Will ‘sponsored comments’ make the Web uglier?

I worked with a client several years ago on building a presence through what we called the “response campaign.” The idea was to generate a little awareness and build relationships with journalists and bloggers by commenting on articles where the client had expertise.

Though the idea has evolved to look more like do-it-yourself media relations, it still is pretty viable if you know how to comment well.

Back then, we did things such as leave the comment and then all of our contact information at the end: “Gini Dietrich, CEO, Arment Dietrich, http://spinsucks.com.” Of course, commenting systems such as Livefyre and Disqus rendered that unnecessary, as that information is automatically collected and people can find you fairly easy with a few clicks.

We evolved as comments became the next big thing, but then they weren’t.

The loss of comments