Mike & Chris: Displaying (promoting) comments that we leave around the web (and remember, commenting is a form of blogging) is indeed something we have been talking about for a while (with Bryan Landers).
The flexibility of the plugin is awesome: now what do we do with it :)
(again, highlighting one of the benefits of offering API access to the data and allowing developers to find a range of ways to use it...)
Bryan Landers
· 11 months ago
I like the WP widget. It certainly covers getting the bulk of your comments in there. Where I see room for creative improvement: making it feel engaging and easy to interact with (and even designy).
For this I think BackType should offer trends for each user (guessing this could be implemented based on the site-wide trends functionality). These would be the most common words in the author's comments presented as tags (could be a common tag cloud with varying sizes).
Additionally, a search field would be excellent as the user could simply enter topics that interest them and see if they are mentioned in the author's comments. Auto-generated tags = passive, search field = active.
With the addition of those 2 features, you'd only need to display 1-3 recent comments, since people's attention will probably not stretch beyond that. For design, you could use the author's profile picture...imagine a comment card. Collectible, sharable, identity trading cards!
Christopher Golda
· 10 months ago
Tags and search are both interesting; I think you'll find that we'll play a more active role in the latter :)
But search I get. Structuring data for analysis is more powerful than structuring data merely for display.
Bryan Landers
· 10 months ago
In this instance, think of tags simply as preset search terms that guarantee the user results since they are dynamically created based on that exact author's comments (5-10 most used words, for example). At a glance you can get an idea of relevant topics to this author without having to generate your own search term. How they are displayed is an independent design concern.
Chirag Chamoli
· 10 months ago
Hey Guys, I have already mailed Christopher. Please make this work for Wordpress.com also. In meanwhile here is a shity implementation of the same widget. On wordpress.com add a RSS Widget and give the feed address as http://feeds.backtype.com/USERNAME . This looks really bad but now at least you have something.
Christopher Golda
· 10 months ago
Thanks, Chirag.
It's unfortunate for WP.com users, but we'll look into offering something soon.
I'm using wordpress. Well I haven't using it since after newyear because of being busy and now I've found a lot of nice programs in the net that makes me leave wordpress.
All Comments
The flexibility of the plugin is awesome: now what do we do with it :)
(again, highlighting one of the benefits of offering API access to the data and allowing developers to find a range of ways to use it...)
For this I think BackType should offer trends for each user (guessing this could be implemented based on the site-wide trends functionality). These would be the most common words in the author's comments presented as tags (could be a common tag cloud with varying sizes).
Additionally, a search field would be excellent as the user could simply enter topics that interest them and see if they are mentioned in the author's comments. Auto-generated tags = passive, search field = active.
With the addition of those 2 features, you'd only need to display 1-3 recent comments, since people's attention will probably not stretch beyond that. For design, you could use the author's profile picture...imagine a comment card. Collectible, sharable, identity trading cards!
Comment card, community card -- lots possible
Thanks for the comment
But search I get. Structuring data for analysis is more powerful than structuring data merely for display.
It's unfortunate for WP.com users, but we'll look into offering something soon.