Monday, August 10, 2009
Blog Management: Managing Comments Pt. 2
Comment management tools help you save time and weed out spam comments and spam trackbacks. Some tools also help you promote your blog across multiple sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. They help you verify the identity of the person who comments by having them log in through OpenID or Google. If you don't already have comment management system on your blog and you're thinking of installing one, you should keep the following in mind when you're choosing a system.
1. Make sure you're familiar with the system because you're going to be the one handling it, unless a site admin does it for you.
2. See if the company you're going for is going to be there for a while and not shutdown shop a couple of months down the line.
3. If you're satisfied with the system that comes with the blogging platform you have, you don't really have to change. Just because everyone is doing it doesn't mean you have to do it, too.
Having said all that, if you want to still put them in your blog, here are the five tools that will help you manage your conversations. First thing I did was to check them against each other so that I know how popular they are. Here's a snap shot of what the figures say:
I encourage you to check their sites and play around before you change your blog. Don't forget to back up your blog before you change things!
1. Disqus
I use Disqus to manage comments on this blog. According to Compete.com it's the most popular tool compared to the other four. It had a steady incline in traffic and seems to be doing very well. It works on most blogging platforms and it didn't take a lot of tech skills to get it installed on this blog. I like the fact that you can integrate a lot of services like Facebook Connect, OpenID etc. It gives my users a lot of options as to where they want to login or not and comment.
2. JS Kit
I found JS Kit through Jeanne's blog actually. It had a lot of visitors a couple of months back but it seems the traffic has decreased. Just like Disqus, you can login using your OpenID, or Twitter account to comment. It's tied up with one of the biggest blogger networks: Blog Catalog - which can explain why it's so popular.
3. BackType
I was really surprised that BackType isn't doing so well. I heard about it from Robert Scoble. I think the reason they're not getting a lot of visitors is because they're not compatible with platforms like Blogspot. I think BackType's developers are working on it though. Blogspot users tend to be folks who have been blogging for a long time, and those who focus on content rather than the bells and whistles of coding.
4. IntenseDebate
I've seen IntenseDebate here and there but mostly on Wordpress blogs. Besides the usual features of a good comment management tool, the have a neat little voting system so that the best comments are moved to the top. I thought that was interesting. Who wants to read 20 comments if you can just read the top best ones right?
5. coComment
I used to use coComment when I had to track a lot of blogs/personalities. It was the only management tool that I used then. Frankly, I'm surprised and disappointed that they're traffic isn't anywhere near Disqus -- but that can change depending on what kind of services that they're incorporating in the future.
Photo by: massdistraction
