6 Great Reasons Why You Should Be Using Disqus’ Commenting System
Apr 03 2008 
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I’ve already raved numerous times about the Disqus social commenting system. I’ve hailed it as a next generation application and service, it’s been integrated into SheGeeks and I have numerous friends that are using it on their sites too.
Disqus is an awesomesauce social commenting system that you can integrate over or with your current blogging system. Here are six (6) reasons as to why I’ve switched to Disqus and why you should switch too!
1. Better Tracking Of Replies
A lot of people have the "Subscribe To This Post" plugin installed on their WordPress blog. This is all fine and dandy, but my biggest problem is that it subscribes to the entire thread. Personally, I only want to see if there are any replies to me. So, I usually don’t subscribe to it and trick myself into thinking I’ll just come back to the article and see if there are any replies to me. Eventually it becomes a tedious chore that I never end up doing. With Disqus, I don’t have to worry about this at all. I only get replies emailed to me and I’m more than welcome to check up on a conversation not only on the website, but also on Disqus.
2. Take Your Comments With You
I pointed this out in my post about moving to SheGeeks.net. Here’s a quote from the article:
I’d also like to thank my personal Disqus tech support man Jason Yan, whom I’m also now in love with. I emailed him about the change of links and he emailed me back 4 minutes later with all my links pointing to the new site! That’s a customer service record for me!
This has allowed me to keep the conversations surrounding articles on my site and take them with me as long as the link structure is the same. I view it as a great way to help solve Data Portability issues.
3. Easy Installation
Installing Disqus was as simple as registering my site on Disqus.com and from there, Disqus provided me with a zip file to upload to my site. From there, I activated the plugin and entered the name of the SheGeeks community on Disqus. I slight template change needed to be made due to theme code my theme is using, but that was easily resolved and Disqus customer support solved that problem within 5 minutes.
4. Clout
When you reply to any blog that is using the Disqus comment system, others can vote on your replies. If someone votes up your response you get a point which goes towards your "clout". So far, I have a clout of 4.
5. RSS Feeds
Disqus allows you to follow the feeds for your own comments and the comments of your friends. I love having the option to see my friends comments. It’s a great way to see not only what they’re saying, but also what sites they are visiting. I’ve found it to be another way to find good articles and discussions on the web. (If you have no clue about RSS visit my article entitled "RSS, Blogs, And Twitter In Plain English")
6. Widgets
Disqus has some awesomesauce widgets that are easy to install. You can view the widget for SheGeeks to your right. This widget displays my top commenters, recent comments, and articles with the most comments on them. If you don’t want all three of these features displayed, Disqus gives you the option of grabbing just one. You can also customize how many items are shown, theme color, and which tab you’d like set to show by default (this one is for the the "combination widget").
Simplicity
Some of these reasons are so simple and don’t really seem all that spectacular. I’m here to say that the beauty of Disqus lies in its simplicity. Everything is so easy and sometimes, I wonder why some of these features aren’t standards across all commenting systems, even the one that comes with WordPress. I urge those of you who do comment on blogs using Disqus to register on their site for other great benefits. If you’re a blogger, I’d highly recommend installing Disqus for all the great reasons listed above and also because it looks pretty!
Related Articles On SheGeeks: FriendFeed and Disqus Are Next Generation Services, Great Quality Customer Support With Disqus
Related Web Articles on Disqus: Sarah In Tampa, WinExtra, Mathew Ingram, Union Square Ventures,
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Great article encapsulated by 'the beauty of Disqus lies in its simplicity'. So very true. Sometimes, less is more.
PS. How do you generate the 'Related Web Articles on Disqus' – is that a WP plugin, a Disqus widget or a special exclusive from your friends at Disqus ? :-)
I wrote those links in personally. Maybe I should pitch the idea to Disqus
developers.
Would be a great widget ! Might be hard (i.e. N-P complete) to actually implement but, hey, let them worry about that :-)
Corvida, you're my favorite blogger of the week.
Thanks for the support and mention. :-)
For me a big drawback is that these comments aren't indexed with the post. Search engines don't “see” these comments: they're inserted via JavaScript. We see them on the page but actually they're not here.
A lot of times my searches have been answered by words in the comments on a page.
Sure, disqus itself is being indexed by search engines but that's *just* the comments.
Often a keyword+keyword search will be answered by a page which has keyword1 in the post, keyword2 in the comment. That relation is gone, is broken this way.
yea, you are right. anyway, it's better for them who use blogspot rather than having comment form on separate page.
Just started experimenting with Disqus. Your post simply nails down all the nice features in Disqus.
From a reader's and commenter's perspective, it provides an awesome central repository and it's a very smart positioning. However, I am still unclear about whether blogs benefit from Disqus' exposure in terms of traffic.
It's a fantastic system and a great company !
Great post, thank you very much for your information, it's very usefull for me
a great tool for wordpress indeed :)
What a system, what a company.
i am thinking of adding this to my blog, however will this open the doors to spamming?
Great post
nice article! nice site. you're in my rss feed now ;-)
keep it up
And one more reason: it's a democracy comment's sistem.
It's a fantastic system and a great company !…………………….. : )
Have to say I do agree. Things like this just are what they are.
Have to say I do agree. Things like this just are what they are.
I bookmarked this page..Since it is informative and attractive.keep going author..
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Great post, really help me alot. Thanks.
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What a system, what a company.
you're the best
Well done. I hope others enjoyed this as much as I did.
Thanks for the article, really useful
the only thing i dont like about disqus is that it's red on seo tool bar. :)
What I can say is very nice and helpful as well as informative post…really help me very much more!! Thanks..
Cheers,
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What I can say is very nice and helpful as well as informative post…really help me very much more!! Thanks..
Cheers,
Buat Duit Dengan Blog
Article is very useful, we are implementing disqus in our server
Tnx and keep it up
Does having friends able to see other friends comments ultimately get your blog more traffic? People are more likely to see something they want to comment on that way? Just a thought.
Hehe, and to take some of Mambo's link juice here's something: cosmetic surgery :P
Your blog doesnt show up on firefox correctly!
nice post, thanks for sharing
Cool post, I agree with Corvida.
nice post, thanks for sharing
i have a very short but sweet thing to say about Disqus
it is just the very best blog app around, end of !
Did you recently update this page? I thought there was more info, I bookmarked it.
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Disqus is great, very good
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nice share, thanks
Well I completely agree with this thing to be honest. I will start to use it from now on especially cause my work requires a lot of commenting. I will try to talk to my employee from funny t shirts shop to use it and in this way I know I will make their life easier too.
We are currently testing disqus on our website and I do agree with the idea that Disqus transforms commenting into social networking. I also like the idea that users get to keep their comments as they move from site to site.
My only gripe with Disqus is that people connecting with Facebook Connect to our forum and 'registered user' content have to login again with Facebook to leave comments. That is a let down.
Your blog is very interesting. I would like to tell that I have been looking for such information and finally got it. Thanks a lot.
regards
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Thats cool ! Thanks for the steps . They are definitely great help to me . I need it a lot ! Thanks for sharing !
Disqus is great, nice post, thanks for sharing
can any1 tell me alternate of disqus???
Hey geeky girls! I would give you some clout but I don't know how! :)
Nice to read this blog, I had never thought that Disqus could be so useful.
love reading your articles, just cant get enough, really good post! enjoyed reading it, thanks :D
Great post, really enjoyed this article, many thanks for posting this.
post very interesting for this contest. Site very nice thanks for this contributions.
I agree with you. It is really great to use the disqus commenting system. Has so many benefits when compared to the other commenting systems that are available. Easy and quick to install too. Thanks and keep sharing.