If you're not familiar with BackType, it's an online tool that lets you search for and monitor keywords across the Web in an effort to put an end to 'comment fragmentation.'

With the amount of people socializing on the Web and leaving comments across the blogosphere, online reputation management is crucial. Not keeping up means you may miss out on important conversations about you or your brand - especially when they occur in the comment sections. Just look at the recent controversy surrounding Motrin.

Monitor Comments Across the Web

BackType can monitor comments you leave, or it can monitor comments that a person you specify leaves across the Web. Brilliant if you're interested in knowing what someone is talking about online, or if you want to know which sites they're commenting on. It also offers a search function by keyword letting you see at a glance how often your keyword appears in comments, where it appears and gives you an easy way to reply.

How it works

Once you sign up for an account, BackType scans the blogosphere looking for your URL in comment forms and attributes the comment to you by placing it on your profile page.

In a nutshell, BackType:

• Provides a unique URL that you can use if you don't have your own Web site
• Aggregates all of the comments you leave across the Web
• Aggregates comments written or shared by the people you're following
• Lets you search for comments on specific topics and follow those written by the people you care about
• Offers keyword specific search so you can easily find comments that mention your industry, products, services, competitors
• Provides an alert service that tracks keywords in comments and e-mails them to you (much like Google Alerts, but for comments)
• Allows you to track comments by blog post via Subscriptions
• Has created two widgets; one displays your own comments, the other shared comments
• Is available on FriendFeed
• Supports Digg, Reddit, Intense Debate, Live Journal and Vox comments

Potential problems

Potential problems could arise if people use your name to comment, but BackType has planned for that by offering a moderation option.

While it doesn't compete directly with JS-Kit, SezWho, and Disqus as it isn't a plugin, it could be considered a competitor to Artiklz which is also focused on aggregating comments.

So if you're a blogger or just interested in being informed about conversations in the blogosphere, why not give it a shot?