Mobile Technology in TAFE

My most important tip for keeping up with conversation on blogs is being very effective at managing my comments on other people’s blogs and I showed how I achieve this using Co.mment in my last post. But as Joaquin pointed out in the comments of this post another alternative is to use coComment.

Last week I road tested coComment to compare it’s benefits with co.mment because Alan Levine post on his annual blog absence to comment highlighted that he uses Cocomment. Perhaps I was missing something?

Trouble is I’m not sure? Ultimately what I want is a simple an effective mechanism to manage comments. Co.mment provides me with this solution. coComment definitely has more functionality and it focuses more on the community aspect.

SO I have decided that I need the community (i.e. those that use coComment) to sell me on the benefits of using coComment because perhaps the issue is how I’m using it. So my plan is to show how I use the application and hopefully this will help others highlight aspects that I’m missing.

Comment Feed Viewed In Google Reader

I like to manage comments that I track by adding the RSS feed to my Google Reader account.

When a new comment is added to a post I’m tracking using co.mment it shows an extract of the post, the name of the commenter, date, number of comments on post and the comment.

My feed from cocomment provides considerably less information. No extract from the original post, no indication of the number of comments on the post and the name of the commenter is only displayed if that person has an account with cocomment.

If the commenter doesn’t have an account the comment says Unknown says……. To make matters worse at the moment all comments with Unknown says are being feed through without the comments!!!!

The feed from co.mment provides me enough information to remind me why I am tracking the conversation so that I can make an informed decision to respond back to the comment without having to go to comment or visit the original blog. This is not the case for the feed from cocomment.

Comparing number of comments

• My co.mment account - 436 conversations tracked (since August, 2007)
• cogdog coComment account - 332 conversations tracked (since Feb,2007)
• Darren Draper’s coComment account - 134 conversations tracked (since July,2007)

FINAL THOUGHTS

So where am I going wrong with coComment? What am I missing? How do I make the community aspect work for me?

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Blogging is all about having the conversations — not talking to yourself! True conversations, which is what we want to achieve, is when we all, author and commenters interact.

Managing Comments on Other People’s blogs

I’ve many tips for keeping up the conversations on blogs but I believe the most important is being very effective at managing my comments on other people’s blogs. I use co-mment, which tracks my comments, and it notifies me automatically by sending the comment to my Google Reader account. This way when a person comments on a post that I have commented on I can choose to immediately respond back if I want. Co-mment means I can effectively manage my conversations, and they can be near instantaneous.

Setting up Co.mment Account

1. Go to co.mment and click on Get an account to set up your account
2. Click on Tool/Setting link and follow instructions to add bookmarklet to your web browser

Add A Post You Want To Follow To Co.mment

1. Write your comment on the post you want to track
2. Then click on the Co.mment bookmarklet in your web browser — make sure you are logged into your co.mment account

Subscribing To Your Comments From Co.mment Using A Feed Reader

There are a few options for recieving updates of new comments on blog conversations you are following:

• Read them directly on your tracking page at co.mment
• Subscribe by email — means you receive e-mail alerts when new comments are posted
• Subscribe to your tracking page RSS feed using a Feed Reader i.e. new comments are delivered to your Feed Reader

Subscribing using RSS is the most efficient method because you can use it to manage all the information you receive e.g. comments from your co.mment tracking page, latest posts from blogs you read, your friends Flickr photos.

Responding Back To Comments

By subscribing to my co.mment tracking page using Google Reader I’m quickly notified when a person comments on a post I’m tracking so I can quickly choose to respond back if I want.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Do you use comment tracking applications? If so, do you prefer co.mment or cocomment and why? What are your tips for achieving true conversations on blogs?

And if you’re enjoying this blog, please consider Subscribing for free

Frustrated because you like to read new comments on other bloggers’ posts when you have added a comment and find it time consuming to keep going back to the post to see if there is new comment? Well - you don’t need to!

Thankfully Cammie helped me out by telling me about Co-mment.

Here is how you use Co-mment:

1. Add the Bookmarket to your Web browser
2. Create an account with Co-mment
3. Every time you comment on a post you press the Track co.mments
4. Log into your co-comments account to check the updates of comments
5. Alternatively click on the subscribe icon in your account and copy the feed address into your Feed Reader (e.g. Google Reader, Bloglines, NetVibes)

Thanks Cammie you have given me a definite timesaver. This makes commenting on other people’s posts sooooo much easier!!!