Have you ever wanted to be able to have one central place on the internet that would allow you to keep track of all of the comments and conversations that you have on blogs and Web 2.0 sites? If you’re saying that that idea has never even crossed your mind, then you’ve had the same first reaction that I had to the Web 2.0 site coComment. However, coComment is just that. This site seeks to be a place which can track and share conversations that you have on blogs, sites like Digg and Flickr, and even on sites with absolutely no type of comment form whatsoever. It’s a very intriguing idea, which I decided to check out.

To start off with, coComment is a platform which will track comments that you and other people make on blogs and certain other Web 2.0 sites. They offer two ways to implement this. You can drag a coComment “bookmarklet” into your Bookmarks Bar, and then whenever you decide that you want to write or track a comment conversation, you click on the bookmarklet. A window will pop up above the page content (this is on the page, not a pop-up window), which gives you some options. Also, the actual comment box now displays a small bar underneath it (they call it the “CoCo Bar”), with a couple of options. The plus side of the bookmarklet is that it’s compatible with most modern browsers, the downside is that it’s easy to forget to do. If you use Firefox, coComment offers a Firefox extension which will automatically do the necessary steps to add the coComment bar and tracking on the appropriate pages, which makes using coComment a lot easier; the downside being that this option is only Firefox-compatible. However, some blogs already have built-in coComment integration, which relieves the need to click on the bookmarklet where it’s available. (And by the way, Webmacster87.info DOES feature coComment integration!)

If you write a comment in the box and hit submit, the comment will first be submitted to coComment’s servers to track before the comment is posted. Alternatively, if you click on the Track this Conversation link, coComment will track the conversation without the need for you to post a comment.

Of course, coComment is a Web 2.0 site, so here comes the social features! coComment allows you to invite and add friends to the site and track their conversations, be able to mark various conversations across the coComment site as favorites, and also participate in groups. There are a number of existing conversation groups that you can become a part of, or you can create your own. Groups can be public (anyone can join), restricted (requires authorization to join), or private (requires authorization to join and not listed publicly).

However, one of the more interesting things that coComment has recently launched is the ability to have comments on web pages that don’t even have comment forms, this time utilizing coComment itself as the tool for managing the conversation. As an example, I went onto the Apple iMac ad page, clicked on the coComment bookmarklet, and wrote a comment about how I think the iMac ad is kind of lame. At that point, anyone else who views that page and opens their coComment bookmarklet will see my comment, plus my coComment profile (which lists the conversations that I’m tracking) will list my comment on that page as well as a link to it. In a way, by criticizing the Apple ad, I’ve drawn more attention to it. Will Apple care? Probably not.

The downside to coComment is that it is a bit more of a hassle to use than one would think it should be. Now, granted, they’ve just done a redesign of their site which is in beta, and it does look better than the last revision, however it will still take new users a little bit of a tour to find their way around. Plus, coComment has a number of other features which I haven’t touched upon, such as a conversations sidebar and some kind of Technorati integration, but those are features that I don’t personally find significantly crucial to the service. Also, I wish there was a way that they could make extensions for non-Firefox browsers. Again, I’m on Camino, and more often than not I just don’t think to click on the coComment bookmarklet before I write a comment somewhere, and I do find myself wishing for it to be simplified just a bit.

But nevertheless, coComment is definitely an interesting new service aimed at aggregating all of your various conversations around the net into one place that you can then follow and share with friends. If that sounds even a little bit interesting to you, you should probably give the service a try.

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Tags: Blogging, comments, conversations, friends, review, services, tracking, Web 2.0, web browsing