Blogging Notes

With all the blogs I read and comment on every day, it’s hard to track responses to my comments. Fortunately Disqus brings a solution: A commenting system where I can keep track of my own comments around the blogosphere and the comments in my own blogs.

I created a Disqus account just to comment on Mashable, since they use this system. But the more I look into this system, the more I start liking it.

According to their site “Disqus, pronounced “discuss”, is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. The Disqus comment system can be plugged into any website, blog, or application. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community. Disqus is a free service to the general public with absolutely no inline advertisements. A premium service for large-scale websites is in the works but is not yet available.”

When I commented on Mashable, an account placeholder was created with the info I used, which I could claim. To me it looked like yet another sign up with yet another social media provider. But after reading Mashable’s article about Disqus being ready to release social media comments, I learned that Disqus can be more.

With Social Media Comments, any link in the major social networks to specific articles in your blog will be aggregated and added in your comments as social media comment. From what I gather, this means that if someone tweets about your article, with a link to it, this tweet will appear in your comments, just like trackbacks do. Same goes for Facebook status messages, etc.

With this system you, and visitors, can see who had something to say, and respond to them, either through Disqus, or through the medium they used. This can create ongoing discussions, which in turn can create bonds between people.

According to Pete, the implementation of social media comments is not finished yet, but it has been released so the public can start using it. This means that it could take some time before we start seeing the real benefits of Disqus’ social media comments.

But, in the meantime, I will start to enjoy the benefits of centrally managed comments, hoping that more publishers and commenters will sign up.

Update: Disqus announced the release in their blog.