Become a Tech Expert in 20 Minutes, Plus Comment Tracking

Hi folks -- this one's a little more for the folks interested in the tech and internet industries, so if you're not, skip to the bottom, where I give examples of a few useful comment tracking services.

I've been moving around in this whole social media/community/Internet/Web space for a long while now, so I like to think I have a good idea of what's going on (especially since we saw a lot of the same behaviors the first time around in the Web 1.0/dotcom bubble).

Just by working in the industry, you absorb stuff: News comes to you via e-mail newsletters or informal discussions with colleagues, etc. -- you have to know what's going on, with your company, your competitors, and the industry and world at large.

If you're a dabbler or casual fan of tech, it can be kind of overwhelming. Here's an item from Silicon Valley tech gossip blog Valleywag on Monday: 'Get all the tech news you need (in 20 minutes a day)' (link via del.icio.us via popurls.com)

Yes, you too can be a tech expert, simply by following a few Web sites and skimming the news stories and commentary on a regular basis. The Valleywag list includes themselves (obviously), Engadget, News.com, GigaOM, etc.

Somewhat surprisingly, they leave off TechCrunch, which is pretty influential (and whose proprietor, Michael Arrington, tends to get into somewhat amusing spats with folks on a regular basis [link via Stephanie]).

My own personal list differs a bit, but as long as you pick a few good sources, you'll find that in the blogosphere, and especially the tech blogosphere, everybody ends up circling around the same topics.

People may specialize in different things  (technology mashups, search engines, venture capital, malicious gossip, etc.), or look at items with a particular perspective (business, privacy, social media), but the big stuff gets around to everyone.

Why would you want to keep track of this stuff? Personally, I think it's more useful than, say, following weekend box office grosses or finding the current status of Brangelina, since you can learn about interesting new services you can try. (Some of them may actually be useful.)

It's actually kind of paradoxical (and in my case, more than a little distressing), because you find that the more you know, the more you realize that there's just so much more going on out there.

Comment Tracking Services
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For example, here are two sites I'm aware of where you can track comments that you post in other people's blogs (as well as other places that take comments, like public photo galleries):

Commentful and coComment. [1/25 update: Stephanie says coComment doesn't work with AOL Journals. Commentful should work, though. -- Joe]

The way comment tracking services work, is you register with them, then when you leave a comment in someone's blog entry, you add that entry to your watchlist (via either an extension you install if you're using the Firefox Web browser, or a bookmarklet if you're not).

Then, when you check your watchlist, you can see if there are comments that have been added after yours.

The effect is a lot like taking a lot of scattered blog comments threads, and turning them into a kind of personal message board -- it really helps to close the conversational loop, especially for blogs that you might not visit on a regular basis, because you can see what you said, and if anyone posted after you (it's not necessarily going to be a response to your comment, but it might be.)

If you try it with AOL Journals, make sure you use the entry's direct permalink URL when you add to the watchlist (I haven't tried adding a Journal's main page -- not sure what would happen there.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: social media, web 2.0, comment tracking, valleywag, blog commenting, aol journals.