Indeed, which is why I haven’t rejected it like I have other non-open channels, ie. twitter. It’s definitely a more organized channel, for one, and I feel bloggers have decent intuition when to share a post there vs sharing on their own blog… jp and omo are good proof.

IMO, the majority of discussions aren’t really that essential to the aniblogosphere, as there are quite a few tangential shared items as well as tangential discussions… they might inspire some post in the future, but being there and following the discussion shouldn’t matter that much to bloggers “outside.”

I see what’s going on there, I participate sometimes, but it’s also something that comes with a gmail account… so it’s not like I mind the extra service.

As for being like an IRC channel, the format may be similar, but the architecture is completely different unless we’re talking about private IRC channels. IRC is a completely open thing, you only need a nick and that doesn’t require an account, reg is optional.

Optional registration is huge. Allowing use of a service without registration is a massive concept, and I wish platforms like twitter (which is obviously is into user-hoarding and closing off competition such as status.net) would allow at least some form of responding without an account… I don’t want to be glued to an account for something like status-update or micro-update…. which can be done on my own open blog. Given GRSI’s sharing feature does require registration, but why should commenting require such a thing?

Going back to IRC, there’s no attachment, it’s open and dynamic. It is a real chat, as opposed to twitter (which is being used as a chat)… I wish people would go back to IRC, at least then users can come and go as they please. On the other hand GRSI is fine, the comments might be similar to irc, but the whole idea of organized sharing would just be messy if done in irc.

Twitter can be done in IRC, GRSI would just be messy.

Also, don’t forget that “essential” is in quotations. It’s only essential in the sense that going to the usual mall with a group of friends is essential – it’s the place where idle chatter happens. It’s more about communication than “formal” meta posts; even if you missed out on the discussion on the difference between Japanese otaku and Western otaku, JP found it interesting and wrote a formal post on it. No matter how I look at it, it’s closer to an IRC channel than a collective meta blog.

This is dangerous thinking. You should reflect on that when everyone starts jumping off bridges.

That said, I still think a pingback plugin would be pretty cool, but for the most part, GRSI isn’t “formal” enough to be like our personal Ani-Nouto. The people who are serious about meta start their own meta blogs, but most of the GR discussions are on miscellaneous anime stuff. It’s only “essential” to the blogosphere because so many of us are on there.

btw, I don’t have a twitter, and I think it’s the most wrong thing that it is somewhat essential that it’s required to “chat” with bloggers; can read more here. It’s a closed environment that requires usership (you HAVE to use Twitter, there’s no choice)… much like Google Reader shares, but there’s a difference. Reader shares are uh, organized, the conversation happens on a shared item rather than in random bulk stream. Also, these shared item convos are often tangential and reading or not reading usually doesn’t offer much benefit to “community awareness” (or whats going on with bloggers).

Secondly, reader shares can be replaced quite easily if you realize the concept in that first link I posted. Shared items basically act as a blog lens in a similar style which Ani-Noto (and many many other non-ani blogs) uses. Let’s call it Quote, note, and trackback. If you quote, note, and trackback to an article you essentially have the same functionality; conversation can happen in comments. (Actually, it is greater functionality because the article authors can be aware of the conversation)

Anyhow… better not listen to Ryan… he thinks blogs > twitter and blogs > grsi and blogs can replace both… obviously he’s crazy.

Now if only Google would make the GRSI activities/discussions visible to the public…

It’s funny sometimes how GRSI has more comments than the actual post. Feels bad man.