BackType: Track Comments Across the Web!

The advent of web celebrity has fascinated me from the get go. People like following others -- I mean, it's the whole basis of Twitter.

But sometimes I lose track of how reality has changed from the old days, when one wanted one's name in print three times in one's lifetime -- at birth, at marriage, and at death.

So I was puzzled when I first read the concept behind a service called BackType. But the more I explored it, the more I realized what a bang up idea it is. Here's how the company summarizes its key offerings:

Claim your comments Whenever you write a comment on a blog or other website, BackType attributes it to you. We give your comments a home where they can be discovered, followed and shared.

Subscribe to search results Receive updates whenever a search term is mentioned in a comment – delivered by e-mail (immediately, or in daily or weekly digests), RSS or your Dashboard.

Connect with others Identify and connect with the people who's thoughts and opinions you value; follow their comments in your Dashboard.

The comments feature looks familiar if you are a Twitter user -- you can follow people as they make comments across the web and see those comments as a sort of stream:



The alerts feature is very cool because it tells you when the keywords of your selection appear in comments -- this is great news for people who want real time issues tracking as comments don't get spidered well, or at least quickly.

As I mentioned earlier, the concept really grew on me over time. I can totally see the appeal of a service that allows us to track people of like interests -- or indeed Internet celebs -- as they speak out online. Give it a whirl and I bet it'll catch you in its addictive web as well!

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.