All social objects have value without comments. All places where social objects can be bought have value as well, just as purveyors of those objects.

But as those objects commoditise, there is an effect on the purveyor, a commoditising drag as it were. And purveyors have to do something to push back against the drag.

Amazon does three things to push back. It provides incredible choice. It simplifies the process. And it builds community.

The point I was trying to make is that for all the would-be Amazons in the world, for all the firms that are seeking to sell social objects, the same issues arise. Provision of choice is itself commoditising and by itself not enough to differentiate. Simplification of process is similarly not distinctive. These are necessary but not sufficient conditions for success in such a marketplace.

Community is a differentiator, and the comments, reviews, ratings, feedback loops are community byproducts.

I will come to the issue of “ownership” of the data, the IP, the ratings, the reviews, in a later post.

In fact, I think that Jeff Atwood’s statement uses the unfortunately increasingly common literary phenomenon of the inverse simile – one where the comparison detracts or distracts rather than illustrates. Most of the comments to your posting are about Amazon rather than about blogs and comments to those blogs.

To continue the Amazon example, how many people read reviews on Amazon, choose a product, then feed the details into a price comparison site to find a cheaper supplier? It’s the online version of the problem physical shops face, where potential buyers come in to look at products ‘in the flesh’, then go home and buy them online.