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October 15, 2008

Just leave a comment and you're blogging! Experimental: Comments-o-matic

Here's something new that maybe you'll find useful. I know I do, because I made it.

Introducing associations comments-o-matic (aka c-o-m), a blog (and accompanying RSS feed) that compiles comments made all around the association blogging community into a single spot on the web. It's still in beta, okay?

Here's how it works. You leave a comment here on my blog, or on any of the 20 association blogs that are publishing a comments RSS feed, and within a few minutes to hours, it shows up at c-o-m. By reading c-o-m, you get a flavor of which are the most compelling conversations on association blogs (according to the wisdom of the crowd, at least).

Head over to c-o-m to give it a try. If you're an association community blogger who isn't on the list, there are instructions at c-o-m on how to get your comments added to the site. There are also instructions on how to get your blog's comments taken off the list, if for some strange reason you want that.

And big props to Scott Oser for sponsoring comments-o-matic.

Tagged: ; ; ;

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just curious: what qualifies as an association blog? I work for an association and I blog about social media, but my posts aren't usually tied specifically to association stuff.

Ben Martin, CAE said...

Maggie, a blog about the practice of association management qualifies.

Anonymous said...

Ben,

a. This is very cool.

b. The RSS feed appears to be broken - you have to fix it so I can add it to my reader!

:)

Ben Martin, CAE said...

Elizabeth, it's working for me in Google Reader, but I have noticed that it didn't work in Bloglines. However Bloglines seems to be having widespread issues and I recently stopped using it in part because of this. What reader are you using?

Anonymous said...

Ben, this is really useful. Thanks!

I know it's still in "beta" but two features that I think would make it 1.0 (but they're not deal killers):

-- It would be useful if the feed links went to the original blog post; right now you have to go through the feed to your site then to the original site.

-- It would be nice if there were some way to include the commenter's URL, if any, from their original comment.

Don't know if either of these are possible, and again, not deal killers, just thought I'd suggest them. I miss most comment conversations so this is a useful tool indeed. Thanks again.

Anonymous said...

Cool stuff - particularly that we could ultimately see what's prompting interest.

Ben Martin, CAE said...

Thanks for the feedback y'all!

Kevin, Blogoclump was part of the inspiration for c-o-m, thanks for leading the way. Your first suggestion is do-able, I think. Let me start tinkering. The second suggestion... actually it already works for Typepad blogs. It's WP and Blogger that don't spit out the commenter's URL in the comment feed. I'm open to suggestions on how to achieve that because I certainly agree that would be useful.

Anonymous said...

Ben, might want to check the c.o.m. wordpress settings so that it is not automatically pinging, some of the comments are sending pingbacks to the original blog. Thanks again.

Scott Oser said...

Ben,

Thanks for the props. As you know I am doing my best to stay up to date and experiment with Social Media and if I can help people take it places I may not think of by supporting something like C-o-m I am happy to do so.

The other reason I am posting is that Bloglines seems to be fully functional again. I have to admit I was considering dropping it because all of my feeds had weird ! symbols after them meaning they weren't working. This lasted almost 2 weeks and I was growing incredibly frustrated. Earlier this week the !s went away and everything started working again. No idea why but I am happy it did. Also, Comments-o-matic, now works within Bloglines! If you are interested you may want to give it another shot.