coComment: Not For Me

coComment is a service designed to simplify blog commenting and will help you keep track of the comments and conversations you and others are making on blogs. To use coComment, you just write your comment in the comment field of a blog and click on the coComment bookmarklet (that you’ve already installed) before submitting the comment. And that’s it, comment tracked.

Well, I’m going to shock everyone right now by writing this post, but I’m not on the coComment bandwagon. Although I applaud any company’s efforts to bring out new services to the blogosphere, tracking my comments left ’round the net is not for me. It boils down to this: adding another click to the commenting process does not simplify anything for me. Call me lazy if you want, but one more click is one click too many. It’s bad enough that I have to strain to figure out what random letters are displayed in Word Verification boxes; that I have to fill out my name, email, and site information in order to leave a comment because there is no across-platform standard that everyone is using (like TypeKey, but with universal use); it’s bad enough that I have to (for goodness sakes!) login to leave a comment on people’s personal 100-hits-per-month blog…but now I have to click one more time? It’s not going to happen.

The other aspect of coComment is that it lets you track the comments left on your blog. However, there is a problem with that; from the help section of the coComment website: "…when someone comments on your blog who is a coComment member, their comment will appear in your "Your Conversations" page. If they are not a member, their comment text can not be grabbed, so the comment will be added to your blog but NOT to Your Conversations page."

Obviously, there are more non-members than members, so this is a issue. The logical solution to this problem is, of course, blog integration, and it appears that coComment is moving in this direction, but currently the list of supported blogs is limited to WordPress, TextPattern, Mojira, and Serendipity. According to the help page, they do not know how to integrate coComment into the following services: TypePad, MoveAble Type, Blogger, MSN Spaces, MySpace, flickr, Xanga, and Kaywa. And if you don’t see your blog service listed there, then it isn’t even on their radar.

If you want to use coComment to track your comments you are leaving throughout the net, then have at it, I’m sure you will enjoy that feature; but if you want to use it to track comments left on your blog, coComment just isn’t there yet.

However, all this being said, I wish the coComment team the best of luck as they grow their web 2.0 endevour; just remember: integration, not user interaction!

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BlogMad is a new (still in private beta) blog traffic exchange that I’ve been testing. One of the coolest features is the del.icio.us integration. While you’re surfing blogs, you can click to add a blog to your favorites, and it will simultaneously post to your del.icio.us. Later, you can check in on your favorites, now displayed in a tag cloud format via auto-tagging. Nice! Features like this are going to make this site really cool once they get the beta kinks worked out.

So…wanna see some big full-page screenshots of BlogMad? OK, then - click here.

Why on earth do there need to be 8 versions of Windows Vista? And could the names themsevles be more obtuse? I mean, seriously, calling one version Windows Vista Business and one Windows Vista Enterprise doesn’t exactly clarify what the differences between them may be. How is "Basic" better than "Starter"? How is "Ultimate" better than "Premium"? And what’s with the Windows Vista "N" versions? "N"?! I am supposed to know what "N" stands for? Do we really need this many options?

Here is the complete list:

• Windows Starter 2007
• Windows Vista Home Basic
• Windows Vista Home Basic N
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Business
• Windows Vista Business N
• Windows Vista Ultimate
• Windows Vista Enterprise

Coming in the 3rd quarter of 2006 is the next big update to everyone’s favorite web browser, Firefox. Version 2.0 of Firefox will be improving on the already exceptional platform, with improvements to the bookmark and history system, security enhancements to extensions, search engine improvements, and changes to the tabbed browsing interface. Meanwhile, Microsoft plays catch-up with by releasing their Internet Explorer 7.0 browser.

I’m looking forward to the changes to the tabbed browser settings the most. I have to use the Tabbrowser Preferences extension in order to customize everything to my desires, and I would love to see more built-in customization tools. However, I’m intrigued by what all the new features will offer. There is even a rumor that the bookmarks feature may be moving in the direction of tagging - where a bookmark could reside in more than one folder. That would be a definite improvement.

Amazon is in talks with various major record labels regarding a music service they plan on offering.  Also, Amazon is looking to partner with a hardware manufacturer to offer a flash-based music player that they will brand with the Amazon logo. All this is an effort to directly compete with the Apple iTunes Music Store, and, of course the iPod. An article at Red Herring, suggests how Amazon may try to compete by offering up something different than Apple and the other current services:

The company may offer players that come preloaded with songs based on the customer’s CD-buying habits.

Amazon could also provide extra discounts on CD sales to customers of its music service to avoid cannibalizing its own CD sales too much with the service.

Why recreate the wheel? Joe has an excellent review!

PXN8 is an online photo editing website that is really easy to use. If you are ever without your favorite photo-editing software, keep PXN8 bookmarked as a good backup choice. You might even find that you like it even better than photo editing software! With PXN8, you can zoom, crop, resize, tilt, change colors, sepia, reduce red eye and much more. What’s even better is that with a click of a button, you can upload your finished product to flickr! Now, that is handy!

From the Opera Website:

Opera Mini™ is a fast and easy alternative to Opera’s mobile browser, allowing users to access the Web on mobile phones that would normally be incapable of running a Web browser. This includes the vast majority of today’s WAP-enabled phones. Instead of requiring the phone to process Web pages, it uses a remote server to pre-process the page before sending it to the phone. This makes Opera Mini™ perfect for phones with very low resources, or low bandwidth connections. Opera Mini™ offers the same speed and usability as the renowned Opera mobile browser, and uses Opera’s Small Screen Rendering™ technology to provide access to the Web. It has all the features expected of a browser, and more, such as bookmarks, browsing history, and ability to split large pages into smaller sections for faster browsing.

I guess I really have to get that data plan now.

Gmail in the workplace? The beta is coming. From a Google website: "Bring Gmail to your domain. This special beta test lets you give Gmail, Google’s webmail service, to every user at your domain. Gmail for your domain is hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software for you to install or maintain….Gmail for your domain is currently available as a limited beta. If your organization is interested in helping Google test this service, we’ll consider your domain for this beta. You’ll need to sign in with a Google Account (or get a new one), and answer a few quick questions about your organization and your email needs."

Did you get the new Google Toolbar? One of the coolest features of the new toolbar is the ability to make your own custom buttons. Don’t have the time? Well, Search Engine Watch listed several sites that have tons of buttons for you. Of course, Google offers an extensive selection as well.