Conversation. The end…OK, I’ll provide a little more explanation than that. There are two primary reasons why I decided, after a 12 month hiatus from DISQUS, I decided to give it another shot.
1) Customer Service
Case 1: Back in January we had a good conversation here at Life Without Pants about DISQUS versus “standard” WordPress commenting, we weighed the pros and cons and addressed our concerns. The post attracted Giannii, one of the reps over at DISQUS, to come by and answer any questions and provide what I thought was outstanding customer service.
You may say, “Well, he was just doing his job” - and you’d probably be right, but it’s something like this that can really have a positive impact and leave a lasting impression. It worked, because here I am today, a new-found brand evangelist for DISQUS (as a result of excellent service). Companies wondering how to get involved and engaged with bloggers and Social Media types out there should take note of the DISQUS approach – you don’t have to “sell” – you just need to be present, engaged, and provide assistance, while going even just slightly above what the competition is doing to ensure your “users” are getting the most value out of your product/service.
Case 2: I was having trouble importing all of my WordPress comments over to DISQUS so I sent out a ‘tweet’ and, within an hour or two, there Giannii was again offering to personally help with the transition. A day later, my problem was resolved. Attentive, timely, responsive – again, things that add up to a positive service experience.
2) Conversation
This IS why I made the switch - I had been pondering it for a while and then DShan brought it to my attention again last week – DISQUS, at it’s core, is here because it will further encourage conversation. Previously, if anyone replied to your comment here, you’d only receive notification if you “subscribed” to the comments of the post. So obviously a lot of people are going to miss that. But the problems don’t end there (with standard WordPress). If you ARE subscribed to a thread, you receive an email notification for EVERY comment that appears following yours – aka extremely annoying if you were the first to comment and then get stuck receiving 100 follow-up emails about new comments when you just want to go about your day.
With DISQUS, it tactfully encourages the conversation to continue by sending automatic email notification to the user if there is a reply to THEIR specific comment. Many times, conversation has fallen flat here simply because a person doesn’t know that anyone ever replied to them. By going with DISQUS, you eliminate that unknown and encourage your readers to keep tabs on the conversation and participate beyond their first comment. Conversation is the bread and butter of any blog, and this should only further promote my ‘conversation philosophy’.
I welcome back DISQUS in with open arms – here’s to hoping she treats me well over the long haul.
(If you’re thinking of making the move or need any help with DISQUS, feel free to give me a shout and I’ll be more than happy to lend a hand).
I empower visionaries and hustlers to do the work they want to do and live the life they want to live. A self-made entrepreneur, brand-expert, writer, speaker, thinker, creator, doer, and Saved by the Bell aficionado, I examine life through a "less restricted" lens and frequently get nostalgic about the 90's. 
Jump into the discussion by adding a comment below...
Great post. We moved our 20+ blogs over to disqus 6 months ago. Been very happy and spam is almost zero.
you can see it in action here at http://www.7freelance.com
Is there a way for the user to be subscribed to comments automatically? user meaning not the visitor, but registered blog user who created the post
Matt,
Thanks for the info about DISQUS.
I was wondering how hard it was to move your WordPress comments over to DISQUS?
its fairly easy. you need a disqus api. be sure to check reactions so you know who is tweeting you etc.
I had mixed experiences with DISQUS a year or so ago, but since then I think they have worked out a lot of their kinks. While I'm an advocate of limiting the number of plugins you have installed into Wordpress, and I do like the ability to “style” the comments a bit more, I think the pros outweigh the cons and at the end of the day, functionality beats style.
Hi Frank – it's a lot easier than you think. The plugin itself as a one-click importer, and if that doesn't work (I had some issues initially because of high-comment volume (6,000 or so to import) the DISQUS team is extremely responsive at making sure you get taken care of. Highly recommend it.
Totally agree Matt. I come from the Blogger platform which has no inbuilt spam prevention, so that alone was worth the install. Also the FB connect was a big plus to allow FB users to join in the comments.
Also the reply by email save me a lot of time and makes me interact with our readers.
I'm now seeing 300-400 comments a day on our blogs as opposed to 100-200
Good point – I haven't really tapped into the Facebook connect element but the reply by email is a very nice feature. I think we all came from Blogger at one point – but in this day and age, even if you're blogging 'just for fun' I'd steer clear of Blogger.
I just recently made the switch back, as well. I had some issues where the comments all disappeared when I changed to my own domain – and now all the previous disqus are completely gone – so some fabulous conversations are lost.
That makes me frustrated and I didn't get the problem resolved. (Even though they responded on Twitter and I filed a request, nothing happened. SO FRUSTRATING.
However, I have Blogger (stop looking down at me, I love it and am not ashamed to admit it!) – which means I can't even respond to comments via email. The negative experience from before doesn't *quite* outweigh the desire I have to be able to converse with the people reading my blog.
I've also had issues with how clunky and ugly disqus is – did you create a custom CSS file to pare it down a little? I'd love your advice on that!
Glad to have you back on DISQUS, Matt! I've used it since I started self-hosting a little less than a year ago, and despite a few minor hiccups, I've really enjoyed having it on my blog. DISQUS does have great customer service, and they really use Twitter to their advantage. Also, it's fantastic for encouraging discussion and conversation. I've definitely missed out on some of that here because I don't want to subscribe to the comments and receive a gazillion notifications in my inbox. So, I think going back to DISQUS will definitely benefit both you and your readers. Happy Monday
I'm glad you switched back ! I was one of the people you mentioned, having gotten 100+ emails in response to your going back to school post.
Hey Ashley – First of all, no one's looking down on you here. But I have to ask – why do you stick with Blogger? I'm not “anti” anything, I've just yet to hear a compelling argument for sticking with Blogger other than “It's what I'm comfortable with” – which is completely valid, but Wordpress is pretty slick and user friendly – not a big learning curve.
I'm sorry to hear they didn't respond to your issue – they were very responsive to me – so maybe they upped their game recently, how long ago were you having issues?
DISQUS is pretty “blah” from a design standpoint – I haven't dove into the custom CSS for it – but I know when we were having a conversation back in January on this post –> http://www.lifewithoutpants.com/blogging/wordpr… Giani assured customization of DISQUS would be much improved in a future release.
(PS your blog is one of the best designed I've seen on Blogger – it looks great – and connecting with fellow designers is always great, so glad you reached out here).
Haha…sorry about that. Believe me, you weren't the only one that was like, “Matt…stop replying to so many comments” – haha. Problem solved
– COMMENT ON!
Haha, you sound like a spokesperson for DISQUS
At the end of the day this IS to help readers to stay engaged here. I know on most other blogs, if they don't have DISQUS and I comment, I almost never come back, mostly because I don't think about it – with all the blogs we read out there, a little reminder that says “Hey, we're still talking here” goes a long way.
Ooops, I'm such a marketer haha
Thank god….. It is nice to see they have been doing some updating recently. Look for an email from me btw…
Hey Matt,
Thanks for the info. I may have to consider replacing my commenting system with Disqus. Maybe part of my q2 overhaul plans will include this
Hey buddy. Happy to help if you have any questions – but it really is great for continuing conversation.
We need to set up a time to Skype/chat soon – interested in your Q2 plans and want to pick your brain about proactively seeking speaking engagements – part of MY Q2 and “rest of life” plan
Talk soon!
Sounds great Sam. Hope all is well and look forward to hearing from you soon!
Totally agree,
I had an issue last week where my Disqus email notifications were coming about 3 hrs after the comment was made, tweeted about it, and Gianni was on top of it right away.
Love the threaded comments too – so much easier to respond to people rather than response with 3 or 4 @whoever-s.
Looking forward to SMBreakfast tomorrow!
Yeah Srini,
Ditto on both things Matt said! Disqus takes 10 mins at the most to install and configure, so it'll be a “gimme” task off your Q2MP.
Also would love to pick your brain about speaking engagements. Trying to get out in front of a couple local chambers of commerce to get some experience and get my name out there for some consulting.
It's a 3rd party service so there are always going to be some “issues” – but from what I've seen, DISQUS is on top of things and is quick to resolve.
Also, FYI, Wordpress does allow threaded comments (standard) – but some themes are quirky with it. Here with Thesis, I can run threaded comments no problem.
Looking forward to finally meeting and chatting about all things Wordpress/blogging tomorrow at #SMBChicago!
Interesting – wasn't aware that wordpress did that, and I've got Thesis too.
The one downside I've heard re: Disqus is that some people don't like signing in to comment. I guess it's impossible to know though how many people were thinking about commenting but didn't because of the sign in process, without some sort of longer-term split testing. Also, many people don't realize you can sign in w/o a disqus account.
I don't use DISQUS because my readers don't like commenting with it. For me, that's the most important part – there will be no discussion at all if people are annoyed with the system not working properly. I did find a great wordpress plugin though that sends the commented an email when someone replies directly to them, so that's been super helpful in continuing conversations. As long as you're comfortable with a comment system and your readers like it, the discussion will happen.
Hey Jenn. What don't people like? (Just curious). From a logging in stand-point, you don't have to have a DISQUS login to comment – so it's done essentially the same as standard Wordpress. It's not like I work for DISQUS – so I'm all ears as to the pros and cons you and your readers have experienced – and I agree – giving your readers what they want is priority number one. If I start to see people getting pissed off here, deactivating the plugin can be done with the click of a mouse.
Yeah – you can set threaded comments under SETTINGS – DISCUSSION in the Wordpress Dashboard.
I don't understand the signing in to comment thing – you don't HAVE to have a DISQUS account to comment, you can sign is as you do with Wordpress with your Name, Email, & Website. But I guess you're right about the fact that people may not be aware they can do that.
Yep – my usual retort is that on wordpress websites you've gotta sign in anyway – why not do it once for disqus and have it work on thousands of blogs.
Hey Matt,
Wow am so late to the party!
I love DISQUS. I agree with both customer service and conversation, but another one of my reasons is actually kind of selfish
. I like how easy it is for me to reply to comments via email, because it makes it super easy for me to work that into my regular email processing workflow – and I can easily do it on my iPhone when I have a few spare moments. Anytime I am waiting for somebody, I pull out my iphone and I won't look at my “regular” email – I'll go to my filtered folder with my DISQUS messages, because replying to comments tends to be easier and more conversational, requiring no research – and because I enjoy seeing comments, they're the most fun emails I get!
This definitely sounds like something I need to try. I'm not sure what the issue jennifer's readers have with the posting unless there's something different when I sign in. Guest posting seems to work well.
Historically I haven't had too many comments on my blogs and getting people notified should definitely help!
Honestly, I really dislike paying for CSS editing privileges (cheap much?). Admittedly, I learned how to edit HTML/CSS on Blogger – so I find it easier to use. I've thought about switching over to WP solely for the commenting advantages, but I feel like I can style my blog how I want with Blogger, so I'm not compelled to transition. I created a reviews blog on WP to test it out, but found I wasn't in love with WP like I expected to be. (And was a bit annoyed that I had to PAY to customize the blog.)
I'm not opposed – but I see this sense of Blogger disdain across the internet and can't really figure out why.
Sorry to hear that Jennifer. Would love to know what your readers don't like.
Hey Matt,
Glad to see you back on Disqus and thanks for the compliments. Definitely put a smile on my face today. If you have any questions or need any help at all with our service, you know how to find me.
*bat signal* or http://help.disqus.com
PS Can you add one more “i” to my name? I know freakish and rogue consonants and vowels.
Agreed man – I think this is a huge benefit DISQUS has tapped into – I always forget to think about mobile accessibility because I'm so “old school” when it comes to my phone (probably because I don't have an IPhone). Adding that ability for people who are on-the-go is yet another benefit of going with DISQUS.
Thank you man – I swayed back and forth but I think I finally made the best decision for my readers and I. It's good to know you're only a bat signal away if I need anything. Thanks for being a solid example of what good customer service is all about my friend. Cheers!
Thanks for posting this, re-post on http://imua.tumblr.com/
simply superb tool. easy to understand whether link gets in or out. especially edit option is nice one.Thanks to Disqus..
quick question: how do you set up the reactions feature? I've attempted to do it, but all I get at the top of my posts is “0 reactions”.
I'm hoping there will be a MattChevy.com tutorial on how you made your old comments import. I was having problems with Disqus, thats why I switched back to wordpress comments.
Thanks for the insights bro.
LOL.
The free hosting and bandwidth that Blogger provides saves me $1000
per month. Our blogs get through 7 Million + page hits per month and I
simply could not afford a self hosted site and to be honest I find
Blogger so quick and easy that I've never really even considered
wordpress.
Honestly, I really dislike paying for CSS editing privileges (cheap much?).
Admittedly, I learned how to edit HTML/CSS on Blogger – so I find it easier
to use. I've thought about switching over to WP solely for the commenting
advantages, but I feel like I can style my blog how I want with Blogger, so
I'm not compelled to transition. I created a reviews blog on WP to test it
out, but found I wasn't in love with WP like I expected to be. (And was a
bit annoyed that I had to PAY to customize the blog.)
I'm not opposed – but I see this sense of Blogger disdain across the
internet and can't really figure out why.
I decided to implement Disqus on my blog primarily because it DOES encourage conversation. It's nice to have an email when someone replies to my comment, instead of having to check back on the blog–when, invariably, I forget to check. Cheers to a great experience with Disqus!
Exactly – that's what it all boils down to – encouraging conversation. Good luck with your new blog!
I can make that happen Tony – It's easier than it sounds, and like I said, if you DO have an issue, DISQUS is very responsive and helpful (and least they were for me). I'll get a quick tutorial up on MattChevy.com soon!
Hmmm, not sure – I believe it's just an option when you are setting up options in your DISQUS profile. I don't remember exactly how I “set it up” it was just sort of…there? Another great feature and an awesome way for you to discover new people who may have mentioned your post.
Hi Ashley – I'm not at all attacking you or Blogger – to each his own, right? When you mention “paying” for CSS editing privileges, I'm assuming you are talking about having to pay for a domain and hosting? Wordpress itself is free – but yes, you're limited unless you spring for self-hosting (which I believe is well worth if for many reasons).
If nothing else, going the self-hosted route is a huge benefit from an SEO standpoint – if you're on bloggers serves, you are essentially giving them all of your traffic. And, as you mentioned, you're still somewhat limited on a “free” blogger/wordpress platform. I agree that being forced to pay kind of stinks, but the pros outweigh the cons, of course, this all depends on the goal and purpose of your blog/site.
I think the “disdain” is mostly focused on a lack of customization and SEO hindering. Just as you've had trouble with Wordpress, I've always found Blogger to be clunky and non-workable – I guess it comes down to what you're used to, right?
I was very skeptical of Disqus to begin with after seeing how buggy it could be just commenting but what attracted me was the conversational aspect, the ease at which you could tweet reaction AND the way it picks up other reactions on Twitter.
Within a month I was getting more comments and more tweets so I'm extremely happy. I recommend Disqus – particularly for B2B blogs
Exactly – it comes down to conversation. Of course, when using a third party service, you sort of put things “in their hands” and that means when they go down, you go down. But luckily, all comments are still stored within Wordpress, so it's not like you will lose them or anything should something catastrophic happen to DISQUS. That allows me to rest easy.
great post, thank you for describing your experience. I am quiet happy with getingate's social commenting tool because my users like it more than the Disqus interface. A matter of personal choice? maybe. It is also easier for me to filter comments and every noe and then i get demographic reports on my users.
I liked your article very useful to me. I will come back and read the article again.
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Hey Tony,
Can you shoot me a message and I'll take a look for ya: http://help.disqus.com
Thanks,
-Giannii
This is a good gauge of how far behind I am as a blogger. I've been in a hole fighting to add Foodtree to the world…
Thank you for the nod, and I'm SUPER pumped that you went to disqus…in my mind it's better than the rest at this point. I'm not convinced that statement will live on forever, but for now it's a company that seems as if they actually blogged, and gave us bloggers the basic features we need to be a part of a community.
SIDENOTE: I've been looking for ways to set up a destination for disqus activity; the fact that comments are treated like children is a major loss to the overall experience as an active digital thought leader. Disqus produces a 'profile page' that basically let's anyone track where I'm commenting…adding threaded back and forth to that looks to be extremely compelling. We all hit about a post every two weeks that really spawned useful conversation – blog post-like quality comments – and pushing to a destination or feed would yield some super results.
There are piece missing (replies, threaded) but here's my disqus profile: http://disqus.com/dblogged/
Hey man, you're getting things done and I respect the hell out of that – I hope we can chat soon (Skype?) and catch up a bit…
I agree with you about DISQUS being the 'best' provider and they understand the basics, that comments on a blog are about conversation, and they are providing us with a tool to really keep those conversations going. For example, if you didn't get an email about my reply here, would you have come back to see if I responded? Odds are, probably not…
Also, I like where your head's at…I see the future being a destination where you can go and see all of the conversations I've involved with around the web, and jump in yourself. DISQUS is on the right track with this, but I think that's where we're seeing things transition into the future. Being able to easily jump into conversations all over the web really adds a lot to the discovery process.
Hope all is well my friend. Talk soon!
I agree with you about DISQUS being the 'best' provider and they understand the basics, that comments on a blog are about conversation, and they are providing us with a tool to really keep those conversations going.
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Disqus is good for my work and life.I like it very much.but every coin has two back.we should use the disqus to improve our working efficient
“With DISQUS, it tactfully encourages the conversation to continue by sending automatic email notification to the user if there is a reply to THEIR specific comment” I like this feature of Disqus at most. Thank you so much for this very informative blog post. Keep it up.
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I personally like disqus better as well. I feel people who are familiar with disqus seem to make more relavent comments and they are way easier to manage
Nice writeup, I think at this point, many of the comment services are starting to provide very similar functionality. Disqus has been pretty good about leading the thinking, and it’s natural for other services to begin delivering on what their users liked about Disqus. So that’s why in the coming weeks, we’re going to make it much easier for people to decide the better service for them. The new features in the coming release should be compelling enough and I really hope you’ll find them useful as well.
such a good decision imo to switch to disqus…great reasons you have listed as well.
Sounds like cool. Hope the way is easy to comment any blog site.
Very useful info. Its been weeks since I’ve been having a hard time deciding whether to shift to disqus or not. Like Ashley, I am a blogger person too.
Reading all these comments has definitely helped me come to a conclusion, so I guess thats another advantage of Disqus. 
I was wondering that if in the future I decide to shift to Wordpress is it gonna be a tedious task? Considering that I am a complete non-technical person.
Thanks for a very information write up Matt.
I totally agree I think disqus is much better than all the others for that matter! I really agree! They keep you in the loop much better than the others. Thanks for the post!
such a good decision imo to switch to disqus…great reasons you have listed as well.
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i also moved my two blogs and the thing which i liked in disqus is the comenting sytem , page will not reload and instantly your comment is viewed ….. This is one of the beautiful system which is making the blog a little forum for discussion
It is also easier for me to filter comments and every noe and then i get demographic reports on my users.
Good Stuff. I’m liking the disqus comment system for my website as well. Works with wordpress – and our penny stock chat room.
Great article! Their customer service has been great. Trying to figure out how to get Disqus to work on my mobile Wapple site. I love both and feel torn. My mobile comments won’t populate Disqus.
Now I see. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Like it
Hi, I chanced upon ur site. I’m having problems with the time zone settings. Obviously Disqus is not capturing the timings of the comments correctly, even though I have set my timezone to UTC +8. Any idea on what I can do? I have emailed them.
I really like the disqus comment system and using disqus for my blog also. It willu00a0provideu00a0moreu00a0convinceu00a0to user to give comment on article or post.
The comment panel makes responding to people so much easier. I used to get lazy and ignore my comments but now there is no reason not to continue the discussion. I just hope they can fix some of the coding issues for Blogger.
the title that is expressed here is the wish of many people and is the hearty desire of someone that changed their blogger community just for the sake of the peace!
Im very interested in DISQUS and its functions. I enjoy the the ability to post ,chat and Blog….and its due in part of DISQUS and its multiversitial Group of people…i expect I will enjoy it for many….to come. Thanks..and God Bless♥
Disqus now make a web trend because user feedback and suggestion are important and Disqus is the tools that provide grate user interface and many features for commenting system.
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i have already used my blog for comments using disqus.
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I’m pretty sure to move comments to DISQUS system, is a good thing to blogs with shared hosting with a lot of comments like mine.
The initial decrease of daily visits with and without it could be significant (google pagerank is affected a bit, I think) but in a long term the “buzz” and users returning to your site is more important than this
We on Klasblog 6C! use also DISQUS. It’s better than the normal Blogger comments, because you can do more. It’s cool.
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I have too configured my blog with Disqus commenting system. It works great and helpful to easily reply over the comment.
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I think that’s great, but I am not so sure if disqus is working becuase I used the import tool almost a week ago and my comments have still not imported, a little more than 24 hours is no big deal, but when that turns into a week to the point I cannot blog becuase this process must finish first, then that’s just bad. I did contact customer service of disqus and they could only tell me to ‘continue’ waiting. At least they answered, but I am still stuck waiting and I am starting to wonder if it is worth it. They need to be more clear on how long it will wait and strive to be realistic because they can’t just put bloggers on hold for an extended period of time. Still, this may be an exception. I don’t know, but am already starting to look elsewhere.
Two simple reasons but looks really convincing. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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Disqus blog commenting is easy and able to detect the spammer at our website. It is also integrated to the social networking sites like facebook, twitter and many more which is true main option.
Good Stuff. I’m liking the disqus comment system for my website as well. Works with wordpress – and our penny stock chat room.
I totally agree I think disqus is much better than all the others for that matter! I really agree! They keep you in the loop much better than the others. Thanks for the post!
I had an issue last week where my Disqus email notifications were coming about 3 hrs after the comment was made, tweeted about it, and Gianni was on top of it right away.
“With DISQUS, it tactfully encourages the conversation to continue by sending automatic email notification to the user if there is a reply to THEIR specific comment” I like this feature of Disqus at most.
I have used disqus blog commenting into my blog. It something really helpful for me. It is easy for me to comment over and over.