Posterous’ Annoying Comment Subscriptions

Okay, I’m beyond annoyed right now.

I recently made a comment on Guy Kawasaki’s Posterous blog Holy Kaw. The entry, “This is why Richard Branson is so successful“, shows billionaire Richard Branson on his knees, shining Kawasaki’s shoes. Pretty hilarious stuff. I couldn’t help making a comment. And to follow the discussion, I opted to receive email updates as new comments are added.

55+ comments later, I’m trying desperately to find a way to cancel those email subscriptions. Like, wow, this is annoying.

Posterous is a new blogging platform created by two CompSci Stanford grads. They’re backed by Y Combinator and are noted to be easy to use.

Which is why I’m confounded by the lack of thought in this supposedly easy and useful feature. What a horrible social media device. Allowing commenters to subscribe to future comments is a great way to bring them back to your site and continue with the discussion – otherwise, they forget about your blog entry and move on. It’s social media marketing magic.

But when an entry becomes really popular and gets 150+ comments, then that magic becomes an annoying parlor trick real quickly. Already, I’ve seen a few others getting irked by this. Some of the comments I’ve seen so far:

  • “Wish I would unchecked the box to e-mail me with the default check. now I am trying to turn it off.”
  • “Too many comments”
  • “Stop”

I just emailed Posterous. I really hope they respond soon and turn these damn subscriptions off.

Author: Mike Lee

An idealistic realist, humanistic technologist & constant student.

One thought on “Posterous’ Annoying Comment Subscriptions”

  1. To their credit, it looks like they’ve finally removed me from the comment subscriptions. However, I don’t see a way to do so manually on their site. I wonder if other commenters are still having this problem.

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