Maybe that title is an exaggeration but I've spent some time using Typepad Connect (I've turned it on for this blog) and though it has some rough spots I think it is going to be a big plus for those of us who want to build a sense of community around what we do.
The best part is the fact that you can now have threaded comments. In plain english, this means that when a reader leaves a comment, it is easy for a second reader (or you) to reply to the first reader's comment. You can see in the snapshot to the right that my comment is indented under Larissa's, indicating that my comment is a reply to hers. In the past with unthreaded comments these sort of conversations were very difficult to follow and participate it. Typepad Connect makes it very intuitive and natural.
The second interesting thing about Typepad Connect is that you can click on the little picture next to my comment and see my profile. You can learn a little about me, the conversations I am participating in around the blogosphere, and get a feel for my credibility, authority, and trustworthiness.
Typepad Connect has it's rough spots: the 'Post' and 'Preview' buttons are sometimes missing, and currently Typepad Connect's login screen is case-sensitive (Typepad's main blog login screen has always been case-insensitive) and this will cause great consternation until it gets sorted out.
The big deal here though is at a slightly more abstract level. Typically (unless it's a community blog) the conversation on a blog is one-to-many, meaning that the blog owner is having conversation between himself and his readers. There really have not been a good way to have conversations that are many-to-many (In other words, for readers to converse with each other).
A tool that supports those many-to-many conversations is necessary in order to effectively foster a sense of community. (I realize that at a much higher level, we do have that with multiple blogs and the foodie blogosphere is a great example.) Up to this point we've resorted to using other tools such as Facebook groups, Ning, discussion groups, forums, etc to fill the gap.
Though it's not all the way there, Typepad Connect now makes it possible to build these ckinds of communities using our Typepad blogs.
