The Next Big Web 2.0 Feature: Embeddable Comments

by phil on Sunday May 24, 2009 1:03 AM
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You know, we take for granted that YouTube not only allows, but encourages us, to embed their videos on our web pages. Before YouTube, web savvy types would have to view the video page's source and copy-and-paste the flash code. And even then, the video providers would block remote access. YouTube not only allows remote access, but they've put the HTML code right there in front of all users. They've set the standard, and now any consumer-oriented video site without this feature is braindead.

But why not take it a step further? Why not provide me the code to embed their comments section on my site. I take that back actually, since YouTube's comments are nefarious. But I'd love to have Reddit's or Digg's comment sections embedded.

Right now, Reddit gives us the code to embed a little badge that says how many upvotes we got. But why not let me embed all their comments on my site? If anything I write gets Redditted heavily, my page will get maybe a handful of comments, but the Reddit page will get between 10 and 50 times that amount. I'd rather just outsource my commenting functionality to Reddit. They have a community-base already, a system with karma and such that already works, a good anti-spam system, and moderators.

Even though I have comments enabled on my site, I had to create special features to block spam. I'm also behind on my Movable Type updates so it takes a while to submit comments. Plus there's no user notification, no threading, and no karma voting. But most importantly, there's no traffic!

At the very least, I could see a transitional embedding, whereby in addition to showing how many Upvotes or Diggs on a badge, you also show how many comments it received.

Comments

Sarah Q Browning said on May 26, 2009 11:49 AM:

Yes! This is a great idea.

I love the new blog header.

Philip Dhingra said on May 26, 2009 11:51 AM:

Cool! Thanks. Also check out the home page http://philosophistry.com/ I added a new BlogFabric timeline.