Track Distributed Conversations With YackTrack
Not too long ago, we discussed the problem of conversation fragmentation in the blogosphere and how new services, like FriendFeed, as well as old services, like Digg, were providing places to have conversations about a blog post off of the blog's web site itself. While many saw this trend as a natural evolution, some, mainly content producers, were upset, now having to check several different places around the web to track conversations about their content. However, for Rob Diana (aka "Regular Geek"), the discussion around this issue served as an inspiration to build a service that can help: YackTrack.
Introducing YackTrack
YackTrack is a conversation tracker, automating the search for the comments that many content producers currently have to seek out on their own. After searching for a similar service that does this and not finding one, Rob decided to build his own.
Using YackTrack is simple - just enter in the URL whose comments you want to see and and click "Search for URL." YackTrack scours the net to find comments from services like Digg, Disqus, FriendFeed, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Technorati, and WordPress. Each supported service has its own separate section so you can follow the conversation that takes place on that site.
YackTrack's Web Site
There are still many things people wish that YackTrack could do, but Rob says those are coming. Specifically, his future plans include registration and saving URLs to track, RSS and email notifications, more supported services, and, based on initial user feedback, maybe a WordPress plugin as well. He also hints at something even bigger, saying "My future plans are fairly straightforward, except for one part that I would prefer not to talk about yet."
Despite these big plans, Rob seems humbled and surprised by the attention the service is receiving, especially considering the service only launched yesterday. He's worried that his server, never tested to withstand a huge traffic influx, won't be able to handle the load we send. (RWW has been known to crash startups' servers before). "This is not a large beast like FriendFeed or Twitter," he says. Maybe not yet, Rob, but I'd buy some extra servers and bandwidth just in case.
Update: Marshall made a YackTrack bookmarklet! Drag this to your browser's bookmark toolbar: yacktrack this!
Comments
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Um... just a minor nit to pick. There is A server, singular not plural.
Posted by: Rob D | April 28, 2008 7:46 AM
@Rob - corrected. Wow, good luck!
The power of RWW: YackTrack is clearly getting a lot of traffic because it's not working. :)
Posted by: Mark Evans | April 28, 2008 8:19 AM
Good post Sarah, I will sure check this out. Lets see how it can benefit me? :-D
Posted by: Siddharth | April 28, 2008 8:41 AM
Really like it, though two things I'd suggest: I'd like to see the links to the results from Technorati and I'd like a javascript bookmarklet to look up any URL I'm visiting (maybe I could put that together myself I suppose).
Here's a little bookmarklet I just put together yacktrack this!
@Mark
I have been trying to do a query every so often, and it hasn't crashed yet. There is a known issue with the way some of the services report "story not found" results, so maybe you are just not getting results.
@Marshall
I have not tried to put a bookmarklet together yet, though it is a good idea. However, the link you provided does not seem to work.
@RWW
Thanks for the coverage. I am getting fantastic responses and feedback from everyone. The attention is much appreciated.
Posted by: Rob D | April 28, 2008 9:37 AM
@Marshall, sorry, just saw the update within the story itself. Thanks a bunch.
Posted by: Rob D | April 28, 2008 9:39 AM
Yah, sorry - my bookmarklet in the comments isn't tracking the yacking - but look at the link at the end of the post here and you'll find one that does work.
We could use a great new aggregated zeitgeist. Currently we have separate trend monitoring tools on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, blogosphere, etc. There's some value in being able to trend-spot across every major conversation channel. Maybe Yack can go there...
Posted by: Q dub | April 28, 2008 10:44 AM
@Q dub
And that is why I can't talk about some of the things I have planned ;)
Posted by: Rob D | April 28, 2008 10:49 AM
Can it ignore anchor links too? So if I clicked on the #more link - could it just chop that off in the search? That would be nice.
It will be interesting to see if traditional media companies begin adopting technologies like this, aggregating conversations about their stories (or whatever they post) that they can't control.
Right now, if there's a post that violates the TOS, for instance, companies can easily remove them. With a comment-stream, I would assume that would happen.
Even if it did, however, the question becomes: Do you trust a media outlet that scrubs comments that exist in another place because you don't like what is being said. Do you censor the feed from another site?
That's two questions, obviously.
This is a very cool idea though. Looking forward to watching it unfold...
Posted by: Brad King | April 28, 2008 10:56 AM
Interesting tool! I've played with it for a few, had to go back to an old post to be able to get anything that came up. This can be very useful for people researching!
Can't wait to see what Rob has in store for the future! :)
And MEGA Thanx for Marshall's bookmarklet! :)
Posted by: Paula Hawk | April 28, 2008 11:02 AM
@Marshall, removing # anchors is a good idea. I didn't really think of that. Obviously I am missing a whole bunch of goodies based on the feedback I am receiving.
@Brad, not sure if the questions were directed at me or not, but I am going to answer anyway. The feeds are not censored or scrubbed in any way. I am not planning on doing any of that at present either. The core list of sites that I am supporting can be "trusted" to some level, and I am planning on keeping the supported services list to a reasonable number.
@Paula, thanks for the praise. Again, I didn't think of the researcher angle either. I had targeted blogs mostly, or "content producers" in the broader sense.
Posted by: Rob D | April 28, 2008 11:17 AM
Love it for what it does! Wish I could click on a result to go there, though, and see the context. I'm so sure you'll implement that feature that I almost didn't include it. That goes along with the researching use, I guess. Thanks, Rob. I need this.
As far as content scrubbing? As long as the source yacks without scrubbing, there won't be much any media outlet can do about that, outside their own network. Assuming you give them license to edit the results shown in their track, they will only edit results for their branded version, correct? The source track would still return all the results unfiltered. I don't see how they could ever remove comments from any site other than their own.
Posted by: Jon | April 28, 2008 4:13 PM
@Jon, not quite sure what you mean by "click on a result to go there". If you mean go to the "source yack" (love that term by the way) like a Digg comment, you can go to the main digg comments page for the post itself. I do not have links to the comment directly yet.
Given that the site went live yesterday, I am quite some time away from worrying about "inappropriate" comments.
Posted by: Rob Diana | April 28, 2008 6:15 PM
Love it!
I wonder if you could get the comments sent over to your Blogger or Wordpress blog via something similar to OpenID.
Posted by: Bryan Saxton | April 28, 2008 8:32 PM
Wow, this is cool. Tried it on a couple posts. Very nice. Good work.
Posted by: Tris Hussey | April 28, 2008 9:35 PM
@Tris, thanks for the kind words. I am glad to see people liked it.
@Bryan, there have been several requests for a WordPress plugin. I need to look at the best approach for integrating with blog platforms as I would need to support WP, Blogger and MovableType at the minimum. Thanks for the feedback.
Posted by: Rob Diana | April 29, 2008 3:07 AM
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