Pushnote is a new online commenting system, supported by Stephen Fry. It consists of a browser plugin that lets you comment on any page on the web. A neat idea.

I won't go into the good and bad points of such a service as this has been much discussed online already. I will, however, point out the one problem it may have: mobile support. Apparently a mobile version of Pushnote is on its way, but I wonder how that will work.

Mobile browsers don't generally support plugins and for Pushnote to work seamlessly on iPhone, Android or BlackBerry you would need to be able to access a 'comment with Pushnote' menu from a plugin in the phone OS's native browser itself. This cannot be done easily, if at all, as far as I know.

Having a Pushnote app installed on your smartphone would be OK, but unless it is somehow embedded within your browser it would be of limited use. Imagine finding a page you want to comment on, then having to copy and paste the URL into the Pushnote app, or having to choose a 'share' option in the browser to open up and view the page in a custom Pushnote browser which would then allow you to comment. Not seamless. Also, you would miss out on the social aspect of instantly seeing how many people have commented on a page when you visit it and being alerted as you browse of new comments from people you follow. It will be interesting to see how their mobile client works when it is released.