Thursday, November 8, 2007

Somebody Should...

You know when you have those great innovations that you can't put into practice, but would make your life oh so much easier, nicer, more convenient or just plain better? I always let them slip into the void, but dammit if I do that I'll never get to use them! So I'm starting a new label called "somebody_should" for just such wonderful ideas. Feel free to post your own wonderful ideas in the comments and then maybe somebody will.

Today's problem is how frustrating it is to follow comments on a post, article, etc. I notice this when I'm reading an article with great comments (or funny ones), but I'm also thinking to where I foresee academic journals going (I think some Science ones already do this): on-line publications that include comments to encourage scholarly debate and interaction. Thus, being able to track comments more efficiently than just through clicking on the box that says "email comments" (though I'm thrilled for that feature!) is needed. So Somebody should create a program similar to Google Reader that lets you follow particular comment streams, but do it all in a single program. Thus, while right now I'd have 4-5 emails if I wanted to follow a conversation, in Comment Reader, I could just skim through the postings I've saved. The best scenario is probably to incorporate this into a Google Reader type program (which doesn't currently allow you to read comments at all, which is frustrating), but I'm open to other ways of getting it done.

_________________ did!

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