The Search For A Blog Comment Search Engine
I love using coComment to help me track my conversations at my blog (BusinessBlogWire), at the Know More Media network and around the blogosphere. Here are some of my thoughts on blog comments. I invite you to post your own thoughts here as well!
In December 2005, Steve Rubel discussed the need for improved comment search capabilities, stating that “what we all need is a way to search the entire conversation.” He was especially referring to blog comment search - something still in its infancy - and predicted, “This is where the blog search war will be fought in the months ahead.”
Those bold statements have proven true over the past several months. But I think Steve’s brightest pearl of wisdom in that prophetic post was this: “Blog comments have perhaps more collective wisdom inside them than any other form of consumer generated content. However, as of today, there’s essentially no way to mine them. Who’s going to help us here?”
Fast forward to yesterday, when Steve pointed to a new Nielsen BuzzMetrics study which concludes that blog comments are “often neglected” in blog-related studies and that comments account for as much as 30 percent of the volume of all blog posts. The study also says that offering comments on your blog tends to improve your blog’s visibility in search engines, and that a blog’s popularity tends to correlate positively to the number of comments appearing on it.
What am I getting at? Just this: The time is now for someone to make a blog comment search engine, or at least incorporate comment search into an existing search engine. They could make quite a bit of money by providing this valuable resource for bloggers, advertisers, marketers and professionals alike. coComment has come a long way already toward establishing that type of service, and I hope that coComment (or another tool like it) will soon emerge that will make comment search and tracking available and appealing to the masses. The tipping point for comment tracking is close - the point when its widespread adoption on blogs and by bloggers is secured. Let’s see who takes it past that tipping point - perhaps the coCo-nuts will do it!
Thanks to the coComment team for letting me do this guest post for them. I appreciate the opportunity and will continue to recommend coComment to my Know More Media colleagues and to other bloggers as well.
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