A year and a half ago I weighed in on third party commenting systems. My message? Avoid them. It's time to rethink that position. Here's why. Social technology has changed alot since then. At the time of my original post there were fewer compelling reasons to use outside systems. For the most part the added value of those systems came in the form of additional features (like threaded comments for example) that the native comment systems of WordPress and Drupal didn't have. Since then WordPress and Drupal have both added threaded commenting to their core software as I knew they would. But something else has happened since.

A number of compelling identity systems have emerged. Facebook, Twitter, and Google have launched APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow 3rd party software to connect with their sites, access profile information and post content. As a result of this development website owners have a new authentication option for visitors to their site. Instead of having people verify their identity by setting up a new account, they can login with an existing profile. Beyond that, when visitors make comments they can push notifications about the comments back to the service of their choice. So they can let their network know about your site when they make a comment. These types of features really expand the possibilities for people to discover your website and are also likely to increase engagement since people can quickly make comments without having to create a new account. All good stuff.

While systems like WordPress and Drupal have modules that support these types of plugins the support for them is a bit spotty. For example, I've gotten Google Friend Connect working on my Learn By The Drop site. Unfortunately I've had to implement a workaround to the module because the initial release hasn't been updated. There are other modules that offer connection to Twitter, Facebook and Google for all the major open source systems but there always seems to be a catch. Either you have to rely on yet another service provider (in the case of Gigya Socialize) or you need to install multiple modules (that don't necessarily play nice with each other) in order to to take advantage of all the services. Dropping in a third party commenting system is one way to get around those issues.

Right now there are three major players in the comment space, Disqus, IntenseDebate and Echo (formerly known as JS-Kit). IntenseDebate is owned by Automattic which runs the WordPress.com service. Based on my research it actually looks like Disqus and Echo are the more promising options for dropping in a new comment system on your site. I've seen some negative comments about Intense Debate. My friend Neville Hobson in the UK tried it and lost confidence in the service. It also appears that IntenseDebate does not currently appear to support Google Friend Connect. Meanwhile both Echo and Disqus have had high profile system enhancements that make those services very effective. I've posted a quick screencast below that shows how those two services work.

While there are some nice benefits of outsourcing your comments there are also some drawbacks. First off, since you're embedding a system running on another server then if that server goes down it could take your site down or at the very least take down your comments for the length of the outage. A slow server on their part will slow your site down as well. Both of those things can really kill activity on your site. Of late it seems like the services mentioned here have performed well but you never know. There's also the issue of retaining existing comments and taking comments with you if you leave. I know that Disqus does a good job with retaining all of your comments. Echo will import comments and keep the Echo comments synced with your native commenting system in the background. So both of these services sound like they make it easy to switch back if you don't like them.

Disqus and IntenseDebate are free whereas Echo costs $12 a year and you can go "white label" with Echo for $48 per year. Many people are put off by having to pay for social services such as this but you have to consider that a source of revenue means something. Companies that charge are more likely to continue upgrading their services to satisfy their paying customers. This assumes that the service is a quality one that works well. Both Disqus and Echo meet that criteria. The jury is still out for me on IntenseDebate.

Lots of buzz happening this week with both Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect going live. Lots of bloggers have been writing about these launches and looking at it as if this is merely a battle between Facebook and Google.  There's definitely an element of Facebook vs. Google happening but there are many other smaller players involved in this tussle as well.

From where I'm sitting I see a larger battle between services that need to get their functionality onto blogs in order to either survive or at least continue growing their user base at a very healthy rate. Facebook and Google obviously fall into the latter category. Many other smaller "identity" type services have been available to web publishers long before Google and Facebook lumbered onto the scene with their offerings this week.

A Slew Of Players

Services like Disqus, Intense Debate and CoComment want to help web publishers enhance site conversations and build community via enhanced commenting features that include the ability for users to create profiles. Seesmic provides enhancements to comments by allowing video discussions. Gravatar offers simpler functionality by providing a traveling profile picture (also known as an avatar) that pops up on sites that have their plugin installed.

MyBlogLog has been on the scene for awhile as well. You've probably seen their sidebar widget (pictured at left below) on a few blogs. The widget allows site publishers to create something of a community by allowing visitors to "join" sites and have a discoverable profile and avatar. Yahoo! purchased MyBlogLog for $10 million almost two years ago. So Yahoo is in the game too.

Coincidentally (or likely not) the new Google Friend Connect features a "member" widget (pictured at right below) that looks very similar to the MyBlogLog widget. Wait a minute. Maybe it's really Google vs. Yahoo. The again you can sign in to the Friend Connect service with a Yahoo ID so they seem to be playing nice with one another.

Given Google's recent cozying up to Yahoo it seems to be Facebook against everyone else. But Microsoft has an investment in Facebook of a couple of hundred million dollars. So perhaps this is really Google/Yahoo vs. Facebook/Microsoft. But what are they all fighting for? They're fighting for users.

The End Game

The players in this game know that they will have a much easier time capturing large numbers of users if they can get publishers to buy into their identity (or profile) based services instead of adopting the identity services offered by their competitors. Both Facebook and Google want their services to be the center of a user's world so that user will continue to bring their friends, family and website visitors into the fold.

There's still a strong Google vs. Facebook element to this whole scenario. Facebook started out as a social network that now wants its users to utilize their service as a primary means of communication. Google started out as an email service that now wants users to utilize their service like a social network. So we have to services moving in opposite directions and colliding in the middle. But don't forget Yahoo, Microsoft and MySpace either.

What about the small players I mentioned earlier? I recently heard someone say something like, "When elephants fight the grass gets trampled." Most of the small players that want to find their way onto publisher websites will get trampled. Maybe one or two will get acquired by the large players.

What's The Difference?

Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect seem to have the same goal of providing an identity service to publishers but are quite different in how they go about it. Google allows publishers to embed a series of widgets (Google calls them gadgets) that can be embedded into a website. Google's member widgets currently offer basic membership and profile functionality to sites. Google Friend Connect also has a widget for ratings and a widget for comments.

Facebook Connect (pictured at left) integrates with the existing comment system of a site so that people can comment with their Facebook identity and also share their comments on their Facebook news feed. So while Google tries to add features plus identity Facebook really just adds identity.

Both services offer sharing options, Facebook via their newsfeed sharing and Google via an "invite" link on their members widget. Come to think of it, Google's service also takes a whack at universal sharing services such as Add This and Share This too. JS-Kit should keep their eye on Google as well.

Friend Connect In Action

Friend Connect piqued my curiosity so I recorded a video screencast earlier today showing how to implement the members widget on a WordPress blog. You can see the full size version at the Awakened Voice Learning Center.

What Do Users Do?

Publishers will have to make a decision about the tools that they decide to integrate with their sites. Some will take an all (or most) of the above approach and cram the different services into their sites. There are some risks to that approach though. Use of multiple identity services can confuse and possibly drive away new users. And too many widgets on a site are risky in terms of the performance impact. If one of the services get slow (or goes down) it is likely to affect every publisher unless the widgets somehow degrade gracefully.

Some publishers are likely to draw a line and pick a favorite service and run with it. If they choose the wrong side those publishers could miss an opportunity to gain the users of the more popular service. Some publishers will keep doing what they've been doing which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Everyone else needs to decide whether or not they buy in to the profile services offered by these many vendors. I happen to have a Gravatar, a Google Profile and a Facebook profile. I don't know how much I will use my Google profile or Facebook profile when I interact with the sites that support their respective services. I'll write more about it later to let you know how I think it's all turning out.

Let's continue with the subject of building brands and keeping control of your content. There's this issue with comments. A growing number of people who write their own blogs want better control of all the comments that they leave on other sites. Comments represent ideas and opinions that can add to the value of your brand.

Services like Disqus, Intense Debate and coComment try to solve the problem by centralizing all of a user's comments but only on sites where those services are supported. You can solve this problem yourself by adhering to a very simple comment doctrine.

Any time you find a comment extending past a couple of sentences you should stop yourself and write the comment as a blog post. When you write the blog post make sure that you link directly to the post you are commenting on. If the original blogger has trackbacks enabled then the link to your post should show up in the comment section of the post you're commenting on. Since not all blogs support trackbacks you can't necessarily count on that, but you still retain the value of your opinion.

Everything you do online amounts to some kind of a trade off. In this case you draw a line. Short thoughts are deposited as comments. More complex thoughts get served up to your readers with a tip of the hat to the original author.

This is a situation where a common sense approach removes the need for complex technology solutions. And I believe that everyone gets what they need in this scenario. The original author either gets a comment or a link. And the would be commenter gets to choose an entry point to the discussion that meets their needs.

This approach won't fly for some people. I know there are some people out there who would rather be represented in the comments on a hot post because they want the benefit of the visibility in a post they know will get traffic. In that case you should consider your comment a gift a be glad that you had the opportunity to have your say.