For a power user, whose searches generally take a form like "term" + "quote" -term site:something.com it may seem silly to try to create a forum for every search term -- surely there won't be enough overlap to create stimulating conversations. For many terms, there probably won't be, but recall that when Jason Calacanis launched Mahalo last year, he said that the top 10,000 search terms account for about a quarter of all searches. With that in mind, Similarr makes more sense.

Similarr also has intent on its side. Google taught us that text ads on search results work because the searcher is showing intent by seeking out information on a specific subject. That concept could work in Similarr's favor -- people may be more apt to join a discussion about a topic they are specifically searching for information about. But in the immediate future, the site faces a chicken and egg problem. While people may be happy to join a discussion already in progress, not many people are likely to want to initiate discussions on an empty forum. Like Mahalo, Similarr may need to pay contributors to seed discussions on forums for top searches.

One thing the site should do, is figure out a way to combine -- or cross post -- to forums for similar topics. For example, a forum for "Tiger Woods" should probably show posts for the search "Tiger Woods injury" or "Tiger Woods knee surgery" as well. There is a lot of overlap in the list of the top 10,000 searches, slight discrepancies in search terms but people are generally looking for the same thing. Similarr needs to figure out how to combine alike searches into a single forum, which will not only be useful to users of the site, but will also automatically seed content in forums for less common search terms that fall under the umbrella of a more common term.

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.

In Paul's post, he notes that "Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. And when you agree there's less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications."

It's true. When you're agreeing with an author of a blog post, it just seems kind of silly to take the time to write out a comment that simply states: "I agree." So instead, the agreement or the liking of the post stays off-record. This means that even on a more universally well thought of post, the comments will often be the domain of the discordant few. This doesn't give a fair representation of the thoughts and reactions of the readers and, therefore, doesn't provide any true insight into the way the issue is perceived. It could be that 90% of the readers think the author is correct in their opinion, but only the 10%  who feel differently have made their voices heard.

Additionally, as those of you who are also bloggers know, it can be disheartening for authors to read through blog comments to only find comments consisting of "well, actually...," "this is old news," and the equivalent of "that's so lame!" filling up the commentary section. Perhaps the post was lame, but then again, it could be that those who enjoyed it haven't taken time to respond.

Commentary and opinions don't have to be pigeon-holed as being in agreement or disagreement, though. Yes, some opinions could be in favor of or against the post, but others could be undecided, confused, or neutral. Unfortunately, it seems that readers with those sorts opinions just move on, not bothering to post anything anywhere until they happen across a blog that sufficiently riles them up over an issue.

Where the Positive Reactions Are

Maybe it's just human nature to only be inspired to opine when you're vehemently against something.

So for generating positive reactions, a service like FriendFeed (sorry in advance to those of you who are sick of the hype) fills a void. In FriendFeed, a simple click allows you to "like" a blog post. You don't have to comment. You aren't whisked away off-site like you are when clicking a Digg button. It's just one click in your stream of content. You see a smiley face. The blog author sees a smiley face. It's nice.

In fact, in this respect, FriendFeed is the new Digg. Yes, I said it.

Whereas at one time, digging a post meant "this is interesting, I enjoyed it," these days, digging is a serious business. Writing for Digg, the logistics of getting to the front page, befriending the elite diggers, the potential for buries...it has all made Digg an interesting and important ecosystem to generate traffic and interest for a web site, but soon, it will no longer the best way to see the true popularity of post. Instead, highly dugg stories are more like a combination of various forces, metrics, timing, and luck. 

Instead, it's the smiley faces of FriendFeed that will be the metric of the future for judging popularity of a blog post. Especially since the FriendFeed API has introduced a way for a Wordpress/FriendFeed plugin to exist. All we need now is a universal plugin that's tweaked so as to let you "like" the post on FriendFeed while still on the blog's web site itself. Then we'll really be in business.

Example of the FriendFeed plugin in action

For what it's worth, the plugin also addresses earlier concerns that the conversation has left the blogosphere. And with blog commenting system, Disqus, being able to integrate back into FriendFeed, it all comes full circle. But that's another post.

More Difficult - Continuing the Conversation via Blog Comments

While FriendFeed makes it easy for people to mark their enjoyment of a blog post, having people comment on the blog with something useful, constructive, or positive is far more difficult.

Referring back the Geek News post, the author writes, "There are loosely 3 groups in increasing order of prevalence: those that want to add something to the conversation (constructors), those that have a strong contrary opinion (objectors) and those that just want attention (detractors)."

It's easy to get detractors. Just throw up an inflammatory post, make some wild claim, or post something that's knowingly inaccurate. Comments ensue.

Objectors aren't so bad, either. They sit on the other side of the fence and offer a differing viewpoint. Sometimes, an objector can also be a constructor and add to the post. I think of this example, where our "Comment of the Day" winner, Jerome, was so convinced about Google Docs' brilliance that he took the time to give numerous examples of what the service can do, which led to a discovery of a feature that many of us were unaware of: GoogleLookUp. So objectors can definitely add to the blog.

Other times, the objectors fall somewhere else on the "Paul Graham Scale of Disagreement," desperate to share their opinion, but going about it in a less convincing way (see DH3 and below). While sometimes the name-calling (DH0) can be humorous (yes, I'm guilty of have voted up the occasional hilarious Digg comment), more often than not it's a detractor to the conversation.

So how can you entice the elusive constructor to add their thoughts to a blog post? To get this sort of blog commenter, you have to first attract a quality readership to your site. This is more difficult. Articles have to well-researched, well-written, intelligent, and insightful. For a blog to provide regular posts of high quality is difficult, but it can be done. And once you have quality readers - those who thoughtfully read the article, think about what they want to say, and then compose their thoughts in a way that creates a valuable addition to the original post - you have a conversation of merit and something worth reading.

And shouldn't that be the true goal of blogging? Intelligent conversation? As a blogger, the focus should be on starting that conversation; for readers, it should be adding to it. Blogger and reader don't always have to agree with each other, but being able to at least constructively debate the issue brings something to the table that straightforward reporting does not.

In this age of information overload, constructive conversations will win out in the long run. You'll find the best conversations through your network of friends - shared in Google Reader, posted on FriendFeed, or maybe even the old-fashioned way (email!). As you narrow your focus to this unique and personal slice of the web, you'll remember why you love blog reading in the first place - not to get Google Reader to stop saying "1000+" - but to join a conversation, add value to a discussion, find like-minded people, debate an issue, learn something new, and maybe even better understand yourself and the world. 

The truth of the matter is, like it or not, the conversations that once existed solely in the blogosphere have now moved on. People still comment, but in a lot of cases, those comments aren't on found on the blog itself. So the question is, has the conversation become diluted among all the different services and applications? Or is it just adding layers to the original topic? And most importantly, how can you keep up?

This morning on the Blog Herald, Jason Kaneshiro, brought up this very topic. When people post an article on a blog these days, the conversations are occurring offsite. The blog link could be submitted to Digg, Mixx, and/or FriendFeed, and conversations may occur around the topic on those sites instead. The original blog post, meanwhile, has 0 comments. Jason asks: "Does this bother you as a blogger? How about as a user?"

He mentions that for many bloggers, the sentiment is that conversation-relocation is detrimental to the blog itself. If no one is commenting on the blog, will the blog lose readers? Will the blog lose traffic? Others feel that bloggers don't own the conversation - let it occur where it may.

Whether you agree or disagree with this sentiment, the real question now is, how can you keep up?

Bloggers today want to know the answers to questions like: Is my article being read? Is it being commented on? Is it being dugg? What are the diggers saying? What do the commenters say? Was it liked on FriendFeed? Did it show up on twitter? What are my friends reading? What are they saying? etc.

Here's How To Keep Up

Before becoming too overwhelmed, it's time to find some solutions. To stay in touch with so many different sources of conversation and activity, let's turn to RSS.

Begin by getting a list of all the feeds you want to keep track of. Here some I recommend, you can pick and choose which ones are right for you:

• Twitter Friends: You can subscribe to your Twitter friends feed, but if you're also going to subscribe to your FriendFeed, which may include Twitter, then you should skip this. Best for Twitter purists only.
• Twitter Replies: Twitter offers you a way to subscribe to your replies only. At the bottom of the Twitter replies is an RSS link to http://twitter.com/statuses/replies.rss. You'll then need to enter in your Twitter username and password to be authenticated in order to get your feed.
• Twitter Topics: You can use TweetScan to search for any topic on Twitter and create a feed for it. This can be useful for someone who may have forgotten the "@" when replying to you, since you can have it search for just your username or common misspellings of your username.
• FriendFeed: The hottest new thing. Aggregate everything and then pick up your FriendFeed feed from the bottom of your "Friends" page.
• FriendFeed Comment Finder: This great new app was built with Yahoo Pipes and it will create a feed with your FriendFeed comments and people who "liked" your content.
• FriendFeed Minus Twitter: Also from the wonderful Dawn Foster of the comment finder, you can create a Yahoo Pipes feed for your FriendFeed minus your Twitter updates, if you would prefer to keep them separate.
• Facebook Status Updates: Track everything your friends are doing on Facebook. Click on "Friends," then choose the "Status Updates" option. On the right, click "Friends' Status Feed."
• Facebook Posted Items: You can also grab a feed for your friends' posted items from the Posted Items page.
• MySpace: MySpace isn't as giving with their feeds as Facebook, but you can still get one if you're crafty. For example, you can get a feed of your MySpace Comments by following the tutorial at 5ThirtyOne if you want to go this route. MySpace blogs already have feeds if you want to subscribe to any of those.
• Digg: Keep track of your Digg comments with Diggwatch. This application lets you find, browse, and track your digg comments and their replies over the last 14 days. You can track by your username, the username of a friends, or you can track the stories and comments posted from a particular domain. The best part is that the service generates feeds for these items for you.
• Social Site Submission Watch Dog: With this Yahoo Pipe, you can track how your site is being promoted on Digg
• MyBlogLog: You may as well pick up the MyBlogLog lifestream while you're at it, found on your homepage: http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/username.
• SocialThing: For those not on FriendFeed, SocialThing is the other aggregating option.
• Flickr: Photographers, don't forget to include your flickr feed to get the latest activity on your photos via RSS. The easiest way to get to this is to go to your Flickr photo page and scroll to the bottom where the "Activity" links are listed. You can also pick up feeds for comments you've made, photos from your groups, or photos from your friends.
• RSSMeme: The problem with RSSMeme is that there isn't a way to just subscribe to a comments feed for any one user (like yourself or your friends) or even a comments feed for the "Popular" stories. You're best bet is to subscribe to the "Popular" feed and then keep an eye out to see if any of your stories or those of your friends make it there.

The final step is to subscribe to all the feeds in your RSS reader of choice, or on your homepage of choice like Netvibes or iGoogle. You can also try to blend them all together as a unified feed, too, using a service like feedblendr.com, and just subscribe to that instead.

I'm curious to know what other RSS feed sources you would include - please suggest some in the comments...or on Twitter...or in FriendFeed...or wherever!

To celebrate our new comments system, from Monday 11 Feb (US time) we are giving away one $30 Amazon gift voucher every day for the next month for the best daily comment.

1. To "enter", all you need to do is write a comment on a ReadWriteWeb post (you'll need a valid email address, but that won't be published). Alternatively you can leave a trackback instead of a comment, if you prefer to extend the conversation that way. We will consider both comments and trackbacks for the daily prize.

2. At the end of each day, the RWW team will select the best comment of the day -- and we'll email that person a US$30 Amazon gift voucher (this will be done in weekly batches).

3. Not only will the best daily comment win a prize, but (in a further effort to extend the conversation), we'll publish it as a separate new post on ReadWriteWeb. So you'll enhance your profile too.

This competition is being sponsored by our partners, AdaptiveBlue, and their SmartLink Widgets - including an Amazon Wishlist widget.

Criteria

The criteria that the RWW team will use to judge the best daily comment is subjective and flexible. But we'll be looking for characteristics such as: insightful, topical, witty, furthering the conversation.

Basically, we want to see a thousand discussions bloom on ReadWriteWeb. We get a lot of comments already and our community is always insightful. But we want to encourage even more two-way conversations. Wisdom of the crowds 2.0!

Another goal is to encourage you to try out the new comments registration and OpenID features on ReadWriteWeb. You can sign in using a custom ReadWriteWeb MovableType id, or any of the following: OpenID, LiveJournal, Vox or TypeKey. Or you can simply fill in the comment form and click 'Remember'.

So, first thing Monday EST -- get commenting and be in to win a $30 Amazon gift voucher every day for the next month.