Aug 14 2007

A Review Of coComments and co.mments

Written by Mark MeAndMyDrum | Fave MAMD | Subscribe to MAMD

Whatever your reason for leaving comments on other blogs is, no doubt you have found it a bit of a challenge to keep track of them all. “Did someone respond to my comment?” “Where did I comment?” “How’s the conversation coming along?”

Sure you can subscribe to all the places that offer that feature, but wouldn’t it be better to have them all in one place?

Worry no more. I’d like to compare two tools designed to help you keep track of your comments, saving you time and keeping your sanity. Walk this way, won’t you?

co.mments
As you surf the Web and find something to comment on, you click the bookmarklet from your browser’s toolbar to start recording the conversation. You can either return to your account to view how conversations have developed or you can receive emails as the conversation grows. Clicking this bookmarklet will provide you with a brief confirmation in the form of small window that will quickly fade away.

co.mments

Not feeling sociable? That’s all right. Just click the bookmarklet anyway and watch the conversation without participating.

co.mments

What I like about this tool is it doesn’t get in my way. And as can be seen above, the interface used to view the comments I track is very clean. I’ve configured it also to email me when a new comment has been made. It’s rival below doesn’t do that at this time, but they’re working on it.

Rating ****

coComment
I really want to love this tool — I really do. But I do find it a bit irritating at times. Okay, I do find it that way a lot of the time. It’s integration is clever and automatic, but it’s also slow to the point of not allowing you to make a comment at all.

coComment

It adds a little toolbar beneath comment boxes on blogs you visit (and even some sites and forums). Choosing to track a comment is easy: just check the box. When you do, the blog you’re on is documented in your account where you can return to see how the conversation has developed.

coComment

The trouble I’ve been having with it is that it just takes forever to connect, if at all, to the coComment server. Unchecking the option to track the comment doesn’t seem to help either, so I’m left with just disabling it. 👿

coComment

One strong feature is that it does offer a nifty sidebar in your browser allowing you to click on blogs you’ve visited and view the conversations in the right side of the window.

It also offers a widget to display on your blog to show your readers what you’re commenting on. It may sound cool, but, IMHO, if you have time to live vicariously by watching someone comment elsewhere, then methinks you have too much time on your hands. 😉

Another characteristic of this service is that it is definitely a community just like MyBlogLog in that you can keep track or your friend’s comments, and start or join groups. Nothing wrong with that.

If it weren’t for the disappointing “get-in-the-way” behavior it gives me, I’d give it a 5-star rating. Alas, I can only muster a 3-star.

Rating ***

So if you’re looking for an easy way to keep track of your comments or want to monitor other people’s conversations, then I recommend using co.mments. But if you’re more into tracking your comments, joining groups, adding friends, and what not, then perhaps the coComment service is more to your liking.

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    8 Comments on this post

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    1. Matt said:

      Hey there.

      We think we’ve fixed the speed issue. We suffered a database corruption at the same time as we upgraded which resulted in lots of hanging processes.

      This is now fixed and we’ve also made some upgrades to further speed interaction so let us know what you think.

      Best,

      Matt.

      August 15th, 2007 at 3:47 am
    2. Mark said:

      @Matt of coComments: thanks for dropping by to mention that. I really think your service is cool. Now that you’ve worked some kinks out I’ll have to give it another try. 🙂

      August 15th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
    3. K-IntheHouse said:

      Mark.. great post! Stumbled.

      I have tried both and experienced the slowness you mentioned as well. Glad to hear that it’s been fixed and I am going to give CoComment a second try as well.

      SezWho seems to be an interesting option as well and it integrates nicely with your blog too!

      August 16th, 2007 at 6:40 am
    4. chrisblogging.com said:

      This is a great review; very comprehensive. Im not sure if I would ever use these services, but maybe worth a try in the future…

      August 16th, 2007 at 8:32 am
    5. Vics said:

      I’d not heard of co.mments before, we use CoComments at present but if the slowness has been fixed i’d hate to know what it was like before..

      August 16th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
    6. K-IntheHouse said:

      Just noticed that you’ve used a screenshot of ShanKri-la in this post. Dig the new design, huh? 🙂

      August 17th, 2007 at 8:18 am
    7. Kristina said:

      Hi, Quick update on coComment. The speed issue was due to some bugs that we encountered while migrating to the new version, V2 Beta and this is now solved. We’ve also made a few UI changes based on user feedback and preferences, so please keep them coming! Thanks! Kristina (kristina@cocomment.com)

      August 17th, 2007 at 10:14 am
    8. Mark said:

      @K: Thanks for the stumble buddy! I’ll have to check out SezWho. Hehe…I was hoping you’d notice that. 😉

      @chrisblogging: thank you Chris! Yeah, it really depends on how much you want to keep track of conversations. You get out of it what you put into it.

      @Vics: hehe, well I haven’t checked them out since the comments made here about their upgrade, but I’ll check them out soon.

      @Kristina: thanks so much for updating us on that. I plan on revisiting your service. Glad to know you guys respond to user feedback. 🙂

      August 18th, 2007 at 6:48 am

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