Morpho Designs

And I Quote

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Talk about the hidden web! Some of the best writing is buried in comments, replies and user-supplied content.

Just as we have repositories of the best quotes, compilations of commercial jingles and collections of the most memorable movie lines, we should have a searchable database for the best comments ever made.

He Said

A searchable archive might give us a way to get fresh quotes. If the comment is linked, it would give the author exposure - which may not always be welcome!

I see some misdirected comments, the thrust of this is that the “Death by a thousand cuts” of browser based tools is slowly killing them.

And its Microsoft’s own fault, putting all their eggs in their own basket, relying on everything being tied to the Windows operating system, then releasing a total turd ( Vista ) that no one wants.

I say good riddance, ding dong the witch is dead!

- Posted by Todd, April 11, 2008 on readwriteweb.com

She Said

At the very least, a searchable archive could provide a few minutes of entertainment with random comments.

Eyje.com is one example of a fun comment archive.

However, it’s trying to be too many things and it takes itself a bit too seriously:

You can comment in every eyje page. Eyje’s aim is to be widely-know commenting platform. We believe that one day, politicians, artists, companies will follow their pages(and your comments) at eyje.

To be more than just a passing fad, though, a comment archive has to serve a bigger purpose.

It also must be transparent. Eyje requires you to join and then do something else to get your comments archived.

That’ll never do. We’re already up to our necks with bookmarking and tagging.

Enter Big Brother 2000, aka Lijit.com.

Did You Hear What “They” Said?

In one of those serendipitous moments that make life so enjoyable, it turns out that readwriteweb.com, where I happened to see Todd’s comment, also has an article about Lijit:

One of the selling points for Lijit to publishers is that the widget provides a bevy of useful statistics about your readers: where they’re from, what they’re looking for, which of your content they found most useful. (Example stats.) Adding comments to the mix should help Lijit mine more useful metrics for publishers about their readers and how they interact with their blog.

The context of the quote concerns Lijit’s acquisition of BigSwerve:

Personal search engine provider Lijit, … acquired BigSwerve for an undisclosed sum. BigSwerve, which was formed in 2006, has indexed more than 400 million comments from 3 million authors. Lijit plans to integrate the BigSwerve technology into their personal search engine product to learn more about the sphere of influence that publishers in their network have.

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“BigSwerve’s technology helps Lijit further discover the implicit and explicit expertise surrounding a publisher,” said Lijit CEO Todd Vernon in a press release. “To date, blog comments have represented a huge amount of user-generated content that has gone largely undiscovered and underutilized.”

Hmmm, is this the same Todd who dissed Vista?

Whatchu Talkin’ ’bout, Willis?

We are all richer and more colorful than our posts.

If you could have archived everything you ever remarked upon on every blog you’ve ever visited, how much more would we know about you?

More importantly, would you be pleased with your comment “profile”?

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