A week or so ago, kd announced to the world (or my part of it at least) that trackback was here. She expounded upon its virtues and generally doted upon it. As many of you realize, I don’t use MT. I code everything I use with TLC, PHP, and MySQL. I knew I had to implement Trackback, because it was too great of a feature NOT to use.
So I dug in and found out that the implementation really isn’t as scary as one might think. It’s a very simple, yet very powerful feature. What I’ve realized, though, is that trackback won’t REALLY catch on (outside of the MT world) until someone comes up with a remotely hosted trackback facility.
What would this new facility have to do?
1. Keep track of pings for your entries.
2. Display a count of those entries and allow pop-up or inline trackbacking. (trackingback?)
3. Allow a for customizable interface.
4. Allow for exporting to XML… just in case you ever decide to port to MT, and Ben and Mena add support for importing trackback.
5. A little bit of security to block pings from undesirable folks.
6. ALLOW YOU TO PING OTHERS.
After a bit of thought and a bit of coding, I’ve decided that this solution would not be terribly complicated to do, and I think I’d have fun doing it. However, I don’t want to do it if there’s no interest, and I don’t want to do it unless I can test it on a batch of non-MT bloggers. It wouldn’t hurt to have some of the more gifted members of the community help out in other areas too.
So (here’s the action step, folks) if you want to be in a pilot group for the development of RemoteTrackback please send an email to rtb[at]holidian[dot]com. This is not for the faint of heart. I’ll certainly help you install and get everything up and running, but if you’re scared to fiddle with code, this isn’t for you.
If you’d like to help with design of the site, coding, documentation, or ANYTHING ELSE please use the feedback form.
If there’s no interest, I’ll stop coding. 
If there’s interest, well, let the games begin! Tell your friends!
Update: Ugly, yet functional, proof of concept work is going on over at http://trackback.blogspot.com. Seems to be working well enough… feel free to ping it with related AND unrelated posts.
Update 2: Head on over to Trackback.org and sign up to be an ALPHA TESTER.
Oh, just for the record, Lee… that other thing I\’m working on is right on schedule and coming along nicely. No need to worry.
lol … Thank you, Pete! But I wasn\’t worried.
Nifty. Too bad I already use MT.
And too bad I\’m usually too burned out to do any coding outside of work. :/ But if niether of those two were the case, I\’d be up for both. 
Good luck!
I already use MT
It\’s a great idea though 
Have you realized that three-quarters of your \”faithful readers\” have no idea what MT, TLC, PHP, MySQL, or XML mean? I did, however, follow the \”action step\” part. Maybe all those tedious hours of goal setting have paid off after all. Anyhow, could ya\’ll speak Eenglish for us non-computer nerds out here. Please!?
Now kim… I don\’t expect anyone to pick up on my nerd lingo, but you should know what TLC is.
I can\’t believe you did that quickly!!! Let us bow down at the feet of the master
I\’m doing cartwheels just because I got my site skinned at last (after an afternoon\’s feffin\’ and faffin\’!), rather puts my efforts to shame!
this just ROCKS! you do work fast, dude.
I can write a WSH script to be my bestfriend. Can you do that Pete Holiday?
My blog has received your ping and the TB count has gone up, it\’s lost the URL though
It just has \”http:///\” (yes, that really is 3 slashes)
Yeah, my ping from you lost the URL also. I\’m not quite as impressed anymore… just kidding.
So much work for one person.
Want to do my part to help so I just sent you an email. Let me know what you think.
Ok, so I was having a \”moment\” when I pinged those blogs earlier. Suffice it to say, I was embarassed enough that it hopefully won\’t happen again.