Seesmic & Disqus add up to video comments and more
If you aren’t a blogger you probably haven’t noticed this company named Disqus unless you really are paying attention when you leave a comment. But head over to Dave Winer’s blog, click on the comments, and if you leave a comment there, like I just did, you aren’t actually leaving it on Dave Winer’s blog. You’re using Disqus’s commenting service.
“So what?” you’re probably asking.
Well, there’s a few things that Disqus does.
1. It hooks into FriendFeed. Why does that matter? Well, if you register your Disqus account (like I have) all of your comments left on blogs that use Disqus’s service, will show up on FriendFeed. Look at my FriendFeed stream. You’ll already see my Seesmic video comments that I left on some other blogs.
2. In the past hour they just turned on video comments thanks to a partnership with Seesmic. Go here to see my first video comment left on Dave Winer’s blog.
3. There’s an identity system. I don’t have to sign into comment on anyone’s blog who also has Disqus implemented. For instance, when I went over to costpernews.com and left another video comment there, I didn’t need to sign in. Plus my comments have my picture on them, which makes it less likely that someone will steal my identity.
4. Disqus comments are spam resistant. Because they use a robust identity system across blogs they can kick people off who misbehave.
5. Disqus comments are threaded.
Sam Harrelson was the first one to report the Seesmic/Disqus news on his CostPerNews blog.
Anyway, the reason I’m writing this is because the video commenting system is quite nice. Easy to use and easy to watch.
This is yet another piece in connecting us all together in the real time system I call “the World Wide Talk Show.”
Here’s some sites that have the Disqus/Seesmic commenting feature turned on:
http://loiclemeur.com/
http://louisgray.com/
http://shegeeks.net/
http://winextra.com/
http://avc.blogs.com/
http://howardlindzon.com/
http://scripting.com
More will almost certainly come soon. I’m looking at this technology too. I’ve been talking with Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic (the folks who run my blog) and they are looking at a raft of things to do to make commenting better for WordPress.com users.
So, let the commenting wars begin!
If you are a blog owner, what do you think about Disqus? Like it? Recommend it to other people?
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May 14th, 2008 at 6:06 am
[...] Diskussionen lämnar bloggen (från Twitter). Med videokommentarer. Det passar Scoble bra. [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 6:16 am
I may be an old luddite here but I don’t get this video blogging stuff. When I visit a blog I read it - scan it, in fact, - and get the gist of what the blog is about. You cannot do this with video blogging spaces like Seesmic. You have to sit through interminable hours of video waiting for the nugget of information.
Ditto for comments. I can read comments very quickly, scanning them for the rubbish and the gold. You cannot do that with video - wait for it to load, listen to the comment move on.
I think the difference is that with the written word the onus is on the creator to distill their words so the reader gets the message. With video, the onus is shifted to the viewer to watch and sift out the noise on the fly. “Er Um Er Um” doesn’t get written down - but it’ll stay in the video.
Audio comments? I won’t be listening.
Video comments? I won’t be watching.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:18 am
I have been using Seesmic for a little while now and just added the Seesmic video service to a Sprout application I am working on. I really like how users can view the thread of video comments under a post already so partnering with Disqus was a great decision.
I have commented using Disqus on Shegeeks.net. I’m all about the “world wide talk show’ analogy and this makes us one step closer to a reality. I will give Disqus a try on my blog for sure and be sure to recommend if I like it.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Parkylondon I agree with you for the most part. But a few places where video commenting is going to be appreciated.
When? Where? When we have something visual to talk about. Want to see what my kitchen looks like? Want to learn how to cook a meal? Want to see the injury my kid sustained and you’re a remote doctor? Heck, wanna see what my kid looks like right now? How about can I show you my new cell phone’s UI?
Want to buy my car based on only my text? How about that piece of art hanging on my wall? Etc.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Pardon a second comment but @Parkylondon does have a point about extracting nuggets of information at a slower pace.
I still like the idea of capturing peoples reactions to certain content. With text, tone can be misconstrued.
I posted the Battle at Kruger video on my Seesmic the other day. I immediately got 2 responses. One guy was absolutely amazed and thanked me profusely for posting it. His words could not have truly captured his reaction. The other guy spoke french so I do not know what he said but his expressions said it all.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Plus, some people are just interested in what other people look like, sound like, what their mannerisms are. Voyeurs, I think they’re called. The person creating the video comment is of as much interest, if not more, than the comment content itself.
I’m sure if a video comment by an “unknown” was positively received by those that do have the time and/or inclination to watch them, the text comments on the video comment would support that fact and drive more people to watch.
I imagine that it would create “closer”, more personal networks than text comments alone.
May 14th, 2008 at 7:07 am
I think my key point (and I’ve expanded on this a tad at http://www.theflashing12.com) was the amount of time taken to watch this stuff.
Scanning out the crud and panning for the gold are waay faster with the written word.
@Adam - your “Battle at Kruger” video was posted on YouTube first was it not? I saw it there. Excellent work and thousands of views. I am on Seesmic (but don’t have time to shovel and pan) I would probably have looked at that just on the title alone.
It’s a question of solutions and problems. These services are solutions looking for problems and I can’t see the problem they might be solving.
May 14th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Where FriendFeed and Disqus integration gets really interesting is when comments made on FriendFeed are also posted on the original post - a feature that I understand they’re working on.
May 14th, 2008 at 7:26 am
And hey, Robert, you didn’t list me in the blogs that have Disqus turned on! ;)
May 14th, 2008 at 7:33 am
I’ve enabled video comments on all my blogs now :)
Try on these two:
Readle Gadgets
Making Music
May 14th, 2008 at 7:46 am
[...] video comments on my blogs! I’ve enabled the video comment feature on all my blogs that uses the DISQUS system. So now you can use the Seesmic video comment service [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 7:59 am
[...] can find out more about the Disqus/Seesmic partnership on the blogs of Fred Wilson and Robert Scoble. Tags: comments, disqus, seesmic, videoPosted in Updates | Like this Article? Subscribe var [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Totally Love it! The guys there are *fixing up *my* broken theme so that it can use Disqus!* They could’ve just refused, since it was not their fault. They recognized that it was their problem (since I can’t change my Theme, but I can leave Disqus off), and @danielha on twitter is working on helping me. Awesome.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:17 am
I had the option to turn on video comments in my Disqus control panel setup page today. So I did. scribkin now also supports video comments, FWIW.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Yuvi - are you using a WP theme that is based on Kubric? I’m guessing you aren’t, because Disqus integrates nicely with most Kubric-based themes.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Wow, that was a *lot* easier than the seesmic WordPress widget which I still have problems integrating.
I’ve set it up on http://seesmicsidebar.com
Remember to change the default to ‘on posts with no comments and all future posts’ unless you want to hide all your existing comments, which is not good…
May 14th, 2008 at 8:26 am
click on my name for my take on this deal - im not sure video commenting is ready for prime time (from any provider) - and so far almost all of the video comments i’ve watched have been not worth the time to watch them.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I tried Disqus for a short time on my blog. I turned it back off. As someone who’s used to all the control that WordPress gives me over comments left on my site, Disqus is too limiting.
There’s not ability to do any editing of comments left. All you can do is approve or delete them. That’s great if you’re into having comments with “integrity.” But what if a commenter doesn’t know how to leave an URL that doesn’t extend into the margins? What if you don’t want profanity in the comments? What if a commenter leaves personal information in the comment? What if you want to disemvowel a comment? ;-)
Also, Disqus doesn’t yet support any meaningful export of the comments out of Disqus and back into the WordPress database. Yeah, you can get the comments out of Disqus, but there’s no easy way to get them any farther. The longer you stay with Disqus, the more you’re held hostage to the commenting system.
I couldn’t find any documentation on what HTML was allowed in a Disqus comment. Bold and italics worked. Images didn’t seem to.
Also, no identicons or wavetars.
Disqus has a ton of potential. I expect most of my concerns to be answered before too long. Just not yet.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:21 am
[...] what do you think about video comments? Meh? Pretty Cool? In any event, I suppose I should dust off the web cam and brush up on my oral presentation skills [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 9:53 am
I installed Disqus a while back and I love it. It is such a massive improvement over Blogger’s standard comments system. But I’ve noticed a lot of people have legitimate concerns.
What happens to existing comments? Who owns these comments? Where do the search engines direct comment derived traffic to - Disqus or the blog? What happens to the comments if Disqus goes under?
As for video. I think thats more for personal comments on friends or families blogs. You, Robert, are the exception. Your career is largely about video on the web - you’re gonna be biased here!
May 14th, 2008 at 10:10 am
As much as I’d love to see Disqus and/or video comments integrated into WP commenting, I’m not sure it’ll happen. Isn’t the community and forum-approach that Disqus has a competitor to WP.com? Didn’t WP acquire Gravatar to act as part of the WP identity system? Unless WP strikes out on their own or cuts a deal w/ Seesmic or some other vid company, you’re exactly right Robert…let the commenting wars begin.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Hey thanks for that information. I’m going to go and try setting this up on my blog.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Considering your thirst for the cool, I’m surprised you haven’t implemented disqus on your scobleizer (you may have gone into it else where and I missed it).
I’ve written a few articles and a howto for disqus + drupal here (http://seanreiser.com/taxonomy/term/142) the short version. 1) I like it. 2) I disabled it because you can’t import comments 3) I’ve reenabled it because the benefits I received from the tool outpace the not being able to import comments today and assurances from Daniel that importing comments are coming real soon.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
One day, all of the “openness” of the web and all of the sharing is going to come back and haunt us. People are going to not be able to retract things that were seemingly innocent at the time, but could be potentially damaging later on in life.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
A bit off-topic but something I wanted to give you a heads-up about:
I read your blog through the Media 2.0 Workgroup feed. Lately, in Google Reader, your post titles haven’t beens showing up. Not sure if this is because of the re-design or not but all your posts say “(title unkown).”
Only seems to be happening to you. Everyone else’s are okay.
May 14th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Hi Robert. Watch this interview to Matt Mullenweg by WordPress that talk about WP and video feature: http://it.intruders.tv/La-piattaforma-di-blog-piu-utilizzata-al-mondo-Intervista-a-Matt-Mullenweg-di-WordPress_a106.html
May 14th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
[...] more info on this partnership, read this, this, or [...]
May 14th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
This tech will very interesting to see develop.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Actually, I don’t get the whole VIDEO COMMENTING thingy. I mean it’s okay as long as it’s on video sites like youtube where you can post a video as response. That’s interesting but when it comes to blogs, I believe in text comments.
Why don’t I like video commenting? Well, I think you have to wait a lot to get to the point. I mean that’s just gona take a lot of time. One takes a minute to go through someone’s comments and get the whole gist out of it but video commenting will take a lot more time.
Also, with text comments, you have the ability to skip pass the stuff that’s boring or doesn’t make sense or is spam. With video commenting skipping through is not possible. I love new stuff and I love to see innovations being introduced for the good and greater purpose. That’s what makes internet so darn interesting but I guess not everything is going to capture everyone’s interest and imagination :D
May 14th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I can see its uses. Personally I think I’ll stick to regular comments. Wreck has a point about once something is out in cyberspace, there’s no taking it back. But it has been that way since the creation of the web. Discus will just make it a tad more public.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
i like Disqus comments… I use them on my own blog in favor of WP’s system.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
This sounded great as a way to round up and organize all your various blogging comments during a day, but then there’s this part:
“Because they use a robust identity system across blogs they can kick people off who misbehave.”
That’s awfully overbroad, Robert. You guys and all your start-up friends take a sudden dislike to someone who criticizes you, and you blacklist them all across services like this using Disqus or similar organizers/aggregators.
For example, I’m banned from commenting on Dave Winer’s blog after merely one comment in which I challenged his notion, headlined in his rabid blog recently, that “everybody in the Northeast is racist”. And that’s just it, in the name of a constant haze of praise and “positivity” you think you need to thrive in, you all block and even harass people for being “negative” “just because you can”.
I think eventually the consequences of all this very arbitrary and abusive blocking and declaring of people as “misbehaving” and enforcing various overbroad or even draconian TOS will take its toll, and hopefully eventually people will walk around you.
Meanwhile, I’m going to go see if Disqus enables me to comment on Dave’s blog even if he’s banned me, and whether he/you then try to blacklist me on Disgus, it will be interesting.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:18 am
“Scanning out the crud and panning for the gold are waay faster with the written word.” - Since when was speed the best arbiter of effectiveness, Mr P?
Video and other “rich” media is more visceral and yes, it does consume more time - although with practise, I can scan those too and just watch the ones I want to watch. But video and audio carry not just information as Robert says about human objects - cars, art, chocolate - but also human beings in a way that text does not. Can you tell if I am being ironic right now? Watch the video and you will know for sure.
Whether you love this or hate it, it’s here to stay. In particular, watch young people with less inhibition and no concern for the heirarchy of the written word pick this up and run with it.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:27 am
[...] for a while. As you might have noticed, it has been heavily debated since the start (see here and here) around issues like commenting outside the blog, SEO, editing comments, black listing on a global [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 2:44 am
I use coComment much more than Disqus because the latter requires the site to have it installed, whereas the former requires the user to install it. I like the idea of Disqus, but not the implementation.
May 15th, 2008 at 2:54 am
[...] see it in action, Robert Scoble has a list of sites that have the Disqus/Seesmic commenting feature turned [...]
May 15th, 2008 at 3:43 am
“although with practise, I can scan those too and just watch the ones I want to watch.” - How? Do you spend hours and hours watching garbage to find one or two minutes of gold? I don’t have that kind of time - I find it easier with the written word.
I have had many emails, Twitter comments and conversations with people who agree that they see no future in video commenting. I fully expect this to be a flash in the pan and be over in a few months - if that.
I don’t and won’t spend my spare time wading through the detritus to find the good stuff. Enjoy wading - I’ll sit on the side and watch it fall to pieces.
May 15th, 2008 at 4:09 am
Video comments look like a bad idea to me. We can easily skim some blogs, including comments, at work. But I don’t see watching video comments being accepted at work. (If they happen to get through the firewall.)
And no matter how brilliant the ideas expressed in a video comment may be, we will never be able to find them with Google.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Scoble, have you ever thought of getting a hosting plan somewhere and running a self-hosted version of WP to allow for all of the great plugin goodness? You’re such an established blogger that I would think you would want to move away from a WP hosted blog to one that you can more freely manage.
Just my two cents.
Cheers!
May 15th, 2008 at 9:25 am
This bodes well for the future of this medium. Excellent stuff!
May 15th, 2008 at 10:10 am
‘fraid I’m more of a wannabe geek and had trouble integrating disqus into my own blog (reverted back to blogger’s default because something wasn’t happening). I will use disqus with my own comments, though, especially due to FriendFeed integration.
Are you going to integrate the disqus commenting system on your blog, Robert?
May 15th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I love the feature set that Disqus provides. I’ve been using them on my personal blog since they were in a sort of “quite beta” mode and I have to say that the spam protection has been phenomenal.
There are a few missing pieces to the puzzle - I don’t have full and easy access to the comments and the comment metadata like I do in WordPress (if someone uses a swear word in a comment on my site, my only options are to leave it alone or to delete the whole comment, which is clunky).
And there’s also the Google issue (Google sees Disqus comments at the disqus.com domain first, which makes the comments on your site duplicate content), which as far as I can tell has still not changed. It’s not a deal killer for a personal blog, and I still use it myself, but it’s something to consider if you’re running a business blog or are being super-SEO conscious.
May 15th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Robert Scoble said
“When? Where? When we have something visual to talk about. Want to see what my kitchen looks like? Want to learn how to cook a meal? Want to see the injury my kid sustained and you’re a remote doctor? Heck, wanna see what my kid looks like right now? How about can I show you my new cell phone’s UI?
Want to buy my car based on only my text? How about that piece of art hanging on my wall? Etc.”
Most of those needs would be better served by allowing folks to embed still images in their comments. It surprises me that none of these commenting systems allow this.
On a separate note, video comments will be very difficult to moderate. Who wants to sit through every comment to make sure they’re okay all the way through?
May 16th, 2008 at 3:54 am
I had DIsqus on my previous blog platform, but the integration gave me headaches so bad I switched to WordPress; in due course I might it give another try, but was not so impressed with the lack of editing features or the wasteful use of screen real estate.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:04 am
“How? Do you spend hours and hours watching garbage to find one or two minutes of gold?”
Erm - Paul, it’s easy. It’s called adding “followers” or “friends” - then I just check the people (via feeds!) who i know often give plenty good content, and just occasionally, call me greedy, scan their followers and fans. I don’t mind missing stuff, I get plenty of good moments this way without any kind of mental ill affects ;-)
I think video is as temporary as the telephone.
What I believe really *is* the issue here is simply taste. To use a musical analogy, some people like loud guitar music, some people like baroque harpsichord, and rarely are these two musical tastes expressed in the same person. Although I did work with one person…
May 16th, 2008 at 8:30 am
[...] Scoble wrote a great post on why you should love Disqus comment system as much as some of us already do - now with Seesmic video comment [...]
May 16th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Thank you Paul for choosing cocomment. Let us know if you have any suggestions. Would love to hear from you.
Thanks
Joaquin
May 16th, 2008 at 9:25 am
*sigh* Parky wishes he had hours and hours to watch garbage to find one or two minutes of gold!
The musical analogy works for me. Peace.
May 17th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
[...] Robert Scoble, Scobleizer.com, Seesmic & Disqus add up to video comments and more [...]
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:01 am
[...] So what do you think about video comments? Meh? Pretty Cool? [...]
May 26th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Robert,
I have never had cause to really question your stance on many things but this Disqus subject seems a little indefensible to me. I reviewed them (perhaps the first or second to do so) some time back and found them to be quite extraordinary in many ways. However, I feel a little betrayed in that even I predicted their prospects to be better than JS-Kit and several others back when.
The problem here is multifaceted of course. Disqus, though a viable and potential filled platform, is limited in a number of ways. Beyond that, their monetization scheme is at best “nebulous”. Secondly, their data portability is potentially a disaster if you consider their users to be effectively “locked in” as far as their content is concerned. People fail to realize just how much they have vested in a simple comment sometimes. Considering thousands of them brings to light a wholly unimaginable problem if they are lost into the bowels of Disqus.
It is fairly obvious (via the tail of the comment url’s) that Disqus is using this content for their site SEO and not to help the resident blogs. I shudder to think that this might be some Machiavellian attempt to “scrape” and utilize content for Disqus purpose, but what other reasons exist?
Their proprietary user login and profile are again, walking disasters if you think about user friendliness and this being “locked in” aspect of data and residency. JS-Kit, which ironically I put beneath Disqus initially, offers OpenID and etc, as well as a transparent monetization scheme. People really want transparency Robert …you know this. What happens when Disqus wants to charge 5 bucks for this service (and they will)? The “opt out” scenario for users will not be pretty. If they choose to dump Disqus, they will loose potentially tons of data and comments to the Disqus data base.
So, you can see why I started this “War and Peace” of a comment. Robert, you are one of the best….how come this stuff is not resident in the evaluation’? There are so many other questions out there in thiis area. I know I have sent you 5 emails asking you to review or look at JS-Kit refinements and partnerships. My mail headings are just not that unnoticeable. Disqus has some big problems that not many are talking about. KIT and the others have their issues as well, but at least in the case of JS-Kit …it is easy to see where the money and data go.
Always,
Phil Butler
May 27th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
playing from crashing down even decay year cutting off I went wasn’t at
May 29th, 2008 at 1:28 am
DISQUS is highly recommended. In fact, it should be the STANDARD comment system to all blogs. Time to delete the built-in comment system of blogs - they only keep you “disconnected” from the world.
And for WordPress.Com, it is better for them to embrace DISQUS than create their own. Especially that SezWho+DISQUS+FriendFeed is a big possibility.
Openness. Collective. Discussions.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:51 am
[...] a plugin which allows you to do video commenting on your blogs. Ever since its launch, it has been integrated into Disqus as well as released its API for other developers to integrate into their [...]
June 13th, 2008 at 7:39 am
I used Disqus for some time now, but the fact that the comments are not importable into my existing database and are hosted out of my control have made me uncomfortable to the point that I’ve now discontinued it. I’m searching for a way to import the RSS feed that I saved of the comments into my database, but have so far been unsuccessful. If anyone knows of a way to do this, I would love to get that information.
Yes, I have the two widgets installed on my blog for showing the Disqus comments, but the mere fact that they aren’t WITH the post they were set for is disturbing to me.
Maybe I’m too much of a control freak. It’s the DBA in me — I want my data where I can access it and control it.
As for video commenting, well, I’m on the fence on that one.
July 12th, 2008 at 5:39 am
[...] Seesmic & Disqus add up to video comments and more [...]