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by Scott Frangos, Managing Editor for WebHelperMagazine.com

What is Social Media all about? How to you get a good grip on it? If you’re like us, at WebHelperMagazine.com, we have a number of questions along those lines, so we thought a good person to ask would be Matt Colebourne, CEO of coComment. coComment is sort of “meta social” service for the aggregation of comments you make throughout the internet. That’s right. It’s not enough to come up to speed simply on Social Networking. It’s actually time to step beyond that level and see just what might emerge when you can watch metacomment trends.

There’s more to coComment than just having easy access to all your blog comments in one place. You can sync up with Technorati (a blog search and publicity service) and “claim your blog,” if you have one on coComment, join groups, make friends, and research other commenters. The company just completed a Facebook application that allows you to post your coComments on your Facebook page.

The interview came about after an exchange in the comment section of the coComment blog, I had with Matt (where else?), and you will see that I refer to that little dialog in this interview, so here’s a link to that page: http://blog.cocomment.com/2007/11/23/cocomment-updated/

Above is my own coComment page showing a list of recent comments I’m tracking at a variety of blogs, my groups on coComment (three), and that I have no friends (yet — go ahead and add me when you join up).

Interview with Matt Colebourne of coComment (aka Blackblade)…

WHMag: I read that you are the CEO of coComment — are you also the founder, and what role did you play in guiding it to market (any programming)?

Matt Colebourne

Colebourne: Yes, and no ! Nicolas Dengler created the concept, I created the company and the business a bit later. Swisscom, for whom Nicolas was working when he produced the idea, initially funded it as a proof of concept and that got a lot of traction. They then looked around to find someone who could advise whether there was a business there and, if so, what it would look like. I wrote the plan and they, then, asked me to create and run the company.

And, no, I didn’t do any programming although I did start my career as a programmer !

WHMag: What percentage of companies doing business online “get it” that social networking and “conversations” are becoming very important to the life of their company, and what will compel those who are not there yet to get into social networking?

Colebourne: Ouch, very hard to answer ! I think, now, that the vast majority, if asked, would say that they understood the importance BUT they are frequently struggling to implement because they worry about the lack of control issues. As such, there are still some very large online businesses that don’t offer any real interaction with their users.

“I read a brief article on the US police incursion in Somalia. The comments from a Saudi citizen, resident in Somalia, were eye-opening and far more interesting that the original article.”

WHMag: Already, savvy Marketing and PR professionals are buzzing about Social Media Marketing. Do you see the services that coComment provides as a way of casual communication, or a means to market a company’s products and services?

Colebourne: coComment is a service for it’s users. The second we forget that we will no longer have a business. That said, the data that is generated is very useful for the purposes of marketing companies and their products and services and we DO intend to use that to sustain and grow our business.

There are a lot of PR companies, right now, using coComment to track conversations about their clients. We don’t receive any revenues from this activity but it is, I think, indicative of what can be done and the value of being able to make sense of what people are actually saying.

WHMag: You spoke about identifying “emerging themes” (in your comment response), as one benefit of a “meta comment” service like coComment. Any examples of that, and thoughts on where that might take us?

Colebourne: I think the best example is the cracking of the HD-DVD code and the furore that was created on Digg as a result. Many people, wrongly, assumed that it had just been done and, almost immediately, posted on Digg. In reality, as a search of coComment shows, there were many conversations on the topic six weeks before it broke on Digg.

This is what I mean about ‘emerging themes’ … it’s akin to the situation where many people are discussing the same issue in bars BUT they don’t know that the topic has become widespread. Understanding that conversations may be occurring in many locations, on the same topic is highly useful in that it indicates the large themes that will become important.

WHMag: What future upgrades/additional services do you envision at coComment?

Now, that would be a very very long response. However, to keep it quick and simple we will be launching the following in the near future …

Outsource Conversations Enhancement (Advanced Moderation, Display Filtering)

Ranking/Rating: Also working with Filtering to allow sites to offer end users the ability to only see the users/topics/groups that interest them

More Widgets: Facebook, Version 1.0, has been a success but we will be doing a more detailed integration soon.

Usability/User Feedback: We will be resonding to comments on usability and look and feel from our user base. We do this all the time anyway J

WHMag: When are comments more important than the content (post/story) for which they are given?

Colebourne: When they contain content that is more compelling; for example, I read a brief article on the US police incursion in Somalia. The comments from a Saudi citizen, resident in Somalia, were eye-opening and far more interesting that the original article. But, then again, sometimes the comments are very derivative and add little that is new or compelling.

Usually, it’s about individuals; they create content and, if they are smart, entertaining and cogent, then they create great content.

WHMag: Any other comments you would like to make on the theme of where “meta social” services might be headed?

Colebourne: Yes. I think that the current situation with Social Networks and the like is such that the user’s life is getting quite hard. Many passwords are required, services compete instead of cooperating, there are no ‘interoperability standards’ between sites which would permit users to migrate.

Meta services can take a lot of this hassle away from the user and, ideally, offer them a simple experience whereby they can actually do what they want to do; explore, comment and respond. I feel as if, right now, the situation is the same as it was when the last generation VCRs were being marketed. Everyone wanted to add more and more functionality and competed on that despite the fact that it had become a tired joke that only a teenager could programme them. Then, along came the PVR (Tivo, Sky Box etc) and offered MORE functionality BUT with a simplicity of use which made it a pleasure to use.

I think that, if we are successful, this is what we will do for the conversation space. With this in mind, this is why we are open and support integration both incoming and outgoing (RSS, API etc). To try and create a walled garden is, in my opinion, a mistake. It’s fundamentally a defensive position; trying to stop the user leaving rather than encouraging them to stay. We are always pushing users to sites where great conversations happen; that’s to the benefit of both the user and the site. It’s also good for us.

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Thanks Matt. Now go check out coComment.com. Be sure to add me to your friends list there. See you in the MetaConversation.