cocomment

There's a new universal comment system launching this morning called Disqus (pronounced "discuss") that's aiming to improve the world of commenting for both users AND blog creators. Their take on comments is a little bit like OpenID's stance on logins: give users one identification for many places, while mixing it up with the social tracking capabilities found in coComment and Twitter.

Blog owners who install Disqus to replace their default commenting system get the added benefit of creating a separate forum for each post that mirrors whatever discussion is on the comment thread. In return, users can maintain the same Disqus identity on multiple sites assuming blog owners are willing to buy into the system. Unlike a comment tracking system like coComment (review) however, the onus to be a part of the community falls on the site proprietor instead of the user.

As a commenting system it's very full featured. There's threading that I tested to go six levels deep (a step up from most default comment architecture), and a per-comment voting system that lets users vote on the quality of a response using up and down icons. Users can then sort the comments by chronology, or the most votes on the fly.

Also worth noting is the profile system, which like coComment, lets you see a user's list of comments, and links to where they've been making them. While you can comment anonymously to your heart's content on any Disqus comment board, you can also come back later on to claim your profile in order to start maintaining an identity on other sites--a kind of "try before you buy" approach. If you end up claiming your profile on one site, your "anonymous" identities on other sites will link to your identity.

One neat takeaway is that Disqus lets you track other Disqus users in a similar fashion to Twitter and coComment, throwing all their latest comments (and links to where they've been reading) into one public stream. As an added bonus, each user gets a "clout" rating, which is an aggregate measure of how their comments are being rated in various networks. The higher the clout, the better their perceived reputation is to other casual observers.

Disqus is free, and works with major Web blogging platforms like Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, and MovableType. If your blog falls elsewhere, there's also a snippet of javascript code you can drop into every post, or add to your site's post template to add Disqus comments. I've embedded a Disqus comment module after the break, so feel free to give it a spin.… Read more

The fragmenting online media world is leading to a world of fragmented online communities, too. More people are participating in discussions on blogs, and on social sites like MySpace and Facebook. And it's becoming impossible to keep up with all of it. Tangler, which we've covered before, is now in beta and addresses this issue. I thought it'd be good to look at this solution and how it compares to some others.

Tangler is building an embeddable discussion system. Later this month, site publishers will be able to embed a Tangler thread widget onto any post, instead … Read more

coComment, the universal comment community, is opening up its doors to everyone today on Monday, along with a fresh new look and a handful of tweaks and new features. I originally took a look at the comment service in early May, and came away impressed. The basic idea is that comments for things like blog posts, YouTube videos, and Web sites become centralized and available to everyone. Once users buy into the system by registering and installing an extension in their browser, they're able to comment on any page they'd like and keep track of what others are … Read more

CoComment is an interesting service that helps you monitor comment threads on blogs and Web sites. The service does two big things. One is letting you subscribe to any post's comments, regardless of whether the site in question offers notification of replies. The second element is scraping comments from threads you've replied to, so you can monitor and access the responses for multiple sites in one centralized location. If you're a frequent commenter on several different blogs or sites, this could be a worthwhile service for you.

In order to see if a page you're on has an active coComment discussion, you need to install a small Firefox extension. Alternately, there's a bookmarklet for other popular browsers such as IE and Opera. The key benefit in using the coComment extension is that it will automatically link your on-site comment with your watched comment threads. You need simply click the coComment button, and the service will give you the option keep track of the conversation, add tags, and mirror the thread to your watch list.

When browsing, the plug-in will change colors from blue to orange on any page you're on to let you know a coComment thread on the site or post already exists. Like the bookmarklet, when you click the plug-in button, you'll get the option to follow a thread or comment through coComment, instead of via the site's comment engine. This is one aspect that I don't like, since it's taking potential discussion off the site's built-in discussion. At the same time, for sites without the option to comment, coComment can add this functionality.

To keep track of what others are commenting on, registered members can become friends. Users can see who has subscribed to their conversation feeds, as well as see other coComment users who have responded to the same threads. Each user also gets their own comment and subscriber count, which acts as a general way to tell how much clout or interaction coComment users have.… Read more