One start would be to create an opensource wordpress plugin + a client side browser bit of js code to support it. That way each user could support their own comment systems for each place they comment. The bit that currently alludes me is the discovery bit. How do others know you have commented on a particular site?
One way could be to publish say RSS feeds that link to sites you have commented on allowing others to discover what others have said. That or some sort of microformat that marks up some page that people read. This would not be real-time though. Commercial sites have an advantage here as they have a centralised place people can look.
Maybe the solution is to offer a commercial discovery site that acts as a registry of comments. So for example:
- user John writing using open source firefox plugin you make some comments on a third party site say hackernews
- plugin sends comments back to your open source wordpress blog, adds comments to blog then generates new RSS feed of comment detailing comments + discovery information (blog, url etc).
- wordpress pings a commercial site "CommentsRUs.com" that pulls the RSS file, parses it and either creates a new entry for a particular site, adds comment.
- user Jane who has subscribed to CommentsRUs.com, HackerNews site is notified by twitter that John has responded to a HackerNews article she has also commented on
- user Jane makes another comment and CommentsRUs.com either notifies user John or makes an entry on his homepage http://commentsrus.com/person/john/hackernews/ so he can follow the thread.
Of course this is no substitute for the original site because the annoying thing is the meta data is not captured. Then again if they did have some mechanism to capture the metadata ( http://goonmail.customer.netspace.net.au/hackerid ) you can do lots of useful things.
http://www.tipjoy.com/our2cents/2007/10/real_liveblogging_li... "Real live-blogging, live comments, and a comment API"
Live blogging is an interesting aspect of the blogosphere. Bloggers post in real-time, often while attending an event, chiming in live with their thoughts and views. This is a great way for bloggers to communicate with their readers, but it's currently not well supported in blogging tools.
Live bloggers should be able to update their posts in some manner similar to a chat client, or collaborative editing software. The system would take the blogger's new content and appended to the post on the readers screen without a page refresh. It would be entertaining to watch something so live, along with a different take on the process of posting to a blog. Readers could see sentences edited and thoughts refined.
Ideas come from writing them down, and this would be a live crystallization of thought.
The stream could be synchronized to an event, and then later could be played back to get the same experience.
Similarly, comment sections could be live. This is nothing new, with group chat rooms updating messages to the whole group. But it would improve the user experience of a comment thread, with new comments appearing on the site live. For sites with comment modding, the votes could also be live -- watch trolling comments nose dive and disappear.
Regarding comments - comment systems should have open APIs. For example, if a blog post makes it to the front page of reddit, digg, and Hacker News, there will be 4 disparate comment threads, one at each of the news sites, and one at the original blog. Rather than forking the conversation, recommendation sites augment it: grab from and push to a comment feed. Comments on Hacker News should be visible on the original blog, and comments there should appear on Hacker News. (Except YouTube comments; no one needs to see those.)
I already mentioned a few of these points to the Disqus folks. They certainly have a good system on their hands, and any real competitor would have to do everything they do, and maybe add a few of the ideas here.