When it comes to comment systems, I’ve always loved Disqus – it has all of the features that I like and need, mainly:
- Threaded comments,
- Reply/moderate by email function
Today however, I’m going to give another comment system a test-drive; Livefyre.
Here’s what Livefyre allows:
- Multiple sign-in options: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Open ID. Now typically, I don’t like it when a comment system makes you create an account in order to leave comments so this has been a hurdle for me. But the interaction (benefit) that Livefyre helps create outweighs the draw-back of having to create an account in my opinion. Still, let me know what you think.
- Threaded Comments: As with the previous comment platform, you can easily see who’s replying to another person’s comments. What’s more in this case, you can tag people (both via their Livefyre profile and Twitter) when you’re leaving a new comment – this is one of the features that I really like.
- Email Notifications & Live Comment Updates: Typically, it’s pretty over-whelming when I subscribe to comments and get bombarded with a ton of additional comments on a post. So I thought that livefyre was going to make me feel overwhelmed in this respect too. What I’ve come to learn is that that isn’t the case. If anything, I’ve found it pretty neat to be able to follow along real-time with a conversation that’s taking place live on the site. One place in particular has been Spin Sucks (one of my new-ish favorite blogs from Gini Dietrich). And if you want to disable comment notifications, that’s easy to with the click of a button. Disqus also has email notifications, but in my experience, they’re a bit delayed and haven’t been as quick and reliable as of late.
- Social Media Sharing for Comments: When you post a comment, you can easily share that comment through both Facebook and Twitter with the click of a button. Talk about making social easy!
- Tag People In Your Comments: Again, this is probably one of my favorite features. With Livefyre, you can easily tag other users in your comments via their Livefyre profile and Twitter. To me, this creates an excellent social experience and makes having a full on conversation easier. It’s kinda like tweeting during a live-event and cc’ing someone in your Tweets.
- One thing I wish Livefyre did: when I click on someone’s name when they leave a comment, it takes me to their Livefyre profile page. Instead, I wish you could create your profile and change the link to go to your website for example instead of that profile page. Perhaps this will change in a future update? (Hint, hint).
I’ll report at the end of the month any changes and stats that I find as a result of using the Livefyre system. For now, I’d love to hear your feedback.
I want to know what you think!
I’m looking forward to test-driving livefyre. There’s still some things that I wish the system would improve on (or change) but for the most part, I dig it. It’s a bit tough for me to flat out change comment systems because I’ve been using Disqus for a while and I love them, but I’m also looking forward to the opportunity to give Livefyre a test drive.
That said, give it a spin… Let me know what you like and what you don’t like!
I’m excited for your community to give livefyre’s real time social conversations a spin. We’ll continue to iterate and release new features, so let us know what you think! 🙂
@jennalanger Jenna, thanks for being so responsive, that’s pretty awesome of you! One thing that I would love to see is to be able to edit the link that a person is directed to when they click on my name. For example, when I click on your name here in the comments, it goes to your Livefyre profile page. I’d love to be able to change that so it goes to a user’s website or destination of their choice instead. Thoughts?
Hey, Ricardo…Good to see someone else giving it a try as I am.
I really wanted to use Disqus on my blog because I liked the design of that one a lot. My problem with Disqus, though, was that I couldn’t get comment counts on my blog to ever match up with how many comments were actually there, and though their tech support was good, they didn’t seem to have an answer to solve that problem.
So far, I’m already seeing more comments over the past few days than I’d seen before implementing Livefyre, so so far so good!
Hey @patricksplace , yeah, I love Disqus. Have used them on all of my blogs for a long time. They’re email notifications and updates on comment counts has been a bit slow as of late. It never really bothered me because for the most part, they do everything I need them to.
For now, I’m giving Livefyre a test-drive. I really love their (almost) instant notifications. And despite a few things I wish they’d change, all is good.
Now cheers to using Livefyre and let’s see how this goes, shall we!
Hey RB,
The main experience I have with livefyre is through Gini’s blog 😉 I quickly learned to turn off comments since she gets so many and they would FLOOD my inbox. The perils of being popular.
I have to say, frankly, as a user I don’t love it. I’ve written more than a few long comments and had them disappear. Very aggravating. And frequently the blog doesn’t remember me and I have to log in again.
As a blogger, I think I have the same issues you laid out. The account set-up seem like a barrier to entry, especially to those new to commenting online.
If you and Gini both use livefyre now, I guess I’ll have to embrace it though 😉
@WordsDoneWrite LOLz! You know what, I turned on the notification feature for the same reason… @ginidietrich is a wee bit too popular and her comments kept flooding my inbox 🙂
As for your experience, I’m very sorry to hear and personally, that’s kind of concerning for me. One of the reasons I’m so hesitant to switch platforms for that matter.
And as for the need to create an account before commenting, I agree that it seems like a barrier to entry. I’d love it if @livefyre enabled some sort of anonymous commenting feature though I suspect they have their own reasons for not doing that…?
@RicardoBueno The other thing I don’t like is that I can’t go back and edit a typo. Like now, I see “seem” should be “seems” and it’s driving me nuts that I can’t fix it. But, that’s just me. Not everyone is as much as a word freak as I am 🙂 But as a user, I don’t like that.
@WordsDoneWrite Haha! Good catch, I have to agree on that point to. I make the same mistake and at least with Disqus I can hit “edit.”
@WordsDoneWrite @RicardoBueno I agree on the typo thing. At the very least, the moderator of the site should be able to edit. Even if they only allowed one edit — so someone couldn’t come back later and completely change what they said, they should give you a few minutes of a window to make sure that you can fix a simple error.
I belong to a message board that gives you five minutes from the time you post something to edit…then it’s locked in stone. That wouldn’t be terrible.
@patricksplace @WordsDoneWrite Agreed! I think it would be useful if @livefyre implemented the ability to edit a comment if even for a short period of time after you’ve posted your comment. cc: @jennalanger
@jennalanger Nevermind regarding my comment. I see now that when you click on the person’s avatar, it opens up a window with links to their site and or social profiles.
I happen to know the thing you want is coming very soon. 🙂
@ginidietrich Score! I shall discontinue my whining… 🙂
@patricksplace Yeah, because I saw that typo with two minutes. A window of time would be nice.
@RicardoBueno @patricksplace Grrrr. “Within” not “with”.
@WordsDoneWrite Hey Amber, Jordan from livefyre here! Really sorry to hear that you’ve had trouble posting in the past. If it happens again, please email us at Support@livefyre.com and we’ll look into it right away.
If our system doesn’t remember you when you come back, it’s likely due to your browser cache clearing itself after a certain amount of time, which removes our cookie. For security reasons, by default we don’t keep you signed into the system for more than 15 days at a time, and the 15 day timer resets each time you comment.
We’ll also be adding an edit comment button soon! It’s our most frequent request 🙂
@jkretch Two things: 1.) I dig how responsive you guys are, 2.) happy to hear you’ll be adding the ability to edit comments. cc: @WordsDoneWrite livefyre
I have been using Livefyre for a while and with all of my blogs that I have created and I like it a lot. Really a fast pace commenting system that no other platform has got at all.
@Justicewordlaw Thanks for the feedback. I have to agree that I like how instantly it produces notifications (whether you’re just commenting on the site) and the way it gives you a complete overview via email when people comment. Also dig the tagging that’s enabled.
@RicardoBueno Yeah the tagging is probably one of the best features especially the twitter integration which makes it truly unique. I like to know when some one comments on my blog and with this platform now I have the opportunity of knowing so.
@Justicewordlaw Agreed! I suspect some people might get annoyed by the notifications but then again, love that it’s easy to turn them off.
@RicardoBueno Yeah that is true but a blogger that loves engagement should not get annoyed with people commenting on there posts lol.
@Justicewordlaw Haha, true dat!
On the surface it looks a lot like Disqus. I’ll have to dig a little deeper and check it out. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
@nilloc1204 You know, it does kinda look like Disqus. Though I have to say that they’re notification and tagging features are superb. That’s what impresses me the most about it and thus the test-drive.
Let me know if there’s anything in particular that you like (or don’t like). Would love to hear your thoughts!
@RicardoBueno @patricksplace @WordsDoneWrite Ah, got me during a movie and @jkretch beat me to the punch! Editing will be coming soon, along with other fun features…
@WordsDoneWrite Gini’s blog has flooded my inbox too. My phone buzzes repeatedly and just when I think I am the most popular boy on the block- bam! Those comments aren’t even directed at me. Guess I have to work that much harder on taking over the world. 😉
@TheJackB @WordsDoneWrite We’re turning on our brand new notification options in a few days, you’ll be able to set it to just send you emails when people reply directly to you. Perfect for blogs like ginidietrich ‘s. 🙂
@RicardoBueno I don’t like that it’s not using my real name, but rather my “username”. Nor is my name linking to my blog as it should. So far, I’m sticking with DIsqus, as I don’t see any advantages with Livefyre.
I agree with you about the “going to the livefyre profile” instead of the site. That’s what I’m clicking their name for and what I’ve been trained for years to look for when I take that action. So, to me it’s just getting in the way.
Other than that, all the other stuff you’ve named is awesome and I’ve noticed how cool it is in use when commenting on Gini’s site too!
I’m such a goofball! I still haven’t taken the time to click whatever you have to in order to get email pings from Disqus! Gotta get on that!
Thanks Ricardo for sharing this post! I haven’t seen Livefyre’s pitch page on their site before, but unless it has video walking people through exactly what you did here, this clearly and concisely, it’s hard to believe it’d do a better job of selling it. Great Job!
@Nerd #2 Thanks for the feedback, I hear ya on the link in the username. However, I did notice (thanks to a few others who mentioned it) that when you click on the users avatar, it opens a little pop-up window that links to that users URL and/or social networking accounts.
Still, like you, I’m accustomed to clicking on their name versus their avatar. Anyway, I think this is something they’ll change…
Thanks for testing things out and for the feedback, I really do appreciate it! I’m still looking forward to playing around some more, but so far, so good 🙂
@Collin_K I totally agree with you here! I mean c’mon, I can’t really suspect your name to be “Nilloc.” Heh.
I’d like the following:
– For the user to be able to edit their name,
– For the user to be able to hyperlink their name to a site of their choice (your website for example instead of your Livefyre profile)
– To allow for anonymous comments (so as to lower the barrier that comes with having to create an account in order to comment).
Those are just a few of the things I’d like to see change. In regards to the link URL from the commentator though, I did notice that when you click on a users avatar, it brings up a pop-up window that shows the users URL and social networks. Still, I’m accustomed to clicking on the persons link in their name, not their avatar.
Either way, thanks for the feedback, I really do appreciate it!!
Giving @Livefyre a try, too. I got a gentle “nudge” from @jennalanger at BlogWorld a couple weeks ago. I had actually been meaning to try it out for a while. Love it so far, for many of the reasons you listed above. But, I think the best feature may be soon to come, from what I hear.
@arikhanson @jennalanger @livefyre is the best commenting system out there hands down. Glad to see you two fellas joining the crew. The team is so responsive and willing to help. That’s my fave part by far.
@RicardoBueno @Nerd #2 Thanks for the feedback – we’ll be changing the username link so it defaults to your website, but if you don’t have one it will go to your user profile.
@JGoldsborough @arikhanson You guys just trying to get points out of me?? 😉
My site has been using livefyre for a while now and I’ve been very happy with it. Customer service has been very impressive and overall it’s consistently worked very well with my site (I use the Headway WordPress premium theme.
You can check out the review I wrote in early March here: http://www.gadarian.com/2011/03/01/livefyre-review/ – I particularly enjoyed the Tech Crunch video with their CEO where they discuss all kinds of ins and outs regarding commenting. Neat stuff!
@arikhanson Tease. But I have to agree, have been impressed with their various features, and the responsiveness of the team. They’re great listeners and appreciate that they take the time to respond and jump into a conversation. Changing platforms isn’t exactly and easy thing for me but like I said in my post, I decided to give it 30 days 🙂 cc: @jennalanger @livefyre
@JGoldsborough Agreed! Definitely impressed with their responsiveness!!@arikhanson @jennalanger @livefyre
@jennalanger I like that 🙂 @Nerd #2
@Gadarian Yep, so far, really diggin’ a lot of the features. I’m on Blackberry, so their emails don’t render so well, but I’m hopeful that will change at some point. Otherwise, so far so good! And I’m definitely a fan of their responsiveness!
@RicardoBueno It looks like it is now possible to change your username. At least it is for me anyway. Not sure if there is a grace period after making the account where you have the option. Anyway, I feel it is a great tool for bringing the communication from social networks and back to the personalised blogs. I hope Livefyre becomes big =)
This web-site is working with livefyre for a little bit at this moment plus I have already been happy along with it. Support service is breathtaking plus over-all it is really routinely previously worked actually by using this web-site (I personally use them a Headway WordPress high grade motif.
I use Livefyre on my blog, and I really like it. Social @mentions are huge, and the system just seems a whole lot less buggy and done better than Disqus has been able to do (plus Livefyre did it first). I actually just finished a blog post about why I switched to Livefyre from Disqus: http://fatwalr.us/2011/08/why-i-switched-to-livefyre-from-disqus/
I am loving Livefyre, Disqus and Intensedebate are good too.
Seeing you are using Disqus, did you do a post why you dropped LiveFyre for Disqus?