Why IntenseDebate Beats Echo
I’ve changed the commenting system on my Wordpress blog again, and this time I’ve chosen IntenseDebate. In the end the niggles in JS-Kit Echo proved too much, though I still think it has a lot of potential. So, after a couple of weeks with ID, how does it stack up? Let’s start at the beginning.
First of all, here’s a quick roundup of the main features of IntenseDebate:
- It works with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and Tumblr
- It allows people to comment using IDs from different social services
- It allows you to follow other users and keep up with the comments they make
Getting IntenseDebate installed on my blog was a breeze compared with Echo. I went through the quick signup process, added my blog to my account and downloaded the plugin. Once the plugin was installed, my comments were imported. Though I got a warning that it might take some time (I have a couple of thousand comments on the blog), the process was quite quick and, unlike Echo, required no manual intervention. There was no messing about over the issue of who was blog administrator either.
IntenseDebate For Commenters
IntenseDebate works well if you want to comment on a blog. You have the option of the traditional name, email,Website or you can use your Twitter, Facebook, OpenID or IntenseDebate credentials. If you have a gravatar, this is automatically included with your comment (which is no surprise as ID comes from the same company, Automattic.
IntenseDebate For Administrators
ID has a number of settings which you can use to tweak the user experience on your blog. You can:
- choose whether or not to moderate all comments
- pre-approve some comments based on reputation score or previous comment approvals
- use both Aksimet and ID spam filtering (with blacklists for words, IP addresses and email addresses)
- change the layout, location, language and style of the comment section, including threading, comment voting, custom CSS and more
- allow users to post images
Moderation is a breeze. You get moderation emails from ID and approve comments in your ID or WordPress dashboard. For me, this was the trickiest part of the process. A couple of times I approved comments in Wordpress but found them still waiting for approval when I logged into ID. However, for the most part, the system works very well.
Things I Particularly Like
IntenseDebate has more features than I can possibly cover here, but here are some of the killer features:
- It keeps a general comment history and I can also click on recent posts to see a history for each post
- It provided comment statistics (though still not as good as the WP-Stats program)
- I see less spam
- It allows users to tweet their comments so they can be shared more widely
- It automatically loads the default Wordpress comment system for slow loading or non-Javascript enabled sites
This last is a biggie. One of the questions I asked on Twitter before installing ID was about integration with Wordpress. I got a quick response that all comments remain in your Wordpress database, so if you ever uninstall ID, you won’t lose them. I was pleased to see that when loading my site on a slow connection, all comments appeared in the right order, threaded and with Gravatars.
The Verdict
IntenseDebate is a robust comment system which integrates well with Wordpress and other blogging platforms. While it doesn’t integrate comments from other social services like Echo did (the one place where Echo wins out), you don’t have to do anything special to get it to work – and that makes it a winner for me.
Written by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write OnlinePosted on October 1st, 2009 and filed under Blogging
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11 Responses to “Why IntenseDebate Beats Echo”
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I have IntenseDebate on my blog, but I have mixed reviews. More often than not when I reply to a comment via email, the comment disappears into the ether. This means I constantly have to log into ID on my blog, or directly to the site to respond to comments. Very annoying. Other than that, it seems to function much like the rest of the comment systems. I would like it if they included video comments too.
Echo has many of the same problems, DJ, though it *does* allow video comments, I believe. I haven’t had the same issues with ID, though sometimes I have to approve comments twice.
I can help with IntenseDebate. For reply-by-email, please try adding !END at the end of your comment. That will ensure that your reply is parsed correctly. If that doesn’t do the trick please email at support@intensedebate.com and I’ll take a look.
For login issues: please check and make sure that your browser preferences are set to accept third party cookies. Again if you encounter issues please let me know which browser you use (and email me please).
IntenseDebate offers Seesmic video comments. Please visit http://intensedebate.com/plugins
Thanks,
Michael
IntenseDebate actually does offer video comments through a Seesmic plugin (http://intensedebate.com/plugins).
I’ve tried both Disqus and IntenseDebate and the main problem I’ve encountered with both is slow page loads. That’s always a consequence anytime you depend on an outside service to load anything on your page. The other issue I have is that you can’t fully customize these systems the way you can with the default WP commenting system.
Just curious, why hasn’t BloggingTips moved to one of these commenting systems?
Kevin, we (IntenseDebate) have recently had several major backend projects (sharding, new search index tables, among others) come to completion and our load time and performance have drastically improved. We also have some heavy engineering weight on our backend in the form of the same engineers who built WordPress.com, so you can expect performance to be top notch like all other Automattic projects. We’d love it if you gave ID another try.
We’ve also introduced loads of new customization options. While there are more options than I can list here, please check out http://wp.me/plsX6-kK for starters. Please let me know if you have any questions.
If I could implement some of the most popular commenting plugins with ID, I definitely be inclined to give it another try.
I’m more than happy with the default commentating system within wordpress but if a lot of readers wanted me to add an external comment system I would obviously look into it
Thanks for weighing in on the technical questions about Intense Debate, Michael. One thing I’m curious about is integration with CommentLuv. I have that plugin enabled and although I believe it’s working automatically, the option to choose the post that appears no longer shows up. Any hints?
It’s my pleasure Sharon. Currently the two are not compatible, but we’re currently working with the team at CommentLuv on a new ID plugin. No ETA though. Please keep an eye on our blog for an announcement in the future http://blog.intensedebate.com .
I was just about to remove Intense Debate from my blog and revert to Wordpress’s inbuilt comment system but I think I’ll keep using it now I’ve read this blog post.