Disqus.com I’ve seen it on a couple of blogs lately, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.
What is it? Well. I’m not sure yet. According to their home page….
Boost your blog community by installing the DISQUS comment system
Disqus makes your comments more interactive for readers and easier to manage for you — all while connecting your community with other blogs.
I had an option to apply all existing comments to it, or just set it up on new posts. I opted for new posts. Something about “converting” 4,000+ comments scared me….
UPDATE: See the comments for the gory details….
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OK, that failed miserably. The Disqus comment box appears to be too wide for my theme, which shoved all the sidebars down to the bottom of the page.
It’s 1:30am and I don’t feel like doinking with the CSS anymore, so I shut it off…
Jay:
I’ve been hearing buzz about the tool and hoped to see it in operation here–with an explanation outlining its benefits.
Bummer! Hope you get it fixed.
What a pity! I would have liked to hear your experience with it.
Can’t you go into the code of Disqus and change the box size so it does not move your side bar down. Or you could make your blog itself a little wider to accomadate it.
Jay,
You got me curious about this comment service. I set up an account for the lab and before I activated it I decided to many comments to risk. : )
I have another little unknown blog with 4 comments on it. That became my test blog. Here is what I found.
Import all those comments to Disqus and those post will now show “No Comments” (Good thing you didn’t do this).
Add new comments with Disqus activated, they do appear. Turn off the plugin, the new Disqus comments are gone. The old comments are back.
You no longer store your comments, they are on their site.
You no longer have control over “do follow” on your comments
If you author multiple sites you are limited to using your Dusqus login information.
The new comments appear to be stored on their domain. They are no longer your content.
I didn’t test any further. This was enough for me. It is free for now, but if they decided to turn it into a charge service you either pay or loose all comments.
I could never recommend this to any RE blogger.
Dave -
Thanks so much for your thoughts.
For those that don’t know Dave, I trust his opinions completely. And the more I look into Disqus, the less I like it and the more I see what Dave refers to.
The other thing I noticed, was Disqus renders the “Subscribe to Comments” feature non-functional. The only way someone could subscribe would be to join Disqus. I don’t want to force anyone to join anything. At least with the current subscribe to, it uses the commenters own email — which it completely their choice..
There is also no way (that I could find) to highlight my own comments, a feature I happen to like.
I like having complete control of my blog. Hosting the comments on someone else’s site just seems silly at best, and possibly dangerous. What if the service goes away? Is bought out? Changes the terms of service (or fees)???
No thanks. Comments on Phoenix Real Estate Guy will stay right on Phoenix Real Estate Guy.
How do these types of comment services monetize?
@Dan - beats me. Their sites says, “Disqus is currently a free service”. That sort of implies that at some point they may start charging.
Having someone else in control of my content seems like a really bad idea. What happens if they fold up their tent and go home? Do the comments go with them? Thanks for the review - I think I’ll pass!
As I thought the box size would be the most fatal of all, the fact that Disqus has limited Comment Subscription only for those with Disqus, has rendered my interest down. I think I should stick with regular standard setting. No Disqus, no thing.. Thank’s Jay
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