No, I don't think you missed much of anything. However, you seem to have asked two questions: (1) Do I have to jump back on the site from email to respond to comments? Or is there a shortcut? and (2) Can I see all comments in one place?
Let me try to tackle these questions one at a time.
(1) Right now, any comments on your clips (or comments on topics you're following, as selected in the upper right of the topic/post) would be sent to you as email notifications, rather than appearing under "Alerts." However, you can reply to all site notifications directly from email without having to link through to the site. Simply respond in the area above the line indicated in the email (see image below) and your comment will automatically be sent to Cookie Connection and posted in the right place. This eliminates having to jump back and forth between email and site.
(2) Right now, only calendar and chat reminders and likes on posts get reflected in "Alerts". There is no one place to see all comments together. However, I have submitted this idea to our tech guys (Hoop.la) in the hopes that they will develop this functionality. Though . . . there has to be enough interest from other site managers (like myself) for Hoop.la to invest in such development. I'll keep you posted, as I think it would be a great enhancement.
But for now, you can save some time just by responding to notifications from email. Hope I've helped a bit.
