Comments are more than just for blogs

I found this article today Is Your Web Design Ready To Socialize? that suggests that most websites can benefit from some sort of commenting or interactivity. Do you agree? I've had various methods of interactivity on this site, from comments, to forums, to submission forms. Some work better than others at getting customers engaged. I think that is partially due to what I'm writing about. After all, if I've posted an article that explains what the a tag does, how much are people going to want to talk about it?

One form of interactivity that About.com had a few years ago was a rating form on all our articles. This seems like a good idea, but it ended up being fairly useless. Most of the feedback we got was extreme (ie. I hate this article or I think this is the best article since sliced bread.) and the ratings reflected that. In fact, we learned later that the developers called the tool the Oscars - in a sarcastic reference to the award of the same name.

However, I do like our comments on the blogs. It gives me a chance to talk about more controversial subjects and get responses. And we can have a conversation, not just a one-way diatribe.