Why I’m Using Disqus
And how centralized commenting can save our lives.
The Wordpress comment platform has been working great for me. I don’t get nearly an overwhelming ammount of comments on this site, but there’s nothing wrong with Wordpress comments. Fast, easy, customizable.
That said, I’ve made the switch to embedded Disqus.com comments. This is an outside commenting system. Why have I done this?
Centralization
I’ll skip over how Disqus works and how easy it is to implement. Right now I want to talk about the main reason I wanted to use Disqus on this Wordpress powered site. Simply, it’s centralization.
Disqus has stumbled on an insanely great idea when it comes to commenting around the internet. When you comment on a ‘Disqus-powered’ site, the comment is relayed to your Disqus profile where all your comments are catalogued.
This turns your commenting into another one of your streams!
If you’re actually interested in what I say off-site and on other people’s content, you can check my Disqus profile and see what I think about other people’s work - which can sometimes be as insightful and informative as what I write specifically my own sites. Get it?
I’ve also used the same Disqus commenting on my Tumblr site. This means I have an interwoven discussion as Disqus between both this site and over there. Once Friendfeed.com gets Disqus integrated there [and rumour has it they will], I’ll have comments localized from everything.
Imagine what kind of promotion this could do for a variety of things. Thinking of how Friendfeed is centralizing everything all together, Disqus does the same for comments. When I read your comment, and then see what else you’ve said elsewhere, I’ll check where else you commented; thus checking out someone else’s work just because you commented on mine.
The real value in Disqus lies in having all your comments rolled up in one place. Problem being that not all, or even many, sites use Disqus; so your Disqus profile may not be all that comprehensive.
I have a simple fix: a bookmarklet.
Like the one cocomment.com and co.mments.com use. If a site doesn’t use Disqus, you can hit the bookmarklet and save your comment into your comment stream. That’s my first, big request for Disqus.
The Bad
Obviously, now that I’ve made this change, all previous comments won’t appear. I have the benefit of not having had many comments hit the site yet, so adoption wasn’t such a big deal; but I appreciate other sites being weary of the change.
Ideally, Disqus could have an Import Previous Comments option that would plug in your previous comments and apply the email addresses associated with each comment with Disqus. If they’re not using Disqus, they just stick there like regular Wordpress [Blogger/Typepad etc] comments.
Life could be easy, man.
Tags: Comments
