This is a follow-up to my previous post on the subject. Michael Parekh posted a good summary of several related issues on his blog, also linking to other bloggers’ views.

One of his thoughts for a potential solution: “Imagine if every person who comments had a PRE-SET user name that worked on all blogs in the system. Then imagine is that user-name could be used, with the user’s permission of course, to construct a “virtual blog” for that user on the fly, listing their comments across various blogs, WITH the under-lying context. Voila…we’d have millions of new bloggers overnight with their own virtual blogs, WITHOUT them having to go through the EFFORT OF MAINTAINING A REGULAR BLOG AT ALL.”

Wow, Michael, I think we already have it – well, almost. The platform I use, Blogharbor (Blogware) has the concept of the “Reader Account”, which is a universal id/authentication system across ALL blogware supported blogs, and isn’t Typekey a similar solution for Typepad commenters? I believe both were conceived as anti-spam measures, but as a side-effect, created the foundation of what you’re suggesting. And of course clicking on an entry would bring up all other linked comments left by others

Merry Christmas!

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