The social web – which allows everybody to participate – got a boost this week. That is, MSNBC.com, a joint venture between Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and General Electric (NYSE: GE), agreed to buy Newsvine, a news site that allows for voting, comments and so on.

However, as the social web expands, it gets difficult to follow things. While a variety of services track blogs, there's not much in terms of following comments.

Well, that's what coComment is focused on. "Think of us as the Digg for comments," said Kristina Serafim, VP of Marketing at coComment, in a BloggingStocks interview.

And the site is growing. There are more than 550,000 users so far.

"User-generated comments about you or your company are likely to be fragmented across different sites, such as blogs, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), and so on," said Serafim. "But with coComment, we essentially put comments into a conversation."

Yes, the site is free, although coComment has plans for monetization. "There are display ads. Or, if users don't want them, they pay a fee for an ad-free environment. We also see opportunities for using the site as a large focus group."

And with the power of social media growing, I can see where companies will want to call on coComment for some help.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Firemeg, who, if the name is any indication, is not a supporter of eBay CEO Meg Whitman, provided this well-thought out response to a blog I wrote on eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY). Firemeg made some interesting points.

Firemeg said:
In its current state, I would never buy ebay stock to hold onto. The numbers you have given are straight from eBay's mouth. 220 million users? I have about 30 eBay ID's, how many unique users are there and how many new unique members were there in 2006, and how many of them were active on the site? - Those numbers mean a lot more than the number of users.171 mil Skype users? Same here, how many signed up as paying customers? Since subscriptions were $15 or $30 for the year, and only $65 million was generated in the Q4, it's obvious that most users did not subscribe (especially when you figure that part of that revenue was generated in per minute calling).Shopping.com is a very low traffic site without very good user reviews.Right now eBay is deriving much of its growth from fee increases and listing sales. Add the Skype subscriptions to the listings sales and fee increases and subtract them from the revenue and I'd bet you would see a loss.

My only criticism is that the response could have avoided hyperbole. Although most users have multiple accounts, having 30 user accounts is a bit unusual.

Regarding Skype, applying annual subscription fees of $15 to $30 per year and applying that to only $65 million in revenue (or $250 million annualized) brings you to about 8.3 million paying users--well below the 171 million registered users that eBay management cited. However, management said during the conference call that it has not done a good job monetizing Skype yet and that it will be an area of focus in 2007. This means there is upside here, as Skype is very much in the early stage of its evolution.

Regarding eBay's growth being due to increased fees and listing sales, that was a clearly a defined management strategy during 2006 -- to keep the more profitable sellers and squeeze out the marginal ones, or money losing sellers. Success in this strategy should be seen in margins, which was the case in the December quarter results.

We will see who proves correct by eBay's stock performance during the next twelve months. Please keep the comments coming!

Forgive my ego all you blog readers, but yesterday's article on China should have raised some alarms and it did not. It just shows how complacent we Americans are. Blog readers were more interested in Google/MSFT & Sirius Radio.

Maybe it is old news.

Maybe it was Monday.

Maybe we have just accepted the loss.

Perhaps if I wrote that Google or Microsoft were buying GE or Nike that would have been more intriguing.

Only two comments...that is complacent!

Second chance: "Will China One Day Buy GE or Nike?"

Feeling like you're all alone in your contempt for Ben Bernanke, our new Fed Chair? Read the comments to my post yesterday, "Why Bernanke's Words Whacked the Market" and you'll no doubt feel a pleasant sense of solidarity.

The scorn BloggingStocks readers have heaped upon Bernanke since I wrote that last post has stunned me. One reader compared him unfavorably to his pet beagle, another suggested he must be working for Osama bin Laden. And those were the nice comments.

Here's another reason to go read them -- these folks are remarkably well-informed about what is going on in the market and darn good writers (we expect that of BloggingStocks readers, but still, I'm impressed!). Ben, looks like you've lost the support of the cream of the crop of the investing class.  And that's putting it mildly.

The typical pattern for blog posts (same goes for message boards), is that one person trashes something in the post and then at least three readers write in to take the opposite position. But so far, in 15 posts, not one person has leapt to Bernanke's defense.

Friends of Ben, please stand up!