Well spoken and my two cents to this list.

1. Register or login
I hate that too, especially if they send an email that contains a randomly generated password or activation link. It takes time, usually the time it would take to write the comment itself, if not longer. Makes you think sometimes, if you “have to” comment or better take off without going through all that. The account management got easier for me since I use RoboForm.

2. Publish content in PDF of MS Word format
Sorry, never encountered that yet.

3. difficult to subscribe
Yep, in some cases are you lucky, if they kept the tiny standard link to the RSS in the footer (WordPress), but I had cases, where there was no link anywhere on the page and no auto-discovery tag either. I had to guess the feed URL (e.g. /atom.xml, /rss.xml, /index.rdf, /feed/ etc.)

4. Contextual ads
Agreed, even worse, if the content surrounds the ad

5. Being gracious, respond to comments
The people, who do not respond, even if the person who comments directly addresses them, are arrogant assholes who do not want to communicate and engage in a discussion. They use a blog for their ego trip.

6. Who the hell are you?
Hehe, it also helps to address the person who wrote the post “Hey Blogger Dude (Gal?!), I think….”

7. Date or the name of the author
Name, see 6), Date, I see your point, but in some cases is the blog used as just a publishing platform and the content published are actually well crafted articles that might not be that time-specific and somewhat timeless. However, I also prefer to see a date, even if it is not a “news” post.

8. Archive architecture
You are right, but it does sometimes require a bit more technical knowledge than some folks possess. The default settings of some blogging platforms are IMO insufficient and provide poor usability

9. Bland looking blog
Tells me that the person is not serious about it, because it takes either time or money = something of value. Not providing/investing this value tells me how much you value your own blog. ($0 <= Value <= $1)

10. What can OMG do?
Just continue to write what you have on your mind rather than thinking about what you should write about and what readers want to hear, unless you want to get around 5) and write stuff that provides no reason why anybody should comment.

Cheers
Carsten

hehehehe..

A business who is so afraid of blog spam and doesn’t want to moderate, is not embracing this ‘not-so-new-anymore’ model correctly. A business who is semi-walling themselves from negative comments with logins, is at least partly disconnected from their whole customer/client base. I know I’ve opted to keep my questions or opinions to myself because I didn’t want another password to remember. That particular blog lost a chance to engage me and earn my attention or interest.

The thing that makes this generation of web business and service IS the social interaction, which is much more than it ever used to be. But with all the now global competition, this social interaction, for better or for worse, is becoming a major key to survival.

Cheers to Camilet!

I guess I’m sort of obligated!

What tires me about many blogs are rambling diaries.

I want to go to a blog that has predictable content – in terms of its subject matter – and yet challenges me to think in a different way!

I don’t want to see a daughter blowing bubbles (no matter how cute) on a blog about search. Unless of course the blogger is sharing strategies for how to move “dog pet toy bubble maker machine” results above “bubble bra manufacturer” results in Google.

I guess what I’m getting at is FOCUS bloggers! FOCUS!