Last month Y Combinator startup BackType introduced a new feature called BackType Connect, allowing users to enter the URL of any blog post to see related comments on other blogs, Twitter, FriendFeed, and a number of other services. The service is quite useful but hasn’t been particularly convenient until now, as users would have to visit the BackType website in order to see the releated content.
Today BackType has launched a new WordPress plugin that allows bloggers to integrate BackType Connect functionality into all of their posts. This means that every relevant comment from FriendFeed, Reddit, Digg, Twitter, and even comments from other blogs that link to the original post can be automatically imported, allowing readers to follow the conversation on your blog no matter where it is taking place on the web.
It’s a very powerful plugin (you can see an example with it enabled on The Next Web’s coverage), and will certainly appeal to many bloggers, especially those who typically only see a handful of comments per post.
But BackType Connect has some weaknesses that will likely keep larger blogs from using it for now. For one, some of the sources (especially Twitter) can be very spammy. Blog admins can pick and choose which services they’d like to include, but it looks like the filters for services that are enabled need some work (Update: Founder Christopher Golda notes in the comments that you can also use WordPress comment filters to keep spam out). There’s also apparently no way to preserve the original comment threads when importing them, which can make some comments appear totally out of context.
I also suspect that some bloggers will object to having comments from their blog imported elsewhere. It’s one thing to present these on BackType’s website, which is essentially a search engine. It’s another thing entirely to take those comments and place them on another blog – and there’s currently no way to prevent BackType from taking your comments, save from not linking to a blog with BackType installed.
Disqus, another leading comment startup, recently launched a similar product.
Sounds similar to what SM2 from http://techrigy.com does, indexing mentions of a post, rather than a brand or keyword though.
Wonder if it can integrate with IntenseDebate comments?
one of the companies i’ve been keeping my eyes on. I think TrueVentures is going to be key in this company’s success/exit.
However, I dont see this as a standalone product that will hit meteoric users. my opinion is a tight integration with somethin else.
Thanks, Jason. We appreciate all the feedback.
Regarding spammy sources: depending on the blog, some sources might not be suitable. Personally, I think the best way to use Twitter with our plugin is to disable it, but show how many tweets there are in the summary at the top of the comments section. In fact, you can disable all sources and just display a summary — this will even work with replacement comment systems like Disqus.
Regarding filters: the great thing about working on top of the Wordpress comment system is that our comments can also use WP comment moderation. We think that the combination of our basic filters by source and moderation should be able to serve most bloggers’ needs. We’ll likely add more sophisticated ways to manage (and display) comments in later versions.
Thanks again; looking fwd to seeing how people use the plugin
Christopher,
The WordPress plugin seems like a great idea. From a webmaster’s point of view it enables us to monitor what others are saying about our own comments/articles which is great. Does the plugin also allow for just the webmaster to view this feed of information without posting it to a given article?
It would also be nice if BackType added a feature to notify me when one of my comments received a reply. Thus instead of having to return back to the website where I left the comment to periodically check, it would come through my BackType account. That would be really nice. Perhaps you offer this and I am just unaware of it?
Re monitoring: you can use BackType Connect manually at http://www.back...nect/tomuse.com or you can use our plugin and enable the moderation setting — that way you’ll get all the comments, but none will be shown on your blog.
Re replies: we let you subscribe to comments on a particular post at http://www.back...m/subscriptions You can make your BackType account autosubscribe to conversations you participate in, but not limited to just replies yet.
Looks really useful! Like Christopher said, looking forward to seeing how people use the plugin!
BackType is awesome.
I use BackType to manage my comments inclusion on my own WordPress using the “Improving The Web” WordPress plugin. Using the “manage” portion of the BackType service, I can select which entries I wish to appear on my own site that point back to the original article.
i.e.
http://fudge.org/my-take/
The only thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes there is truncation of a long URL at times. That said, it’s still a great way to keep a collection of what you have out there vs. having to aggregate DISQUS, IntenseDebate, etc… etc…
Kudos to the BackType team.
Thanks, Jay!
We’re definitely going to resolve the truncation issue soon. Glad to hear you’re enjoying the ImprovingTheWeb Wordpress plugin (http://bit.ly/oeK3) as well; Wesley has another great BackType app coming out soon.
I’ll apply this for my blog
Jason, cheers for the link back to TNW. Always appreciated.
Geither and obama may be doing a good job
http://iamned.com/blog
not web 2.0 relation but relevant to high tech and finance
Just tried it. Nothing worked for me. Very bad design from what I saw.
I hope the designers actually use their own product first before launching them.
The blog you linked in your comment is hosted by Blogger; this is a plugin for Wordpress. If you tried it on a Wordpress blog, the design of the comments is simply inherited from the theme you are using. In other words, our plugin has no influence on the appearance of your comments.
If you’re having issues with activation, feel free to contact us so we can help.
That’ll really work.
I’m still not even sure I’d care for it. TMI Disease is killing the readability of webpages. Half the underlined things that tie to search on a page either point to ads or a complete guess as to what the subject is.
I don’t read newspapers or books so why THIS?
This is very useful plugin and it can help us a lot to save our important time. No tracking of data is required. Thanks i am going to add it.
This one is interesting!
I accidently found my comments on google from the backtype site.
backtype is the authority when it comes to comment discovery. thanks for being there backtype you’ve helped me many a time. BT is a bloggers paradise.
http://www.back...l/mylocator.com
She is very gorgeous.She has posted her nice profile on a
celeb dating site *************tallmeet
…COM …….. she is hot on
that club. Many rich guys were seeking for her.
Would this still work with comment plugins such as Intense Debate and Disqus?
Just added this plugin, After enabling almost 600 comments are awaiting for moderation..
I hate getting things retweeted by Twitter Bots
Backtype should develop their own comment management system to gain greater market share.
BackType has caused me some grief because I wasn’t aware that it was posting anything under my twitter account. I now have to debate about whether to make comments on a blog post. If I could unsubscribe from it, I’d be happy, but it is not in my control. Very annoying. Or I’ll just delete the tweet when I see it.
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Thank you!
It helps in backup my comments and maintaining the track of social comments and responses !
If you want you can further look over “How To Backup All Your Valuable Comments With BackType ” http://bit.ly/U35Ds