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Let's stop kidding ourselves. The battle for control over conversations and the silo of discussions is done. Any blogger who believes that they can control the conversations and prevent discussions in far-flung social networks is deluding themselves. And yet, every few months, a new innovation, be it comments in Google Reader, or something like this, freaks the old guard out.

Jeff and Steven's comments are mirrored by Josh Schnell, who in a guest post for Tamar Weinberg on Techipedia cries out that Content Aggregators are Killing Content Creators.

Here's the reality: Conversations have moved to where the reader wa nts them to be - and the best content creators shouldn't care if they get to have conversations on their content in any of these networks. The best content creators and the best Web brands shouldn't care about what people may say on their SideWiki, any more than they should panic over reviews that happen on Amazon's Marketplace or in the iTunes store. People are entitled to their opinions and their commentary, and any further efforts to try and force people to have these conversations in a single place should be extinguished.

Strike one there for Louis Gray. Thing is, I read both Jeff Jarvis' blog and follow all the different online presences of Steven Hodson, and I appreciate both of their opinions and insights, usually. But this...

This reminds me of "old/big media" and their desperation caused by the online (r)evolution of their business.

Stop it. Just stop.

The era of "look at me, I have more comments per post than you do" (hence, *cough* more AdSense and/or referral money, right?) has turned into "look, I have more Twitter followers than you". And we all know how, when (puberty) and with what particular comparison this all started. So go brag about Twitter followers, and stop saying that comments are of any real use to anyone other than the blog's owner. Because they're not. I'm sorry that people may start building you statues anywhere else on the internet, but you'll just have to live with it. And I bet Mike Arrington will be happy to know he (or his team) won't have to delete all idiotic comments aimed at him anymore.

So just grow up.

Or perhaps, Jeff and Steven, you'd rather I invite you by when I'm discussing your thoughts with my friends, offline? Or should we just record the whole thing and post that as a comment on your blogs? Would that do? Is that "fair use"? Does it tingle your egos enough? Or will you call that copyright infringement, like some other individual would want you to?

The big buzzword for the past few years in the blogging kingdom has always been "conversation". See, this is not really a blog post, it's a conversation starter. Heck, let me even end it by making the entire final paragraph into a question! Because I care so much about you, the reader. So come, come to my blog and comment, since I value your insight so much... No, it's not about the pageview... Or the ads you may click on while you're there... No, no, my dear reader, it's all about you. It's not about me making a living out of this because, well, it's easy, oh no... One day, when you grow up, you'll be a blogger too. You can be just like me. It's all about you, see? Never about me.

I don't mind people making money. Hell, even with Google! What I do mind is hypocrisy. So stop it. And you'll still be here in 5 years. Otherwise... Goodbye... I'm sure you'll be laughed at in the future. So, in a way, you'll still be with us. I guess you can count that as a Win.

It's usually funny to see how people react to the world changing. In some cases, though, you just have to quote Bill Maher and say "but... you're smart! you're actually smart! why, then, why oh why??!".