Tech billionaire Mark Cuban, whose forthright communication makes him one of my heroes, has turned off comments on his blog....


He said that "they have devolved to the point where they add no value." I hope he won't take offense that I am taking one of his quotes out of context, but he told Online Journalism Review in an interview, that there is "nothing smarter than listening to your customers."
However, considering that many of Cuban's blog posts get a thousand or more comments, it's not hard to see that managing comments could be time-consuming. But Cuban is Mr. Open Conversation, so I hope the policy will apply only to his posts about sports and not to his posts about business and technology.
I emailed him to ask for a comment on the comment issue, but have yet to have a response. That's odd, because Cuban lives by email: it's how he does his media interviews; it's how he recommends that executives improve their images; and it's often how he initiates conversations. If you read this Mark, I'd love the opportunity to do an interview with you.
Cuban has had a remarkable impact on dead-tree journalism, and on C-level blogging. He also just snagged Dan Rather to become an investigative reporter for his HDNet, and is soon to start the already controversial sharesleuth.com which will focus on "corporate chicanery and securities fraud."
I hope Cuban will provide a little more perspective on his decision because removing comments also makes a blog a one-way medium instead of a two-way conversation.
My comment policy is that I won't allow anything to be said on my blog that I wouldn't allow in my living room, and I certainly won't let people call me names as they have Cuban. But I won't turn comments off, despite tons of spam, because comments are a type of checks and balances for blogs.