Business Bytes
Curt Finch

Keeping Track of Blog Comments

 

As you have probably seen in my other posts, I try to respond to the comments I receive here on Inc.  But I wish there was a tool that would send me a notification when readers leave a comment on any of my articles.  I am an avid writer, so not only do I write for Inc., but several other business web sites, as well.  It's quite hard to keep track of all the comments that come in, especially for older articles.

Why Don't You Just Use a Comment Plug-In?

If I was only concerned about my Project Management Blog, a plug-in would be an excellent solution to my problem.  I bet I could even get a plug-in that I could check on my Android.  But I am looking for a solution for publication's web sites and blogs that I don't own or manage directly, so a plug-in does not solve my problem.

My Current Answer:  RSS Feeds

The best answer I have found for staying updated when someone comments on my articles is using an RSS reader that works on multiple devices.  The solution I like the best thus far is called FeedsAnywhere.  This feed can be accessed on my PC as well as my Android.  So I signed up and started to add RSS feeds.

And then I found complications…

First, Inc. is awesome because it provides an RSS feed for my comments.  Not everywhere I write does that.  It is tedious, though, to get the feed from the comment section of each individual post I write.  Second, some web sites don't offer an RSS feed for my comments, so the best I can do is create a feed for my articles (if there is an RSS feed for just my articles).  It's great to have all of these RSS feeds in one place and it keeps me more up-to-date than I was before, but it's still a complicated and time consuming process.  Each web site for which I write has a different way of organizing its site.  Maybe my problem will be solved once more standards are created for how a web site organizes guest blogs and articles, which would probably be useful for readers who want to leave a comment, as well. 

If you're an online writer who has work all across the web, how do you keep up with comments?  Let me know!

Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx.  Curt is an avid writer and speaker.

Curt Finch has more than two decades of software development and distributed workforce management experience. In 1997, Curt created the world's first internet-based timesheet application and the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt has a B.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech. His book, All Your Money, is available on Amazon. @curtfinch