Facebook is now competing with Disqus (et. al)

http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=198

by blader • 17 years ago

60 33 17 years ago

developers.facebook.com

Facebook just launched a comments widget powered by Facebook Connect.

alecco• 17 years ago

Facebook would own other site's comments. Not good.

warkaiser• 17 years ago

^upvote. Facebook has enough control over data, we should keep this away from their paws.

_lc1i• 17 years ago

Why? Everything available to Facebook, I voluntarily put there. Just as anything I say in a comment in their widget will be voluntarily contributed. As a Facebook consumer, a single identity across all my comments tied to a service I already enjoy makes Facebook that much more useful to me. Let them do with the data I gave them as they please.

Hell, I am far more concerned with how much credit agencies seem to know about me, and I never like giving my information to them =p.

shib71• 17 years ago

And what happens with users that want to comment but choose not to use Facebook? (yes we exist)

tokenadult• 17 years ago

And what happens with users that want to comment but choose not to use Facebook?

Something similar to what happens with users who want to comment but choose not to use Disqus, methinks.

dbul• 17 years ago

Agreed. It is possible Facebook doesn't care because many people do have accounts, but I would take non-users into consideration.

andylei• 17 years ago

http://www.somethingtoputhere.com/commentdemo/gallery.php?pi...

it seems like the widget already allows for people without facebook accounts to comment

unalone6• 17 years ago

Interesting to see how this plays out. Facebook is entering a market that likes the existing products a lot. On the other hand, it's got a far tighter layout - visually, Facebook comments appeal much more to me more than Disqus' - and Facebook has the advantage of being a very large player.

agotterer2• 17 years ago

I just spent the last 20 minutes trying to get the comments on my tumblr. So far unsuccessful, I'm not even sure if its possible because of their security settings. This will never reach main stream. Disqus takes 2 minutes to setup and implement.

unalone6• 17 years ago

"Never" seems a bit hasty. Facebook very rarely lets things stay non-streamlined for long. They usually start rough and then iterate until they've got something that' insanely polished.

look_lookatme• 17 years ago

Early on Facebook made the decision that their users are real people with real names and an identity that mirrors life beyond the internet. Whether they realized it at that time or not, that was a great decision. I dunno if this widget will be successful, but I've seen a number of people using connect on disqus, gawker, et al. and it's actually kind of cool.

unalone6• 17 years ago

I would love to think that they meant to do that all along, because that's the true killer feature of Facebook. I like looking at my friends list and seeing names rather than handles.

RK• 17 years ago

Dear unalone,

It's nice on a social networking site to use your real name, but do people really want to use them on random blogs and news sites (like this), etc.?

danielha3• 17 years ago

This is more analogous to Google Friend Connect's wall widget. 1) It's for people using Facebook to leave wall comments; 2) This widget is a proof of concept for their connect model.

tptacek• 17 years ago

If LinkedIn did this, I'd be sorely tempted to switch our comments to it from Disqus.

gojomo• 17 years ago

When Obama's antitrust chief is done with Google, Facebook will be about ready for scrutiny.

tigerthink• 17 years ago

Does the Comments Box allow for threaded comments? Unthreaded comments are a pain imho.

akkartik• 17 years ago

How open are these APIs? Is it possible to build a single widget that accepts either opensocial or friendconnect or fbconnect?

mark_h• 17 years ago

Sites have seen as much as 40-50% more comments...

I wonder if there was a noticeable change in tone or quality though, with the decreased barrier to commenting.

releasedatez• 17 years ago

I think the marketing value alone makes it worth implementing into a site.

update: I just took a brief look at the Facebook comment widget and I think it's missing one feature. Facebook connect was meant for augmenting an existing login system that a site has but it doesn't allow site's own login user (when they are not logged in as Facebook user) to post comments as the user. Not as configurable as I would like.

mattmaroon• 17 years ago

This isn't competing with Disqus at all. Disqus totally replaces blog commenting with a fairly trivial integration, and even syncs the comments back to your database where you can retain ownership. What is a blogger going to do, put this Facebook widget at the bottom of every post?

sam_in_nyc• 17 years ago

How about letting me comment on any URL with whatever social network I choose, without forcing the site to integrate anything?

mileszs• 17 years ago

As purely a user (and fan) of JS-Kit, I feel the need to mention that JS-Kit comments have had Facebook Connect implemented for a while now. I use them for my blog. It takes a couple seconds to get up and running (like Disqus, from what I gather), and they are quite customizable.

http://js-kit.com/comments/features.html

joepestro• 17 years ago

Interesting how the cross-domain receiver file link is pointing to http://www.somethingtoputhere.com/xd_receiver.htm

Why not upload this to facebook.com?

arjunb• 17 years ago

hey alecco - site owners have full access to all the raw data via API or FQL, btw.

Facebook is now competing with Disqus (et. al)

Related Stories