Here’s another housekeeping thread, so bear with me, but this is one I’m pretty excited about…
As stated on my “about” page, the Chamber serves as my home base, but the reality is that I’m often engaged in discussions all over the blogosphere. In fact, I’ve probably posted thousands of comments on hundreds of blogs and message boards using the handle “ChenZhen” (picking up a “Schmooze Award” along the way), so it’s safe to say that the majority of the stuff I post doesn’t appear on this site.
For awhile now, I’ve been a little frustrated by the fact that it’s hard to keep track of a lot of these engagements. Sure, I’ll make an effort to follow up on most of my comments and check for responses within a few hours or maybe even the next day, but eventually I have to move on. If there is a downside of the blogs, I think that #1 on the list is this short attention span dynamic. Moreover, on occasion, I’ll remember making some really good point somewhere including a link or whatnot over a month ago and I won’t be able to find it (or at least I’ll conclude that the search for it wouldn’t be worth the added effort; most blogs don’t enable comment searches) at a point where it might come in particularly handy.
Well, I’ve discovered a tool that might alleviate some of this frustration and provide myself (and Chamber visitors) an easy way to track all the comments I’m posting all over the web, coComment:
I’m still getting the hang of it and testing it out, but it appears that this will keep a log of every comment I post at any blog (wordpress.com will track comments that users will leave on their blogs, but it’s fairly limited in scope), as well as any subsequent responses. This is very cool, as it basically turns the entire blogosphere into a giant message board.*
Even better, I can share my latest adventures with Chamber readers via the power of a simple RSS feed. I’m going to call it “track CZ sightings” and place it convieniently under the “CZ roams” widget in the sidebar. From what I can tell, the most recently active threads occupy the top of the feed (similar to a message board), making it easier to keep an eye on what’s hot.
And if I ever have a “stalker”, I suppose it would enable such a person to chase me all over the blogosphere. To those brave netizens, I would echo George Bush and say ..
..”Bring ’em On!”.
*So far, the only sites I’ve come across that appear to complicate this process are those that require you to click “preview” before posting (like Daily Kos and NewsBusters). As I learn more, I’ll see if there is a way to get around this.
(h/t: Wordpress.com guru timethief)
Update: I’ve been experimenting with using the RSS feed for “my conversations” (which tracks others’ comments in the threads) and “my comments” (which is just my most recent comments, and doesn’t reflect which threads are “hot”), and for the time being I’ve decided to stick with the latter. So, that feed in my sidebar simply tracks the most recent comments I’ve made on any site that is compatible with coComment. If you scroll over the various links, you can see what I actually posted.
My biggest disappointment so far with the coComment thing is it’s spotty compatibility with blogger (blogspot.com sites). That, and the inconsistent way that it grabs titles for the the threads. I’m sure that the coComment people are working on this, but until all the blogs (and blog services) out there decide to integrate this compatibility, I’m afraid that it won’t be perfect. In concept, however, it is a very cool thing, so I’m going to stick with it and hope that, over time, many of these little issues will be worked out.
ChenZhen's Chamber 
