When you try to change, you learn things....

I wanted to upgrade by Blogger template to the new template. The new template was going to clean things up a bit for me and offered me the opportunity to add new widgets to my blog from other 3rd party services "at the touch of a button". I value simplicity, so I was willing to do this. New Blogger gave me the ability to add modules into my side bar etc. I thought, that will be neat. Then I realised that: (1)It only offered a few limited module choices, (2)It had actually made it harder to add outside modules that I wanted to add, and (3)I couldn't add the "recent readers" widget from mybloglog. Besides the fact that I don't like being hemmed in with no way out, I was totally unwilling to give up my "recent readers" Mybloglog widget, which shows what other people have recently visited this particular blog. Why? because that's often the first thing I look at when visiting other blogs. Its like a virtual watercooler, it validates that this is still an interesting place to visit, it points me towards people that have a similar interest to me. The people that come to the blog, and leave a trace like this, are a "social object", and a valuable one to me. Think "enabling communities" and not "providing content", and I think that there are a whole range of customer service and customer interactions that could be radically redefined.

technorati tags: customer, interaction, voice, messaging, customer, contact