How do you handle comments?

Many of our newspaper customers have opened the possibility for comments on their site. The reasons why they do it may vary but I believe it is strategically important for the future. Newspapers who wont listed to their readers and the local community will loose ground faster and harder then the others.

Handling incoming information in a fast and effective way into the editorial department is more important today then ever before. Breaking news will probably not come from the big news agencies!

Most of the newspapers today have some type of communication platform to retrieve feedback from readers. Many newspapers have inefficient solutions where editorial people have to look into one solution for  SMS/MMS, one for email and another for registered analog phone calls and so on!
There are solutions like http://vgnewsportal.com to make all these feedback streams more efficient.

What has this to do with comments?
Comments on a site are in many cases handled by the web content management system or a stand alone system.
Wouldn’t it be better to handle these messages in the same manor and by the same people who handles the other incoming streams?
I think so!

What do you think?
How do you handle comments today?
Is it a good idea to centralize this through the same interface as SMS/MMS and email?

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]