to help it stand out and reward your commentors more.

G) Open in New Window: This will automatically add…

target=”_blank”

…to the links in the comments, so when clicked on you will not lose the reader, instead the link will open in a new window.

Example Image 3: Contest Settings

This area is what you would fill out if you are holding a contest.

A) Subscribe Option: If you want the criteria of “subscribe to newsletter” to be part of the contest, then select “Yes”

B) Subscribe Points: Enter the amount of points they will be rewarded for being subscribed to your blog. I usually enter “1″

C) Subscribe Text: This is the text that will be displayed if you select “Yes” for the subscribe option.

D) Comment Points: If you want to reward 1 point for the person commenting, you can select “Yes”

IMPORTANT –> E) Post ID: This is where you enter the numerical value of the post ID if you only want this campaign to be for a specific post. More then likely a contest will only be applicable to a specific post and so enter the post ID # here. You can find that by saving the post as a draft and then looking at the post=# in the URL of the browser.

Example Image 4: Contest Settings Continued

A) Extra Form Field: CommentMILK allows you to enter up to five extra criteria to include and the form filed is where the title of the critieria will go. So for example, if you contest requires a bog post about the contest, then you could enter “Blog Post URL” here and they would need to enter the URL of the blog post that talks about your contest.

B) Textbox or Checkbox: Depending on the criteria, you can have the option so that the commentor needs to enter info (such as a URL) or you can have a checkbox. The chechbox would be used to acknowledge something. This is to allow for more flexibility on the blog owners part with setting up the criteria.

C) Point Value: This is where you select the amount of points received for completing a task

Example Image 5: General Settings Continued

A) Reward Your Top Commentor: You can now add to any post or page a simple little code that will allwo you to display the top commentors on your blog. An example is…

…this will display the top 5 commentors for the past 30 days. I am using this at the bottom of this post for you to see a live example.

B) Get Paid for Using CommentMILK: Not only can you get all the benefits of this free plugin but if you are a johncow affiliate, you can enter your ID here. If someone clicks the banner under the comments, your link will be tagged with yoru affilaite link and if they visit johncow and sign up to our list, then they will be yours. Then if they upsell to TrafficKahuna or the all new SyndicateKahunaPRO then you get the lifetime commission. It is better then just linking to us, isnt it?

C) Add New: Click the Add New if you are creating a new custom campaign.

D) Update Options: Click “Update Options” if you are only making changes and are not creating a new campaign.

[commentmilk num=5 days=30]

OK, so what are your thoughts about this plugin and what features would you love to see added?

CommentMILK (beta) – the NEW JohnCow Plugin

Jason Katzenback — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:02:09 +0000

You may have noticed that I stopped using CommentLuv recently and that there is a new icon under my comments. CommentLuv is a fantastic plugin and personally I have no issues with it (well other then a few small things) but overall it was great.

What I was in the need for however was something that not only posted a backlink but I also wanted the ability for my readers to be able to get some keyword love as well. Yes there is the plugin “KeywordLuv” but it too was limited in what I needed.

So what was it missing?

>> Contest Management <<

As you know, JohnCow.com is home to a lot of contests and love to hold them. The challenge is it can at times be a little tricky and cumbersome tracking entries and if you like to allow your participants to enter for multiple entries (extra tickets) then it gets even more complicated.

As you may or may not know, we also recently started a case study about promoting the site “An Aud Life” with a contest. This was the inspiration for actually finishing the plugin. Sadly it has taken longer to get this finished then originally planned but that is what happens when your reliable programmers are busy on your other projects and you need to outsource to some one new (arghhhh!!!).

Anyhoooo…. we are in the finishing stages and there are just a few little kinks to be worked out. The plugin is 99% ready and I plan on releasing it to all of you in the next 48 hours (maybe even sooner).

So Announcing…

>> CommentMILK <<

Below in the comments area you will see a working example of it.

I will have a full fledge training document and video once it is released but for now you can play with it and get some free link love. Fill out the criteria and see how it registers your points (if this was a contest). There is a lot more to it but I wanted to test out a working example first, so I can put the training together

Let me know your thoughts.

Comment Hitching for Traffic & COWnappers Update – Episode 4 of JOHNCOWtv

Jason Katzenback — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 12:15:07 +0000

We have had a couple more COOL prizes added to the “Award” for the person selected that helps us solve this COWnapping Mystery.

The first prize is a 1 Year membership to Solopreneurs.org: The perfect place for those starting thier own business and need a place for support to be nudged into action, be held accountable and get excellent training in the areas where you could use help. This is a $279 value!
The second added prize is a FREE copy of WPReviewSite.com: Turn WordPress Into a Powerful Review Site Engine. This is a $97 Value

If you have a prize that you want to add to help us find the COW, let me know and you will get a mention in the next episode of JOHNCOWtv PLUS a mention in the posts (all of them from this point on!).

So remember, if you want to WIN…

$500 via PayPal + a 1 Year Membership at Solopreneurs.org + a FREE copy of WPreviewsite.com

Then Help Us Find the COWnappers! Click Here for the Contest Details!

Episode 4: In this weeks episode I share a strategy that is excellent for getting some great traffic and I call it “Comment Hitching”. The strategy is not rocket science and if you are already familiar and involved with Digg, Delicious or any of those types of sites then it is something very easy to be on the watch for and take advantage of!

So watch the below video, keep an eye on for the hoof print clue and give us some feedback!

Clue #2: The COW was not running but _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Remember, do not share this clue with anyone and keep it secret, keep it safe until the final clue is revealed in two weeks!

Click Here to Add JOHNCOWtv to Your YouTube

Click Here if You Want Your Website or Business Spotlighted in the Next Episode of JOHNCOWtv?

Check Out the Previous Episodes of JOHNCOWtv:

Traffic from Commenting | JohnCow Interviews IMWithJoe.com

Jason Katzenback — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:52:13 +0000

Thought I would do something a little different here… seems I can never make everyone happy… so I am going to give you all the best of everything. If I hear any bitching about this.. just keep it to yourself

Yesterday I did a fifteen minute interview JK Swopes aka “Normal Joe” of IM With Joe dot Com

and I have put this into the following formats…

PDF (Click Here to Download)
MP3 (Click Here to Listen Now)
MP3 Zipped so you can download and listen later (Click Here to save to your computer)
and last of all.. transcript is available for your reading pleasure below…

Start of Interview…

JK: Hey everyone this is Jason Katzenback with JohnCow.com. Today I wanted to do a recording with someone who I’m sure you are all pretty familiar with if you spend anytime on JohnCow.com.

In fact if you frequent any of the other popular blogs, like Yaro’s Entrepreneurs Journey, Joel Comm’s blog, or Jack Humphrey’s Friday Traffic Report I’m sure you’ll have seen his face there many times, and who I am talking about is the man behind http://www.imwithjoe.com and I wanted to talk to him, simply because first of all I am always impressed with how much commenting he’s doing, but I’ve gotten to know him over the last little while and his mention was…his number 1 traffic method has been commenting.

I know a lot of us talk about commenting but we never really get into it about how we do it and the steps that are followed. So I wanted to talk to Joe a little bit about that today and let him share it, then we can talk a little bit about his blog too. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites to go to. He’s got good information and it will also make you laugh. First of all Joe; thanks for being here.

Joe: Thanks for having me, man.

JK: Oh you’re welcome.

Joe: After you was talking about me last week, I had to bust you out.

JK: I have to admit that comment on your blog where the guy wanted to give me a titty twister; I didn’t quite know what to do about that.

Joe: People get territorial man.

JK: Oh they do, they do. My wife actually had a good laugh and, yeah it was all in good fun.

Joe: Yup.

JK: What I want to do is I want to ask you four specific questions that hopefully our readers and listeners will get some value out of. So first of all, this is an important one, especially for people who don’t have much time in the day.

How much time do you spend on commenting per day?

Joe: Man that varies. I would say at least you gotta spend about an hour, a solid hour; during the week. Now on the week-ends I ramp it up quite a bit and that’s usually when I get more of my commenting done on the week-ends, but I have a specific set that I go through during the week and try to get on. The thing, I mean if you’ve got at least an extra hour you can get a lot of stuff done. I say an hour because I actually read, you know, read the post I don’t go in and say “Hey good post.” So…

JK: And that’s such an important part and if you look at the blogs that you mention that you comment on and I know myself I’m pretty strict on it. If someone just give’s a generic reply, they haven’t proven themselves as a commenter, I’ll usually just spam it out. I’m thinking it’s just someone who’s trying to give a back link. If it’s someone for example, if you just gave a quick reply I know you’ve proven yourself with other comments. I think that’s a huge mistake. You kind of hinted on this, that you have a process you follow.

Can you kind of just give us an idea of what your process is and how you use commenting?

Joe: My process is ever changing; I just switched it up probably this week or like towards the end of last. I had a process where I categorized all my RSS feeds into specific groups. If a blog had top commenter’s they would all go in one group, if it had comment love or keyword love or, you know? A lot of different things I would categorize and put into different groups like that. On top of that I always had a set of blogs that I read daily and you know, always have a list of blogs that I read that are new for the week and stuff like that. Recently I went through and kind of cleaned house, got rid of a lot of blogs that I actually don’t read and just narrowed it down to daily, blogs that I read daily, blogs that I read every week, I got one for new blogs that I found that week and…what’s the other one? Daily, Blogs, Weekly, New Blogs…I think that’s pretty much it.

JK: Do you track when you’re finding a new blog do you have a process, do you test the new blog and make sure you’re getting your comments approved and then watch to see if you get any traffic from them? Do you have any strategies like that?

Joe: The main thing I like to look for on a blog when I comment is if they have subscribe to comments enabled, otherwise I can’t really keep track of it. For a long time and I know I’ve met many people that have thought the same thing, I thought that subscribe to comments was a default feature in WordPress, so for awhile I didn’t have it on my blog. I think it was Yan, he told me “Yo you need to put subscribe to comments on your blog.” And that was a few months back. For the longest I just thought that was just the default, so if they don’t have that on there and there not a blog that I visit regularly I’m not gonna comment on there because I don’t wanna just be a one hit drive by comment person. I rather focus on, you know? Commenting on specific blogs, then going around and throwing my link up and my name up on different blogs that I have no plans on going back to.

JK: So basically what you’re saying is that you kind of found your home base of blogs that you visit regularly, you’re always looking for new blogs and different areas, but, also first of all you look to make sure that it’s got a subscribe to comments and you also like to see if there’s something like comment love and keyword love.

Joe: Right, Right. Lately I re-organized everything, so a lot of that stuff I don’t organize my RSS feed that way anymore. Actually you can see all my RSS Feed, it looks like a blog roll on my blog now, cuz I have it all in separate boxes. Those are actually my RSS subscriptions.

JK: That’s on your blog http://www.imwithjoe.com

Joe: Right. So if you go over there, you can see Daily, Weekly, New Blogs, you can see all that stuff listed right there and that’s actually directly from my feed reader. It will update dynamically you know if I change somebody from daily to weekly or weekly to daily or if it’s a new blog that I’m reading, I’ll just add it to my reader and it will just show up there.

JK: Basically one thing that you are saying, if there’s anyone out there that wants to encourage people to post comments on their blog, because we all know that the more comments you get on your blog, the better it is; because first of all it encourages interaction by others but also the search engines love it. But it would probably be pretty wise to enable at least the subscribe to comments and maybe one of those great plugins. I’m a bit fan of comment love, if someone’s taking the time to comment I want to give them a link back, but make sure it’s not done in a spammy way.

Joe: Right, well I think if you want to attract quality comments then you should put in that subscribe to comment, cuz most people who are putting in quality comments probably want to come back and see what you have to say about. Now they don’t care if they are just driving by and leaving a link because they see that you have a certain PR or whatever on your blog, then their not gonna care about subscribe to comment, it’s not gonna make a difference. But I noticed as soon as I put that on my blog I started getting higher quality comments.

JK: What are your main blogs? You’ve got maybe a half dozen, or maybe a little bit more I’m not sure, but why have you chosen those blogs as your main ones?

Joe: The blogs I choose, I mean I just…when you first start blogging, you hear everybody say you know “you should do this to build link and build traffic” and try to you know find the blogs that are most popular or have the highest PR, but I realized I wasn’t really following that because I just choose blogs based on the content and the community of the blogs and the content they are providing. If I vibe with the blogger or I like their content and they are helping me out, those are the people I continue to go too and network with.

JK: You hit on something real powerful there. Me and you we’ve started communicating more recently and it’s a good way to build a relationship with people as well. If you’re a blogger and all of a sudden you see someone who’s a regular contributor, supports what you’re doing their going to be a lot more open to you communicating down the road as well. But if you’re a fly by nighter and say ‘hey I’ve commented once on your blog, do you have a moment?’ I’m going be like “well there’s a lot of people who’ve commented once.’ But if I see that your someone whose adding value to my blog, I’m going to be in a position that I’m going to listen to you because I’m thinking well I don’t want this guy to leave. I think that’s a great point that you can use it as a networking tool as well.

Joe: That’s basically what it is for me, it’s not just you know ‘let’s go, let’s find where we can get links at’ I just, you know I find a blog that I like and I tend, I’m going to play loyal deuce, I tend to get loyal to certain blogs and that’s just where I go. I’m always looking for new ones but I don’t just pick them on popularity otherwise I’d be on a whole bunch of blogs that I don’t comment on that a lot of people do. But I don’t do it because 1 – their not really appealing to me personally and I just don’t find them interesting and 2 – there’s no point, if I’m not going to say something worth while then there’s no point of me even commenting to say “Hey” so my name shows up on this blog or that blog.

JK: You know it’s funny I’m sure you get this as well, you get those repeated comment that say things like “Well I didn’t agree with you at first but your last paragraph made sense.” And you know that’s somebody just copying and pasting or using some spam system. But if they would just take the time whether it was five minutes to read the post and put something worth while and get their comment approved by a blog that’s high quality. Cuz the blogs they are getting approved on are not high quality blogs, so the long term benefit is so minimum. So if you just take the time and do this right, actually read and I think one of the things your saying too is because you have a home base of blogs of stuff that you like to read, it makes it a lot easier to go and comment because you want to read what’s there instead of making it a chore to find blogs and kind of struggle through the content.

Joe: I know people that do that and they have, they doing blog commenting, they just out looking for random blogs to comment on and if I say I’m, you know I’m catching up on my blog comments, that means I’m catching up on reading. I can’t just; I can’t just fly through and read, like if I come to your site I’m not just going to be able to just you know read it in five minutes and read, cuz you know you write long posts. Same with Yaro, he writes long posts, I can’t just go in two minutes and comment. It takes time to do it because people are writing quality content, so the posts are going to be a little bit longer and you’re going to have to take the time to read it.

JK: Now one of the things that a lot of people do and I see people doing it and it just mind boggles me; why they even try, is being spammy with names on the post and links inside the post. What are your comments on that, like when you’re commenting, in general what are your feelings on that?

Joe: I’ve never really been one to put links in my comment, I finally did it once ever and it was directly related to a post and it was on a blog that I frequent, “oh yeah I just did that over here.” but for the most part I don’t put links in my posts. I don’t really like the “sell more tupperware bowls” as comment names neither. I mean just, you know; if you want to comment on my blog use your name. If keyword love is enabled then that’s different, if not, just comment as your own name then. I tend to think higher of commenter’s that do that instead of using a keyword as their name.

JK: Yeah and I think, yeah your right. There are tools like keyword love but still they still enable it so the link is separate then the name. But even if it’s a brand, for example like John Cow or Shoemoney or you know any of those where it’s just a name where you recognize it right away, but if you see posts that are “The best mesothelioma help out there.” You know it’s like well, and their giving you a four word comment, you’re like ‘no I don’t think so.’ Because you gotta think when you’re leaving a comment and you’ve mentioned this a few times, you’ve got to add value. You want to, it’s like a you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours. You provide a value comment; I’ll approve it and give you the link love.

Joe: There’s definitely a method to my madness. The blogs that I choose to comment on. Content is the first thing. Like you said, the more you comment and offer good content in your comments on another blog, those people are going to take notice.

JK: I’ve noticed your blog, your starting to rank up there pretty good with some regular commenter’s and getting quite a few comments per post. What percentage of your increased traffic has been from commenting on other blogs?

Joe: Man, I would say at least maybe 50, 60 probably 75%. I talk to different people, different bloggers, I talked to one a couple of months ago. He was like his girlfriend seen me comment on his blog and she was like “That’s that guy imwithjoe” and I’m like ‘well how she know me?’ and he’s like “Well she recognized your picture somewhere, I don’t know.” So I mean you know when people start seeing you and I’m the same way, if I start seeing the same people on certain blogs that I read, there’s a higher chance I’m going to go visit that blog.

JK: It’s almost like building a brand name. You know, if your using a different keyword every time and your avatar’s different all the time, cuz it’s different URLs and everything, but if you stick with it, like your using your name and everything, people start to recognize it and they get curious. Man this guy’s all over the place, and they want to check it out.

Joe: Right

JK: Well Joe I just want to thank you so much, because I’ve been wanting to, I mentioned in a post a couple of weeks ago I wanted to interview you just because of the commenting side of things. How old is your blog, the http://www.imwithjoe.com, how long has that been around?

Joe: Ah man it’s probably…I think I started it in like March.

JK: So this is a pretty new blog and its started to gain some good momentum.

Joe: Not even six months.

JK: So there you go everyone, that’s the power of commenting and that’s the strategy used by Joe from http://www.imwithjoe.com go check it out, he’s got a lot of cool videos out there, he’s just real down, he loves eating “sammiches”.

Joe: Yeah man “sammiches”.

JK: And he’s got some pretty fancy sponsor’s too. So go check it out and have a laugh. So again Joe thank you very much and to all the readers of John Cow we’ll be talking to you later.

Joe: Alright, Thanks.