Big Think made a splash when it hit the Web last month. After all, the site boasts hundreds of video clips of intellectual celebrities talking about pressing issues, has the former president of Harvard as one of its investors, and got plenty of glowing press coverage (including a mention in The Chronicle, of course).

But when T. Mills Kelly, an associate professor of history and art history at George Mason University, took a close look at the site, he says he felt like he was visiting a ghost town. “There’s virtually no discussion going on — hardly anybody has participated in ways that were anticipated,” he says in the latest issue of the Digital Campus podcast, where he is a host, along with two colleagues.

He and his co-hosts noted that Big Think, which features three-to-ten-minute clips of talking heads, does not seem to be getting the kind of response that the University of California at Berkeley’s YouTube page has. Berkeley’s page offers entire lectures from the university’s professors.

Indeed, of the 10 questions featured on the front page of Big Think as of Thursday afternoon, none of them had comments from readers. A few other videos had drawn some feedback, with the most being for a clip about “What is happiness” by Dan Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University. That had 26 comments.

Victoria R.M. Brown, a founder of Big Think, says the site is sparking far more discussion than the front page suggests.

“Content is certainly getting buried at the moment and we’re trying to address it — in part that’s why some of it is not being commented upon,” she said in an e-mail interview.

“We are addressing it in several ways: We are adding the ability for users to track their conversations and have implemented alerts so that users know when their comments have been commented upon. We are adding tickers to the home page to more clearly surface new activity. We are changing the algorithms so that most popular content surfaces more accurately. Also, we’re adding the ability of users to identify like-minded thinkers.”

What’s being discussed? She points to a clip on atheism, which has drawn more than 110 comments; one on favorite quotations, with 72 comments; and one on Marijuana legalization, with 40 comments.

Perhaps it’s too soon to judge, but just browsing the site, it is hard to find clips that are attracting a buzz.

But Ms. Brown said the number of comments is the wrong measure of the site’s popularity.

“We have had millions of video views and know that Big Think is not only about commenting,” she said. “Many people are using the site as an educational and informative tool.” —Jeffrey R. Young

Categories: Video