Intense Debate or Disqus? I’m torn.

14 May 2008

ID vs Disqus

I can’t decide.

I’ve used and loved Disqus in the past, but felt the data portability options were limited. I loved the data portability options of Intense Debate, but found it lacked support with FriendFeed. Recently, I went on record as to my reasons for liking Intense Debate. One of those reasons included their willingness to support Seesmic video comments. Today, Disqus has added Seesmic Video comments to their system. I’m left with the following:

Intense Debate allows me to import/export comments to and from my WordPress blog with relative ease. That is good feeling to have.

Disqus integrates with FriendFeed very well and has gained great popularity due to Dave Winer and Robert Scoble‘s seal of approval. Their (Disqus) community is very bullish about the platform.

So part of me wants Disqus for the Seesmic/FriendFeed support while the other part likes the data portability options (the ease of it) of Intense Debate. Now here’s another thing: This post may draw people from the Disqus AND the Intense Debate communities. Since I currently have Intense Debate installed, I doubt many Disqus users will bother commenting. That’s a whole ‘nother bag of apples.

I really miss video comments and was willing to move to Intense Debate because they expressed interest while I heard nothing from Disqus. Now, Disqus has launched support, and I’m hearing nothing from Intense Debate.

Torn.

Tags: comments, disqus, intensedebate, seesmic, web2.0, wordpress

View Comments to Intense Debate or Disqus? I’m torn.

Intense Debate Is the Easy Choice | Bwana.org

June 12th, 2008 at 2:24 pm

[...] while ago, I wrote about my difficult decision between choosing from the commenting systems, Disqus and Intense Debate. Much [...]

Ps3

October 2nd, 2008 at 5:41 am

Tbh i much prefer Disqus, use it on all of my blogs!

Adriano

October 7th, 2008 at 11:00 am

BACKTYPE http://www.backtype.com got my attention recently at Ycombinator. Their idea is to spider on the commenter's web URL(s). Thus in theory their approach is more universal across blogs than either IntenseDebate or Disqus. In practice it will depend on how extensively their spider pulls in content. Go see if their search engine has picked up your posts, then "claim" them under your profile.

Kemal Yaylali

October 8th, 2008 at 4:43 am

With the alpha version of ID plugin for WordPress, integration between WP Admin panel and ID is awesome… I'm using it right now and so far I've never faced a problem. Cheers for the ID guys! Btw, thanks for the post Bwana…

laurus nobilis

October 25th, 2008 at 1:15 am

When I first saw the Disqused I loved it. I placed it on my web site and I must say that it is very good. A lot of options and very easy to install.

November 15th, 2008 at 8:45 am

Disqus is OK for me. I have just placed it on my site. I just wonder about long term reliability, since all data is placed on their server.

shey24801

January 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am

Disqus user here — proving you wrong

You're right, it's a touch choice to make. I chose to go with Disqus because of the FriendFeed support but it wasn't an easy choice. Plus the Disqus community is pretty solid, not sure of how many are using IntenseDebate.

If ID does decide to get with FriendFeed, this is a whole new ball game.

isaac_keyet

Thanks for your patience. We're working around the clock on new features over at ID, so bear with us!

bwana18751

Yeah, if ID gets FF, then I think the scale tips towards ID a bit more. FF and Seesmic are big pluses for Disqus at the moment. I'm trying to be patient with ID and their addition of these services.

cynthia_bl24661

I have Disqus on 2 blogs and ID on 3 blogs… however, I like ID in that it will email my commenters personally even if they are not registered with ID. Unlike Disqus, that will only send an email reply to commenters registered with Disqus.

However, I'm trying to export my comments from Disqus and put them into my WP blog… but the format that it's exporting to (xml or rss) doesn't seem to tell my WP install enough information to get them attached to the right post. Hrm.

eng1ne

I also have an ID login. I believe that if I am going to take a side, I should at least know what I am siding *for* and *against*. That said, this is my first ID comment.

I am really hoping that Disqus announces WP comment import/export soon.. I think that would be a great move on their part.

wihe31311

Yes Disqus not data portability. I Love Intense Debate.

michael

thanks for your patience bwana. stay tuned…I think you'll be pleased with what's to come!

BTW – while I've got you, we just released some awesome new beta features including Reply By Email – allows you to repsond to comments, friend requests and moderation prompts via email. Any interest? Let me know – support@intensedebate.com

Welcome J Phil. Please let me know if you have any questions as you explore IntenseDebate. I love feedback.

Email sent. Thanks Michael.

jigarme

My personal favorite is Intense Debate..

Laibcoms

Well, I prefer Disqus but here I am commenting on your blog using Intense Debate
I tell you what, the Open Comments Workgroup was created to be the place where people and groups with stakes in this space can formulate and eventually produce a specification that will guide all services with how they should handle comments. Visit my blog at http://gameshogun.ws/

Secondly, I am planning on adding Intense Debate on all my blogs and the blogs I handle, side-by-side with Disqus. As you've said, and which I agree, loyal users will not comment if they don't see their platform of choice.

moserw

I have been using Disqus on my blog for a while now. The only reason I choose Disqus was because I never heard of Intense Debate at that time and Disqus was good and also the only option. Now that I have heard good things about Intense Debate it will be tough deciding between both if I have to, but as of now I have no thoughts of ditching Disqus on my blog!

webmdave

I'm currently using Disqus but am keeping my eye on ID.

db0

Personally I prefer IDC all the way because of the peace of mind I have with the data portability. They also seem to have a much more active support (as you have seen from Michael commenting here)

Here's a link of interest: http://getsatisfaction.com/intensedebate/topics/i...

Currently we're in private alpha testing for our long-awaited new WordPress plugin (4 months now!).

The new IntenseDebate WordPress plugin is one of a kind, featuring advanced integrations that you won’t find and can’t get anywhere else. I can’t spill the beans on our full feature list yet, but one of the key ingredients is complete data sync like nothing you’ve seen before.

Don't get too comfortable… you're going to want to go with IntenseDebate!

I'll do an update blog post soon. I'm waiting for all the new ID goodies to come out first.

rambls

I've got to say that I've been an I.D. user and supporter for quite awhile. I lived in Boulder so call me biased a little bit. Plus Mike plays a funky bass so the scale tips that way for me.

However, when I relaunched battlemouth.com we tried disqus first. I was please with the features but wasn't overly impressed with them, the UI or the system itself. I'm a huge fan of I.D. and I think I would be even if I wasn't as biased as I am. For more reasons why check this post out: http://www.rambls.com/2008/08/21/tech-support-int...

Well since this blog post, a lot has happened. It's pretty old considering how much Disqus and ID have improved. You see that I'm still using ID so no need to convince me

mynameisraj

I think Intense Debate is awesome. But they found me, I didn't find them. I got followed by IntenseDebate on twitter and the rest is history (but not interesting history)

AmberS

I hear ya. Its just good to hear the different perspectives. I have Disqus because when I first tried to install it ID did not play nice with my template. I think if anything they should both offer integration with one another so they can both take over the comment world.

d3bruts1d

I just went through this whole internal debate… ended up going with DISQUS because of the ability to import/export comments from WordPress.

Since the changes in Disqus, have you changed your stance at all? Its a pretty close call in the first place, but I would like to see an update from you on this.

You need to update IMO
ID supports "taking back" the comments made via FriendFeed into your ID comment-flow.
Disqus launched their full API (and continually building on it) so no more SEO worries for the API users, and if I'm not mistaken you can now import (even pre-Disqus posts) and export (if I remember correctly).

But just like what another blogger said, we can only choose one. I did not go on my plan to add Disqus and ID in gameshogun even though it's possible. I chose Disqus, it's my first. I guess in this stiff competition of Disqus and ID, the factor of "first" comes into play. I touched Disqus first so I'll stick with it. However that doesn't mean I don't have an account in ID

feedarena

January 12th, 2009 at 11:46 am

Interesting opinions. I have run myself a comparison between 4 different commenting services (Disqus and IntenseDebate are on the list) and my conclusion is: a) if you are running a blog than IntenseDebate is my recommendation, but if you are running a site (or blog on a not so well known platform), Disqus will probably offer more value. You can read the details here http://themindstorms.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/com...

./alex

Tanya Heat

February 19th, 2009 at 7:03 am

Even after going through their website, I can’t quiet comprehend what the main advantage of this function as at relates to WordPress comment feature

James

September 21st, 2009 at 3:41 pm

Looks like you moved to BackType! I’m a Disqus man myself…

bondage

October 6th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

and it looks like DISQUS lost the battle.

Dread Knight

October 14th, 2009 at 8:44 pm

I’m an Intense Debate user, might try out disqus because their widget is nicer overall….and I’m also a backtype user, but didn’t knew you could use it for this kind of stuff as well