Piperka is good enoughÂ…

I am still lamenting the demise of Comic Alert!. I still want to get an open source peering comic tracker out there. In the meantime, some friends pointed me at Piperka with the comment that it's "good enough". Having tried it, I must agree with both the letter and the spirit of that sentiment…

Piperka is not perfect. Its layout, organization, search, and general feel are inferior to that of Comic Alert! But there's no point in crying over spilt milk—if you want final evidence of CA's demise, just keep in mind that xkcd is still "pending" on CA, 6 months after I requested it. xkcd!

Piperka does have some great points. Perhaps the best: their team is currently responsive. I requested a couple of webcomics when I first signed up: they appeared within hours.

One thing I didn't expect to like about Piperka is that it is webpage-based rather than RSS-based. It turns out that the ability to pick up where I left off from a different machine is great, and far outweighs having to hit an extra link.

All in all, I recommend Piperka to keep track of a reasonable-sized troll of comics. (B)