Interaction is always a big part of successful blogs. Users love to post comments and discuss the subject of top blogs’ contents and articles. This is part of the reasons why making commenting as easy as it can be is very important. Each CMS has its own comment system already built-in, but third-party blog comment systems can help take the discussions to a whole new level. We reviewed 5 of the best third-party blog comment systems in this article.
IntenseDebate
IntenseDebate is actually made by the same people behind the famous blogging platform WordPress. It is a product of Automattic and has been one of the most popular third-party blog comment systems today.
As you would expect, IntenseDebate works seamlessly with WordPress. However, it also works with various other blogging platforms, including Blogger. The comment system is also very easy to install. All you have to do is define your blog URL, select the platform you use for your blog and follow the provided step-by-step guide to get IntenseDebate installed.
IntenseDebate is very popular mainly thanks to its Reputation system. Users who comment on your – and many other – blogs get the chance to earn reputation points given by other users. This allows users to focus on providing the best comments and having a truly good quality discussion.
The comment system also sends an email every time a comment is replied. This email notification helps keep users in the discussion, which means you can expect them to return frequently as long as the discussion is alive.
Disqus
Disqus is perhaps one of the oldest third-party comment systems out there. It is used by more than 750,000 websites – according to the official website – and accounts for more than 50% of today’s third-party comment system usage.
I do love how Disqus makes importing existing comments very easy to do and if you’re not sure how to do it yourself it has a ton of tutorials like this one. In fact when it comes to comment system tutorials, you will always find one for Disqus before all others!
When you have a matured blog and you want to switch to using Disqus to manage comments, you can easily import old comments to the system in just a few clicks. It also supports importing comments from IntenseDebate, which is a lucrative offering for those switching to Disqus.
Aside from its mobile-friendliness and lightweight user interface, Disqus is also very fluid. Users can attach files, have a truly active discussion, reward other users for their replies and answers, and even have a real-time discussion thanks to Disqus’s Ajax-based interface. I also love the fact that users can reply to comments by directly replying to the notification emails sent by Disqus, but this also means users are less inclined to visit the site frequently.
Facebook Comments
This next third-party comment system is very effective for new and existing blogs for one main reason: it has its own user base for you to tap on. Yes, Facebook allows site and blog owners to allow Facebook users to give comments on their site. With more than 1.5 billion active users, Facebook Comments is a very attractive source of traffic nonetheless.
Users don’t need to sign up for a new account to comment. They can use their existing Facebook accounts directly; since most users don’t really sign out of Facebook, this means they can always comment on blogs that use Facebook Comments immediately.
Whenever a user posts a comment, the comment gets automatically posted on their wall as well, complete with a link to the page he or she is commenting. This is a good way to promote your site to an even wider audience.
Livefyre
Among many other third-party comment systems, Livefyre is perhaps the youngest; it is far from being the worse, though. The whole comment system is very easy to use, easy to the eyes and highly engaging. These three traits make Livefyre suitable for a wide range of blogs.
The comment system is also quick to support existing social networks. For example, Livefyre allows users to tag other users in their comments. It works very similarly to Mentions on Twitter. You can add an ‘@’ symbol followed by the tagged user’s name. The function works with Facebook and Twitter accounts as well.
It is also possible to automatically post comments to Facebook and Twitter. On top of that, users can follow a conversation without having to leave a comment first.
Vicomi
The last comment system in our list is Vicomi. Vicomi is particularly unique because of its Emotions feature. It basically allows users to tell site owners how they feel about the content or the subject of the content. There are five emotions to choose from on top of every Comments section.
The setup process is also very easy to complete. Vicomi integrates well with many blogging platforms, including WordPress and Blogger. The comment system can be used for free and users can use their existing social media accounts to log in before commenting.