Webware

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.

A comment thread in Disqus features multi-level threading, and ways to vote up or down a single comment. You can also check out someone's clout without leaving the page.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

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.

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 of using (or in addition to) the more traditional blog-based talkback mechanism. One big advantage is that Tangler is real-time, like a chat room. But it archives like a discussion thread. An embedded Tangler-like discussion can make a hot post feel even more lively. See samples of an embedded discussion here.

A Tangler thread, embedded in a blog.

(Credit: Tangler)

Initially, Tangler was built as a destination site for discussions, and it still works as such. One of the advantages of this architecture is that since Tangler's database is centralized there's (so far) just one log-in for the entire system. So if you're talking on one blog that's using Tangler and then participate on another that is as well, you'll be able to see all your active discussions on Tangler.com. How that's going to square with sites that already have a registration or login system isn't yet clear, although people have talked about using OpenID with Tangler.

Another cool feature: A desktop application that pops up whenever a thread you're participating in is updated. I love this idea. I sure wouldn't want an app for each blog I comment on, but one that covers them all would be great.

The Tangler team still has some work to do before its embedded discussion system will be palatable to publishers. The Tangler branding is a bit heavy, and the discussion window feels like a widget, not an integral part of the sites it's on. Tangler is working on "white label" versions as well as APIs, which should give publishers more flexibility.

Other options: CoComment and Satisfaction

There are other ways to handle discussion overload. CoComment (review), for example, is designed to work alongside existing community feedback systems and keep track of all your discussions. That's harder to do--it requires technology that can intercept data going to various blogs--but it does not require that the blog publishers make any changes. (CoComment has some technical issues, unfortunately, and if you're curious about it, I recommend waiting a while so the team can make it faster and more reliable.)

Other services, like the upcoming Satisfaction (review), are also trying to help users manage their community feedback. Satisfaction has a unique focus on consumer-to-consumer customer support, but the idea is similar: Give site managers a tool for adding community, and give users a place to collate all the community activity they're engaged in.

More established community companies like Jive Software (CNET is a customer) continue to make ever more capable community products for site managers, without trying to skim their users' eyeballs and pop them over to their own site. One might say that the Jive model is more publisher-friendly. As a publisher, I really want my community to be mine, after all.

But I believe we will discover that the newer model is more powerful. As I said, media is fragmenting and so is our attention. From my perspective as a just another Web user (Excepting Webware, I read a lot and comment a little), having one place to track all my discussions would be a big help, and it would likely encourage me to visit even more frequently the sites and blogs I engage with.

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 commenting on. If you've read up on Me.dium [Me.dium review here], the idea is somewhat similar.

Among some of the tweaks to the user interface is a new sidebar that lets you browse what your friends have commented on, viewed through a two-pane interface. It feels a little bit like browsing through your e-mail in-box (if you're familiar with Outlook). coComment is also throwing its hat in as a social bookmarking service of sorts, letting users share pages they're visiting, regardless of whether they have started or become engaged in conversations. Users can share in one of three ways, either to individuals, groups, or what coComment calls the "social Web"--a listing of over a dozen social bookmarking and sharing sites including Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us and Twitter.

coComment is working on a Facebook app that should be ready in the next couple of months. When I asked coComment's CEO Matt Colebourne about any future plans of adding instant messaging to the service, he noted that the asynchronous nature of commenting works well without the need for instantaneous response, and that coComment's speed is more than enough for two or more users to converse quite quickly.

Update: We just got word the launch is being pushed to Monday, due to an issue with Internet Explorer.

Related: Zpeech, co.mments, myComments.

coComment can be very useful on sites like Amazon.com, where discussion is separated. Using coComment, you can take the discussion with you from page to page.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

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.

In any comment box on any site, you can track and tag your post and keep tabs on thread activity.

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.