Kareem:

Your point about users being lazy is a good one. As far as I can tell, it looks like CoComment wants to become that search engine -- they appear to be planning to build their service into the commenting feature on most of the major blog platforms, so the indexing would happen automatically.

Mathew, I hope they accomplish their goal; it would help follow conversations a ton.

The problem with the current bookmarklet method is that there is no short-term reason to click it, so people forget. If the CoComment guys could somehow send a shot of seratonin into your brain every time you click it when you leave a comment, I'm sure they wouldn't need to bother building it into major blogging platforms! ;)

I love the idea that you have to let the user be lazy. Smart Kareem, very smart.

I also love the idea of CoComment and hope it makes an impact. Aggregating comments would provide a better picture of the commenter - who they are, what they're interested in and how often they post.

One could then take that data and develop a picture of the Commenters on a specific blog. Advertisers would love it. They could get a sense of who their ads are being targeted to. The Blogger would generate more revenue if their readership is highly sought after.

Another application could be for potential employers. They could search and read all of a candidate's comments to see just who they're dealing with.

A very interesting idea with all kinds of interesting applications.

PS - sorry Lew - things have been mad hectic the last few days - I'll send that email to Dreamhost ASAP.

Kareem:

If you use Firefox, you can install a Greasemonkey script that removes the necessity for clicking the bookmarklet, but then I guess that requires a little effort too :-)

@Brian: the job seeker idea is a very interesting one!

@Mathew: already installed it :) But the people who use Greasemonkey are also the people who will try to modify their behavior to use CoComment--geeky early adopters. To cross the proverbial chasm, it's gotta be usable by the lazy users.

Hi kareem, yea i like the "defense of the lazy user" you have taken on. I'm one for the case :) but i have to say that this coComment service is already helping me a lot to put my good energy on writing more instead of searching more..all my comments on one page and the RSS alert are working very well for me and im using Safari, so i don't have the greasymonkey script enabled..its just one click on a bookmarklet that i agree could be also automatized.

cheers!
/b

ps, i got few codes to give away in case anyone wants one let me know (via my blog could be faster)

Hi Kareem,

At first glance, I agree with your lazy user theory.

However, just yesterday (read: alpha geek = not I) I used gmail's chat feature for the first time, which saves your "comments" for you in a way. It reminded me that instant messaging, a concept that at one time would have certainly been categorized as alpha geeky, is now somewhat ubiquitous with other means of online communication.

Does that mean CoComments and the like will catch on like wildfire? Likely not, but I'm betting that the concept of tracking and archiving comments will never go away. It's far to useful to do that!

I'm one of those lazy users :-)

I had to scratch this itch, and came up with a service that does just that, officially released on Monday.

http://co.mments.com

Any feedback on what works and what can be improved?

@Eric- I don't think the idea will ever go away, because you're right--it's too useful a concept. I'm saying that for CoComments to hit the mainstream, it will need to be integrated more seamlessly.

@Assaf- I'll check it out!

Kareem

Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I haven't been up to much these days. I just don't have much to say right now. I can't be bothered with anything , but whatever.