I found out about The Huffington Post allowing some of their top commenters to switch and become bloggers for the publication thanks to Problogger.net.

Reading through the comments on our site, we realized that our commenters are a tremendous — and underutilized — resource. So we’ve created a process whereby we will choose one commenter a month to become part of our group blog.

Our decision will be based on how many fans a commenter has, how often their comment is selected as a Favorite, and our moderators’ preferences. Every comment now has an “I’m A Fan Of” link and a “Favorite” link, so start voting for the comments and commenters you like best. We will announce the first commenter-turned-HuffPost-blogger in the next few weeks.

My first reaction to this news was “wow, that is a great idea!” Quality commenters have some strong opinions, and rather than having them leave, and talk about what you have written on their own blog, or having their opinions be buried deep within a comments system, harnessing their power and having them work for you might just get your blog to that next level.

I don’t think that The Huffington Post needs more great writers as they are pretty much one of the top ten single blogs right now in the blogosphere, but what do I know?

If you have commenters that are absolutely amazing, maybe now is the time to extend a writing offer to them.

Originally posted on August 19, 2007 @ 6:58 pm