Keep in mind, my own blog isn't on my server. it's on Wordpress.com, a centralized service with millions of blogs. Funny, it's down tonight for the first time in more than a year. Which sorta argues your case, although my own server would be down too sometimes.
Anyway, I'm looking at putting Disqus in place so that more of our stuff shows up in aggregator sites like FriendFeed. The identity system that comes with a centralized service is good for me too, because it should bring less spam. I hear Automattic is working on its own comment system like that, though, so I might just wait it out.
Ontario Emperor
· 1 year ago
In my case, Disqus seemed smart. I'm a Blogger user, and my blog is hosted on Google's servers, so the fact that Disqus is also hosted is not a big concern to me.
What IS a concern is that Disqus content is not visible on my current device - a first generation Motorola Q with Windows Mobile 5 and Internet Explorer 4. (And yes, they're working on mobile access.)
Other than that, I love the application, and their customer service.
But I am fascinated by the response to your post; from the reaction, it almost looks like you ran over someone's grandmother! If you question FriendFeed now, you may be sent to a re-education camp... :)
David
· 1 year ago
Ontario, that already happened. :) I questioned FriendFeed's noise level in a post a few days ago.
Scoble, I do like the centralization of Disqus, as you do. It is just concerning to add a second point of failure. Honestly, if the Wordpress folks did it, I'd be a little less concerned.
Gomez
· 1 year ago
MOOT!!! The word is moot, not mute! For %$@#$ sake, will someone learn the friggin' difference?
Shawn K
· 1 year ago
While I understand where you're coming from, and I haven't implemented it myself yet, I think Disqus is a step away from comment fragmentation. They are making a comment service with enough leverage to integrate into sites like friendfeed and social thing, thus making it easier to find some comments. Currently, if somebody comments on one of my posts outside of my blog, I have to hunt it down. With Disqus integration into other services, it makes it much easier for me. They're still young though, so I am highly curious what their next steps will be.
Mack D. Male
· 1 year ago
I was going to write the same thing as Gomez...glad he beat me to it.
I share your concerns and have thus far not given Disqus a try. Maybe I will when they have the ability to export comments.
Nancy Cole
· 1 year ago
The biggest drawback of a destination site for your comments is that it will eventually draw traffic from your blog. When a user searches a subject, they are likely to wind up on the Disqus site, and not on your blog. We don't need another destination site, imo. Nancy, JS-Kit.com
Nathan Eckenrode
· 1 year ago
i don't particularly care about 'keeping the conversation' on my server, or not. i don't particualrly care about keeping my data on my server or not- does it really matter- not in my case- i write about my baby (biological reproduction artifact) growing up and it really doesn't matter where the comments are left. and in all honesty, i get more comments now using disqus.
yes i realize my words here are anecdotal and therefore no supportive towards any argument except that not everyone thinks that the comments are a baby that could be thrown out like a bad metaphor. but then again i have no pretension of making a living as a blogger of any sort.
Phil Butler
· 1 year ago
This is a very insightful article David. I was one one the fist to write about Disqus, and I must say I was initially impressed. However, Dan and his crew have sort of let me down in several areas. The original platform was extremely promising, but of late several issues have come to light.
Some of these are highlighted by the intuitive readers here, but for the record here are some "real" issues:
1) proprietary login = lock-in: disqus has a proprietary login. this means that a blogger/web site encourages it's users create an identity within disqus. If the site chooses to remove disqus in the future then all of the identities disappear. If the site uses other web services then it's visitors will have multiple logins for one site. Both instances are a disaster.
2) Proprietary visitor profile: All of the data created in the disqus profile is locked into disqus. It cannot be accessed by other services or the visitor. Again, if the site adds other services then the visitor would have to re-upload the same data [avatar, name, etc]. This is a complete waste of effort forced on the visitor - both the site and visitor cannot exit disqus without losing all of their profile data.
3) Monetization: Disqus is a for profit business. so where is the monetization model? Since disqus bloggers logins, visitor profile data, and community pages they are locked into a business model that is undefined. what if disqus starts showing ads on the community pages and the blogger disagrees? what if they start charging a monthly fee? What if they start a destination site around comments and charge the blogger for referral traffic [don't think this can happen? ask the sites that started using the "free" powerreviews service and then had to compete with buzzillions, or bazarvoice, etc.] Without a clear path for earning money and simultaneously being locked-in means that sites take a big risk when deploying disqus.
In effort at full transparency, these points are all straight from the horse's mouth at JS-Kit Khris Loux. I have close relationships with virtually every startup launched in the last two years and the good news for your readers is that Khris is not wrong. Disqus is a fairly powerful platform, but though I predicted it would overshadow KIT in the long term..even I was wrong. Loux and his team are efforting open source and transparency in the most credible ways. Disqus has a model that does not appear to have the user's interest in mind.
Regardless of how much we like an innovation, we must look at the vision and direction behind it. JS-Kit uses OpenID and allows full disclosure and sharing of their monetization plan and scheme. If appearances were everything, then no one would use another comment platform other than KIT. Yes, I work for them, but I also work for some of the best in the business and hand selected them as entities I wanted to be behind.
If you look at the innovation, service, ideology and long term merit of Disqus versus JS-Kit with any depth perception at all ...the evaluation is quite pat.
Please let me know if you have any questions or issues and I will always help. Again, a very perceptive and valid argument going on here.
Always,
Phil Butler
instrumentals
· 4 months ago
Nice post. but ive actually been thinking about adding disqus to my own blog
nightrz
· 4 months ago
By far the best comment system i have seen . Thanks for sharing
any host/server can hit a problem now and again ;)
StevenTaylor
· 4 months ago
I have a 2 years experience with commenting on Disqus blogs. At present, I don't know any other commenting system that has so many features and offers flexibility. Maybe blogware.com, but blogware has a lot of work to do in order to catch up with Disqus. _____________________________ Business VoIP
mihir1
· 4 months ago
Well its 50-50[:p]
CristianStar
· 4 months ago
Some people are generous about disclosure, but you have to be very careful with a nondisclosure agreement. Breaking such an agreement can cost you a lot and even jail time.
Peter Moore
· 3 months ago
This blog is so usefully, Thanks for the posted ;)
Christian Russell
· 3 months ago
Now that you have converted to Disqus, David, is there an update? Do you love it? I'm still about ownership. Disqus is cool, but I want control. I want ownership. At least that way when something sucks, at least I have no one to blame but myself. That's my take on it anyway.
Shared Hosting Review
· 3 months ago
It's getting more used and I think it's quite good in fact
All Comments
Anyway, I'm looking at putting Disqus in place so that more of our stuff shows up in aggregator sites like FriendFeed. The identity system that comes with a centralized service is good for me too, because it should bring less spam. I hear Automattic is working on its own comment system like that, though, so I might just wait it out.
What IS a concern is that Disqus content is not visible on my current device - a first generation Motorola Q with Windows Mobile 5 and Internet Explorer 4. (And yes, they're working on mobile access.)
Other than that, I love the application, and their customer service.
But I am fascinated by the response to your post; from the reaction, it almost looks like you ran over someone's grandmother! If you question FriendFeed now, you may be sent to a re-education camp... :)
Scoble, I do like the centralization of Disqus, as you do. It is just concerning to add a second point of failure. Honestly, if the Wordpress folks did it, I'd be a little less concerned.
I share your concerns and have thus far not given Disqus a try. Maybe I will when they have the ability to export comments.
yes i realize my words here are anecdotal and therefore no supportive towards any argument except that not everyone thinks that the comments are a baby that could be thrown out like a bad metaphor. but then again i have no pretension of making a living as a blogger of any sort.
Some of these are highlighted by the intuitive readers here, but for the record here are some "real" issues:
1) proprietary login = lock-in: disqus has a proprietary login. this means that a blogger/web site encourages it's users create an identity within disqus. If the site chooses to remove disqus in the future then all of the identities disappear. If the site uses other web services then it's
visitors will have multiple logins for one site. Both instances are a disaster.
2) Proprietary visitor profile: All of the data created in the disqus profile is locked into disqus. It cannot be accessed by other services or the visitor. Again, if the site adds other services then the visitor would have to re-upload the same data [avatar, name, etc]. This is a complete
waste of effort forced on the visitor - both the site and visitor cannot exit disqus without losing all of their profile data.
3) Monetization: Disqus is a for profit business. so where is the monetization model? Since disqus bloggers logins, visitor profile data, and community pages they are locked into a business model that is undefined. what if disqus starts showing ads on the community pages and the blogger disagrees? what if they start charging a monthly fee? What if they start a destination site around comments and charge the blogger for referral traffic [don't think this
can happen? ask the sites that started using the "free" powerreviews service and then had to compete with buzzillions, or bazarvoice, etc.] Without a clear path for earning money and simultaneously being locked-in means that sites take a big risk when deploying disqus.
In effort at full transparency, these points are all straight from the horse's mouth at JS-Kit Khris Loux. I have close relationships with virtually every startup launched in the last two years and the good news for your readers is that Khris is not wrong. Disqus is a fairly powerful platform, but though I predicted it would overshadow KIT in the long term..even I was wrong. Loux and his team are efforting open source and transparency in the most credible ways. Disqus has a model that does not appear to have the user's interest in mind.
Regardless of how much we like an innovation, we must look at the vision and direction behind it. JS-Kit uses OpenID and allows full disclosure and sharing of their monetization plan and scheme. If appearances were everything, then no one would use another comment platform other than KIT. Yes, I work for them, but I also work for some of the best in the business and hand selected them as entities I wanted to be behind.
If you look at the innovation, service, ideology and long term merit of Disqus versus JS-Kit with any depth perception at all ...the evaluation is quite pat.
Please let me know if you have any questions or issues and I will always help. Again, a very perceptive and valid argument going on here.
Always,
Phil Butler
Best Regards,
Mickel - Founder
http://www.yourtvshow.com
any host/server can hit a problem now and again ;)
_____________________________
Business VoIP