Real-Time Interaction With Your Visitors

Talking to your site visitors in the comments section of your site is extremely important, but here's a way to communicate with them even better.

Google recently launched a few new variations of their instant messaging client - Google Talk. Particularly interesting is a small Google Talk button that you add to your site by simply inserting one line of JavaScript. Clicking on this button will launch a Google Talk client in its own window. It may seem kind of pointless to have a button for visitors to launch Google Talk until you consider the advice Google gives on their 'What's New' section of the Google Talk page:

If you have your own webpage or blog, you can also add a button to your site so your visitors can pop out the Google Talk Gadget when they visit your page. If you want them to chat with you, just list your username next to the button and ask visitors to sign in and add you as a contact.

Now obviously you could just list your Gtalk name and have a site visitor enter it in their own Google Talk client, but having a button to launch the service right on your site is very convenient, especially because this pop-up Google Talk loads very fast. This option can also be preferable over a in-site chat because your reader can reach you without you having to be on the site at the same time (as long as you are signed into Google Talk). It would be nice if Google worked into this script a way to automatically add your name to the reader's contact list upon click of the button, but this is a start.

mgs_gtamong.jpg

Another tool offering real-time interaction with your readers is whos.among.us. The premise of this service is very simple: it's a widget that show you how many people are currently reading a page on your site in real time.

Whos.among.us requires no registration or set up, simply copy and paste the code into your site. Clicking on the widget will take you to a page that shows which pages specifically are being looking at and which have recently been looked at. Sometimes it's just nice to know you are not alone. So while you should definitely be active in your comments section, also allow your readers to start conversations with you on the blog and take them even further.

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SMX

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Reader Comments (3)

Yuri Gadow, April 6, 2007

Another way is with a Skype HTML button. The buttons can automatically add a contact, call, chat, leave voicemail, or send a file. Unfortunately, it's not fully contained in the web browser, like GTalk.

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/share/buttons/wizard.html

I use Skype for IM and voice, but I'd never thought to mix it in for readers of my blogs. I'll have to mull that one over, could have interesting results. But I'd bet most would already have me as a contact, be reluctant/uninterested in real-time communications (a greater ego risk than asynchronous), or be cranks.

Zach Katkin, April 7, 2007

Nice finds... It's funny I just discovered Whos just a day or so ago, weird who these things spread so quickly. On a similar note, how do you think site chat features add or detract from the user experience. After installing some live chat code on a few business sites I saw conversion rates drop drastically. I think users like to pick and choose when and how they will contact/interact with you. When a popup interferes with that choice, forcing them to talk, they get pissed and leave.

MG Siegler, April 8, 2007

@Yuri, thanks for the Skype tip, obviously that is a very widely used service that could be beneficial to have on your site.

@Zach, that's interesting about the conversion rates but I'm always in favor of giving users options on sites. Certainly they don't have to click on the buttons to interact with you, they could send a email or leave a comment instead, but if they are looking for more immediate answers to a question, I think they'll appreciate the buttons.