Webware

Commenting can play a major part in making an author's blog post deeper, and more interesting to read. It's like having a discussion in real life versus simply hearing someone speak--there are details, and alternate angles that can come of making ideas go two ways instead of one.

When creating a personal blog or one for business, there are the standard comment systems that come with your blogging platform, as well as a whole new breed of third-party tools that can add extra functionality, and potentially a deeper level of discussion to your site. So which ones are worth installing?

We've picked six of the major players in this space, and talked about what makes them more useful than the ones that come built-in to popular hosted blogging services like WordPress and Movable Type. Even if you're not on one of these two platforms, several of these solutions will work on a site you've built from scratch.

CoComment lets your readers subscribe to comments on a blog post, and share that thread with other CoComment users. It scrapes people's comments from threads they've replied to, so they can monitor and access the responses for multiple sites in one centralized location.

Adding CoComment to your site doesn't involve replacing your current commenting system, but it means you're signing up to be part of the CoComment network. If your users are active members of this community you might get new people discovering your content and taking part in the conversation--which could translate to site growth and prominence. The two things that turned us off to the service were the sometimes slow service and distracting ads that take are found on CoComment's main service.

Co.mments is a plug-in for blog owners, as well as a simple browser bookmarklet that lets you (or your readers) track conversations regardless of whether or not the stock commenting system offers such a feature. It works similar to some of the Web commerce price trackers we've looked at before, and will notify you if there are changes. Commenters can keep an eye on all the conversations they're tracking in one spot, and quickly browse through them like an river of news with a full list of keyboard shortcuts.

If you like Wordpress' built-in comment system and Askimet spam-catching plug-in, and don't want to ditch it for some completely different system, then Co.mments is a simple way to add tracking services for your readers so that they will know when to come back. However, it doesn't offer some of the advanced functionality of the others, and is mainly for helping your users keep track of what's going on with various threads on your blog--not making them more advanced. Several other services we're profiling offer subscription features of their own, but we liked Co.mments' in-box that lets you go catch up on multiple conversations in one place.

Continue reading to find out the other four services and which ones we picked out of the bunch.

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Hot on the heels of my writeup of PDFMeNot yesterday, reader Bonexaw tipped us off about PDFescape, another Web based Adobe Acrobat replacement. This time around, PDFescape pulls double duty not only as a free PDF reader, but also as an editing tool and Web host for PDF files.

PDFescape lets users fill out forms--one of the most commonly used features (besides reading). Additionally, the authoring tools let users create their own forms and send them out to others to fill out and send back. The best part is that the entire system is set up to avoid recipients having to touch a piece of software.

PDFescape's editing tool feels a lot like a simple desktop application, with a toolbar up top, and a workspace that's set up with a file source list, and a tool pallet. The one major drawback is that there's no zoom toggle, making it a pain to use for general reading unless you're got a monitor with a large horizontal resolution, or don't mind panning with your mouse. Otherwise it's simple, intuitive, and definitely a step up from Adobe Reader if you need to change something on a PDF file and don't want to shell out for Acrobat, or use a third party editor.

Edit PDF files using PDFescape's editor that lets you get away with about as much as Adobe Acrobat for a lower price tag.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

To help keep the service afloat there are small ads on the side of the editing and reading environment. Small watermarks are also added to each published PDF form, which users can get rid of using credits that can be bought in increments ranging from $.50 to $1 each, depending on how many you're buying. The real money, however, is in publishing, which is a paid service. It's aimed mostly at employers or other businesses that need to host a PDF with forms online. Publishing credits are considerably more expensive than the "premium" credits, but offer a year of hosting, increased file sizes, and automated sending of completed forms.

I still think PDFMeNot is the go-to service for opening up the occasional PDF file you come across, but PDFescape's publishing tool offers a whole lot of features in a small package that make it much better for publishers trying to escape Acrobat's price tag. Of course if you end up shelling out for the publishing credits, you might be better off investing in a copy of Acrobat and a Web host instead.

Ever had a PDF file or two laying around that needed some minor tweaks, but you didn't wanna fork over the cash for a full version of Adobe Acrobat, or install some other PDF application such a rare task? Give PDF Hammer a look. The service lets you do simple page re-arrangement on PDFs of all sizes, and when you're finished it'll spit it out as one big, beautiful file. The service is pretty simple to use, and lets you upload multiple files without losing any rearranging or deleting progress you might have made. You can also see a picture preview on the left hand side, although it's a little too small to read text.

My major wants for version 2.0: a zoom function, drag-and-drop (for rearrangement and uploading), and a print button so I don't have to even bother saving the file when I'm done.

Having worked in the printing industry before heading to Webware, I can tell you this isn't a replacement for a complete PDF editing and authoring program like Acrobat Professional or NitroPDF, but it's simple enough that I think anyone could use it for some quick adjustments, especially while away from their home machine.

[via Delicious]

Upload several PDFs and delete and reorder to your heart's content. There's also a save button (not pictured) for when you want to output the file to your hard drive.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Glogster is a new publishing tool that's been making the rounds over the last week. The service is focused on letting people create "posters" of various bits of premade and user-generated content using a Flash editor. Unlike some blogging platforms, Glogster has no inclination to go after people who want to write something every day. Instead, the site is geared toward the tween crowd, or anyone else who enjoys partaking in glitter graphics, or those strange greeting cards with dogs and cats that have been Photoshopped to have enormous eyeballs. That being said, using the right tools, Glogster users can create classy looking stuff with a distinct visual style, even if it's got a single-use, disposable life cycle of something like an e-card.

User-created Glogs can contain photos, videos, and a wide variety of premade vector graphics clip art that's both still and animated.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Glogster's editing tool is simple to use, although a little flawed from the get go. Its categorization, which divides up all the content you can place onto a Glog, places a limited number of items together that the user must then sort through one piece at a time. Considering the amount of preproduced content that can be placed on the page, it's an exercise in patience for people to find what they're looking for. In comparison to what I consider a comparable Flash editing environment, video mashup tool Flecktor and competing scrapbooking service Scrapblog do a far more graceful job at putting all the options in one place. The one saving grace is that anyone can dive in and start making a "Glog" without having to register with the service, which is a great way to get a feel for things. Each premade item is also a vector graphic, meaning you can resize it ad nauseum and it won't get pixilated.

Besides being a niche publishing platform, Glogster doubles as a social network of its own. Users can add each other as friends, and each Glog gets its own place for comments and a five star rating that can get it featured on the "top glogs" section. Users can also embed a Glog elsewhere (example), although for some strange reason you can't pick out how big it is, so it looks enormous nearly anywhere you put it.

While there's no integration with some pre-existing photo and video hosting services to help users pull down media they've already had to upload, my guess is that Glogster will add that later down the line. In the meantime, you're required to upload both pictures and videos, the latter of which requires a fair bit of processing after upload before you can add it to a Glog. Scale that to three or more video clips and things get tedious.

I'm not quite sure what to think about Glogster. It's certainly not ugly, but it can be in the hands of its users, who have already created a wide array of Glogs that fall mostly on the side of visual overload. It's amazingly simple if you're just sticking to images with text captions, although compared with Scrapblog, it's missing some of that panache and easy integration that I think keeps users coming back.

[found on DownloadSquad via Craft Gossip]

Yesterday Blogger launched a new service called Blogger in Draft. It's essentially the same old Blogger interface with a few new features the team is in the midst of developing. Think of it like an open beta test. The first new feature is a built-in video uploader tool. Users can add AVI, MPEG, Quicktime, Windows Media, and Real video files with sizes up to 100MB. The service will then convert it into a playable Web video with an interface identical to Google's own video player, complete with Blogger branding.

What's interesting about this new feature is that Google is not-so-secretly uploading Blogger videos to Google video, where they can be searched and sorted. Blogger is just skipping a step in the user process and doing the upload without having to venture off-site.

Google intends to add more features to Blogger in Draft in the coming months. Below is a screenshot of the new uploading interface.

Update: Reader HiddenNook pointed out that Google isn't making the videos searchable through Google video, despite the fact the player branding contains the Google Video moniker and nonworking links to the source video. Digging deeper into the source code of a posted Blogger video, you'll find these videos are hosted via Google video, albeit in private. It's an interesting choice in restrictions.

Blogger in Draft's new video-uploader tool lets you upload videos, not just embed them on the page.

(Credit: CNET Networks)