by Brian Sols
I’ve written quite extensively over the last year about distributed conversations and fragmented attention and how it’s proving increasingly difficult, borderline impossible to remain in the conversation – even when you start it.
There are various duct tape solutions that I use, but we’re started to hear about solutions in the pipeline that will finally help us reel conversations back in.
Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb is someone I admire. I think that in many ways, we’re on the same page related to online conversations and social media. She recently wrote about a new, early release product, Yacktrack, which let’s people track conversations related to any given post.
The service combs the social web including, Digg, Disqus, FriendFeed, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Technorati, and WordPress to find and present comments that trackback to the original post.
For example, here’s a Yackback for the highly discussed Sarah Lacy post from SXSW:
It’s a great first step and I’m looking forward to seeing the roll out of additional features such as SezWho and Blogger support and perhaps the ability to jump into conversations directly from YackBack. Expect to see URL tracking, email alerts, and possibly a WordPress plugin soon.
Drag this link to your browser’s bookmark bar to Yackback (courtesy of Mr. Marshall Kirkpatrick).
Related posts on the subject:
Ladies and Gentleman, The Conversation Has Left The Building – PR 2.0
Distributed Conversations and Fragmented Attention – PR 2.0
Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, or Facebook.
Discussion
Thanks for the kind words on YackTrack. One question, what do you mean by “jump into conversations directly”? There is a significant difference between linking to the comment pages and supporting commenting on YackTrack that go back to the source. Does that make sense?
Hi Rob, thanks for coming by and thanks for building a great tool. What I’m talking about is similar to how FriendFeed allows people to respond directly from the flow into the channel of conversation. Is it possible to have the link and a button underneath each one that says “care to comment” and have it go directly into the comments section of the respective host? For example, I see an interesting link to DIGG and I want to say something, could I do so from YackTrack and have it appear at DIGG – without leaving the site?
Well, that is when it becomes difficult. I have had this request a few times, so I will be looking at it. However, there are a lot of things to do, and I am going to be taking small steps. I want to make sure I add useful features in a good way. I do not want to slap stuff together and pray it all works. There are enough of those types of sites already.
Rob, well said…Looking forward to the evolution of YackTrack!
Thanks for the props! I look forward to seeing what comes of yacktrack, too. Keep up the great work on your blog (I subscribed even before you added the button)