DISQUS

Andy DeSoto: DISQUS and Tumblr: A tale of two releases

  • Bastien · 1 year ago
    That's really fun because I had this feeling of disapointment too when I tried the new version of Tumblr, and I wrote quite the same thing on my own blog (in french). Right now, we can't talk about a new version of Tumblr, this is just a new design :-/
    Hope we'll see some new Tumblr features in the coming days!
  • Andy DeSoto · 1 year ago
    Me too, Bastien. I really hope they release some great features because if they don't, it's going to be harder and harder to justify a Tumblr account to anyone. Already, there are some features of the site that go completely unused, as far as I can tell (for instance, the "friending" aspect). Let's just hope that doesn't happen to the entire rest of the service.

    Thanks for commenting!
  • Kyle James · 1 year ago
    I knew when I read that DISQUS came out with a release you would have a summary of it here soon enough. ;)

    So I guess my question would be two part.
    a) I remember you had DISQUS installed on this blog, what happened?
    b) Do you see DISQUS being for blog commenting what ShareThis/AddThis does for social media sharing and Feedburner for RSS? In my opinion ShareThis and Feedburner are two must installs on any blog, could DISQUS be heading that direction?
  • Andy DeSoto · 1 year ago
    Hi Kyle! Sorry for the delayed response, I've been getting lax in responding to comments. Glad I didn't disappoint! ;-)

    a) I didn't like how it couldn't import old comments into DISQUS. I didn't like how it didn't match the look and feel of the old design (nor does it do so here). I didn't like how the comments weren't indexed within the site. (I'm embarrassed to say the look was probably Reason #1. I like things to look as professional as possible.)

    b) It's hard to say at this point. I've heard many people say, "I'm MUCH less likely to comment on a blog without DISQUS." Then again, I think these are the anal-retentive early adopters that like their way or the highway. I do think, eventually, that some sort of comment aggregation system will become the norm, but not one that aggregates merely blog comments, but ones from all over the social Internet.

    Thanks for reading, great questions, you're really making me think!
  • Kyle James · 1 year ago
    Can't crash that. It's got to look good while also being useful. I might play around with it on my personal blog that I never use... but then again nobody comments on that one.

    I wonder if DISQUS also does a really good job of handling spam? That could be another reason that helps it win out? Akismet is great, but it doesn't catch everything.
  • Andy DeSoto · 1 year ago
    See, I've already switched back to Disqus! I'm such a flip-flopper! Let me know what you think. The shoddy integration is already grating on me, but I do like the widget to the right there (on which you're quite the man)!

    DISQUS does do a great job of spam handling since the spam-bots that target WordPress blogs don't know how to handle it yet. You still get comments with DISQUS running but you can be 100% confident that they're spam! Akismet has never missed a spam for me, but then again, I don't get the numbers you do either.