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The Third and Best Comment Tracking Tool

(Updated)

This has been quite a week for all of us unhappy about missing the other half of the Conversation:  in rapid succession three comment-tracking products were announced.

First came coComment with a spontaneous (?) yet well-executed viral campaign that spread around the Blogosphere like wildfire.  Other than the “big names” supporting the launch, key to their overnight popularity was the fact that it really was the long-awaited  first (so we thought)  solution to a problem that’s been bugging so many of us.  I do like coComment, it has a lot of bells and whistles, and potential to do more.

Then I received an email from Diego who had launched MyComments a few days earlier, but only on Spanish-speaking blogs.  The original launch went pretty much unnoticed but when it got Scobleized, word got around fast … 

Originally I favored coComment, since it places the “burden” of a click on me, the commenter, whereas MyComments is dependent on the blog owner implementing a plug-in.  However, I did not realize that coComment still needs all other commenters to click their coCo-button, otherwise I get nothing…   That said, I really don’t know which approach is better, both leaving me dependent on others

Third time’s the charm:  today without much fanfare Robert announced co.mments, the third, and IMHO best solution.  Simplest and best.  No more dependency on plug-ins, other people clicking ..etc… it just tracks the thread and sends me RSS updates.  I still need a bookmarklet to mark the comment threads I’d like to follow, but that’s OK with me, at least I can be selective with which threads I really want to follow.

(While I am writing this, the site went down .. .at this point only the author’s blog is available.  I guess that’s what happens when your server capacity is not ready to be Scobleized… ) 

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 Update  (2/14):  What a coincidence; just as soon as I declared co.mments the winner, my coComment box disappeared…  (Yes, I know, cheap shot, it’s just an error, but I couldn’t resist…)

Update (3/14):  Now that TechCrunch profiled co.mments, perhaps they will receive due attention    Talk about attention, here’s Steve Rubel. 

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Comments

  1. I must agree with you Zoli :).

    I still don’t like too much that favelet button, but within the three alternatives, this is the one I like most, and it can be easilly replaced with a greasemonkey script anyway.

    Congrats to Robert!

  2. Seems like this new service is quite neat. I am not sure whether I prefer it to coComments. The big problem with coComments is to get really good it need a lot of people using it. As you mention only coCommented comments are put on the site. That sucks.

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