How to Move Your Blog Into The Era of the Real Time Web
by Alex Vermeule posted July 22nd, 2009 at 11:57
A couple of weeks ago, there were post flying around the web claiming once again that blogs were dead and that you should drop it in favor of lifestreaming. While I am a big fan of lifestreaming (I have a dedicated lifestream page on my site), I do not believe that blogs are dead.
I believe the opposite is true and that blogs are evolving. In the past, a blog would be a ‘single voice of a person’. Nowadays, blogs have become the voice of a community, driven by technology that is starting to make real-time conversations possible. With this post, I’d like to share some solutions that can help your blog stay ahead of the game and move into the era of the real time web.
Make It Easier To Have a Conversation
With the rise of social networks and tool such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc, conversations are happing around the web. So how to you encourage people to have their conversations on your blog? The answer lies in the innovation of commenting systems that can help you bring back the streams of conversations back to your site. They are making ‘real time’ conversations possible.
There are currently three solutions that facilitate better conversations:
So why should you should consider to implement one of these products? Because they make it easier for your visitors to engage on a conversation with you and other readers. Here’s how:
- Integration with Facebook Connect, Twitter OAuth and 3rd party services
A reader’s identity can now flow from their favorite social network to your site. They do not have to create a profile and upload their picture anymore to leave a comments under their own online identity. This makes the commenting experience a lot easier and more sociable, as you can see who you are talking to. - Comments are threaded and more
Although threaded comments now come with most blogging platforms, these systems provide a massive improvement over those standard solutions. Your readers can comment very easily on other comments, subscribe to comment updates via e-mail and even leave a reply by video if they wanted. - Broadens the conversation
As a visitor leaves a comment, they can share it with their friends across their favorite social network. So effectively, they share your content too – broadening the conversation and driving new traffic.
Which one to choose?
In terms of functionality, the solutions mentioned offer almost the same feature set. And when one of them introduces new functionality, it doesn’t take long before the others catch up. Disqus seems to be the most popular choice amongst blogger, probably because of the fact that high traffic sites such as Mashable.com or Scobleizer.com have been using it for a while now. As you can see, I have choosen to use Disqus on Alexve.com. It is a solution that works on several platforms, including WordPress. My experience so far with the technology has been great, although I’d like Disqus to improve their response time on support tickets…I am still waiting on a proper response and resolution for a ticket that I logged almost a week ago.
UPDATE: As you can see, I have removed Disqus from my site completely. Disqus failed to resolve a simple comment count issue on one of my blog posting and provide decent support. I’ve contacted them more than 10 times in the past two weeks via e-mail/twitter, asking for their help. They just didn’t listen…I was really excited about Disqus and its functionality but because of the extremely poor support experience, I have taken Disqus off my site and now switched to IntenseDebate.
Would you consider upgrading your commenting system? Which solution would you choose and why?
Tags: Commenting Systems, Innovation, Trends
Categories: Real-Time Web
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Good ideas, great links. I started using Disqus a few days ago, trying to get the hang of it all.
Hi Steve, thanks for your feedback! I saw in your twitter stream that you are testing Js-kit Echo too? Echo got some good press yesterday as building43.com started using it. I have been using Disqus for about a week now and the only thing that has really disappointed me is their support (one post on site is not showing any comments). Would be interested in hearing your experience with both products. Thanks!