Last Thursday I spoke with Michael DiBenedetto – Manager, Online Media & Product Development at Chat Ventures, Inc -  they produce QWidget – the blog commenting software you can see a online video clip about – below.

Also check out http://chattheplanet.com/ which is produced by the same people.

Qwidget Product Demo from sindib on Vimeo.

I haven’t got QWidget on Webmetricsguru.com yet, but I want to have it here, ASAP – and I think you’ll see that what I said in my Social Media for Engagement post the other day.

Here’s the thing – remember in my post (above) I said people should do more to earn engaged visitors and stop expecting engagement to happen – the problem is most people are doing just that – they’re expecting people to care about their Brand, but they don’t do anything to reach out and tell the visitor (often, via Social Media) that they care about the visitor and how the visitor feels and if the visitor is enjoying the site.

QWidget is one example of software that engages visitors – doesn’t matter what the subject is – QWidget has some excellent examples of how it can be useful for any kind of content – check out Yet Another Vampire Film in the QWidget blog, or, more to the political point – How the Qwidget Could Help the Obama Administration.  Here’s more from that post on how Obama could use something like QWidget:

Most importantly, however, the Qwidget could allow the conversation about the legislation to span the entire web. Other publishers could take Obama’s question, presumably “Should I sign legislation X?”, and let their constituencies weigh in from their own sites. You could have people on big news websites, on the US government’s web site and on millions of blogs all talking about the same issue together through the qwidget. In this way, the administration could be certain that they were getting a truly representative sample of the public’s opinion on an issue.

Just a thought.

Another reader of my Social Media for Engagement post told me that Google Reader was an example of a platform that ecourages Engagement – and here’s what the reader said:

Comment: “For me Google Reader is a tool which creates engagement. It shows me WHAT is being discussed on e.g. web analytics and WHERE the discussion takes place. Because of this I am much more able to track and react on these webanalytics conversations ergo engagement.”

I guess, my point being – that we need to prove ourselves worthy of trust, worthy of engagement – we need to show we want a two way conversation, that our Brand is really owned by the people who consume it – we have to do all those things to have real Engagement – never mind how we measure it – that comes later.