Good to see I'm not the only one noticing the idea is not particularly new with coComment here for years with very similar functionality. But the difference of BackType not making users install anything will obviously result in tons of content to aggregate and search here, much more than anything coComment could ever amass.
AllInOne
· 1 year ago
Hi,
I think there is one detail that is not totally true in your article: coComment recently announced that they are now tracking the Technorati top100 blogs. I guess they will do more sooner or later. This also mean that this is not user driven. Additionally, if just one coComment user comments on a blog (or just ask coComment to track this conversation), then the full conversation is traked: all comments are extracted from the blog page and I'm notified of updates. After discovering Backtype, I was interested to see how it compares to other services and how it can make my commenter's life easier and I do not think there is a major improvement in term of following/discovering conversation there. After I asked about this on Backtype blog, they answered that if my goal is to track conversations, other services might be more appropriate. I think Disqus does not compare that much as it concerns only the conversations they manage (the site need to use Disqus service, as you do on your blog): as a commenter, it does not help that much as most of the sites are not using Disqus. Backtype seems to make a point of not needing any user browser plugin or site integration. Interesting to see how they will cope with the growing number of sites that enable commenting (blogs, of course, but also now more and more media/press sites). As the web is now moving toward generalized conversation, I guess they will need some "google" power to find all the conversations.
Svetlana: I'm not sure how Backtype can amass more if they do not have a functionality were users can add blogs to the service.
All Comments
I think there is one detail that is not totally true in your article: coComment recently announced that they are now tracking the Technorati top100 blogs. I guess they will do more sooner or later. This also mean that this is not user driven. Additionally, if just one coComment user comments on a blog (or just ask coComment to track this conversation), then the full conversation is traked: all comments are extracted from the blog page and I'm notified of updates.
After discovering Backtype, I was interested to see how it compares to other services and how it can make my commenter's life easier and I do not think there is a major improvement in term of following/discovering conversation there. After I asked about this on Backtype blog, they answered that if my goal is to track conversations, other services might be more appropriate.
I think Disqus does not compare that much as it concerns only the conversations they manage (the site need to use Disqus service, as you do on your blog): as a commenter, it does not help that much as most of the sites are not using Disqus.
Backtype seems to make a point of not needing any user browser plugin or site integration. Interesting to see how they will cope with the growing number of sites that enable commenting (blogs, of course, but also now more and more media/press sites). As the web is now moving toward generalized conversation, I guess they will need some "google" power to find all the conversations.
Svetlana: I'm not sure how Backtype can amass more if they do not have a functionality were users can add blogs to the service.