@Ray, it's very possible we'll support inline comments in the future, but I'm not 100% sure right now. I plan for us to try the “separate community” direction at first, where it's more of a social space than classic blog comments. Then I hope that'll reveal what makes the most sense, as far as embedding comments on blogs themselves (“inviting someone to write on your wall”). I imagine it'll definitely be important for sites that are more standalone destinations / need more independence from our little network.
Otherwise, Webmentions are 100% on the roadmap. End goal is that this works with the fediverse, across independent sites, anywhere on the web, etc. You can find some of my general thoughts here: #comments
Last week I had the smallest window of time without any pressing obligations at the end of the day, paired with enough energy to code something for fun. So I used it to lay down some more code for Remark.as.
This morning I spent some time thinking about Read Write.as and its general purpose. I want to keep its “publication”-like feel, so we pushed out some simple design changes that make it look more like that. But I also want to support the amazing social activity that's grown on it through quoted replies, good old-fashioned links, and shared hashtags. It's time to start thinking about facilitating conversation, instead of it happening accidentally.
We live in a cacophony of constant commentary. Whether it's talking heads on TV, buzzing smartphones, status updates, blog posts, social media mentions or retweets or reblogs or comments or likes, we're surrounded by opinion and reaction.
When it comes to software that enables the spread of commentary, we need to remember the human side. That's what I'm hoping to do with our upcoming product, Remark.as.