Web 2.0 'community': Are comments representative?
A new month, a new TechCrunch advisory of disgruntled users of Web 2.0 free services.
Michael Arrington began November with “Top Digg Users Feeling Snubbed" (see "Digg vs. Diggers?”), and he begins December with “Yahoo Gets Trashed By Users.”
Just as with his Digg "controversy is interesting" post, Arrington’s Yahoo "controversy is interesting" post relies on but a handful of “vocal” users/commenters to headline a mutinous tale.
In “Web 2.0 indignation: Digger online threats displace Facebooker turnkey riots” I underscore that the few vocal Digg detractors are a minority of the Digg user base.
What about Yahoo’s “beating by users angry” and “bashing” by users that “hate you,” that Arrington reports. Arrington’s story is based off of comments posted at the Yahoo blog post last week announcing social media integration into Yahoo TV.
There are currently a few dozen comments at the Yahoo blog post; some are by Yahoo, itself, some are multiple posts from commenters and some are positive/neutral; Some also decry the virulent tone of the negative comments.
What about the 20 some-odd negative comments? Some are undoubtedly sincere voicing of disappointed, but passionate, users of the Yahoo TV service, but some may be spurred by other motives and some may be anonymous, duplicate postings.
“George P” posted:
can’t understand why so many of you are complaining. I never really used the old version, but I just took a run through the new version and it seems great. The TV listings and videos are impressive and I love how the pulse tells me whats good. Agreed the flash is having some issues, but hell stuff like that happens when your launching a new product. I have a feeling some of the comments above are fuelled by short term interest in the performance of the stock — leave that garbage for the stock forums.
“Cman” posted:
I personal think the site looks great - kudos to you and your team. Tis far easier to criticize than to actually do.
Charlie Wood posted:
I have to say I’m amazed and dismayed by the tone of these posts. “This sucks!”, “I hate it!”, “Cheap, worthless stunt.” I’m sorry, but would you people talk to the people at Yahoo like this if you met them in person? Of course not.
Arrington may even agree with Wood. In “BloggerCon: Core values and Mike Arrington rails against the trolls” he is cited:
Mike Arrington of TechCrunch led the penultimate BloggerCon IV session on the topic of core values for bloggers (and podcasters + vloggers)…
Mike started off the session with the statement that the blogosphere doesn’t have core set of values and bloggers don’t know how to act. The primary example trolls leaving hateful anonymous comments. Mike said that he has even received death threats. He added, 'There is a trend toward people non-anonymously getting more viscious in their comments….More and more people think it’s ok to slap people in the face when they walk by.'