We’re always trying to improve the OMG! Ubuntu! experience, whether it’s optimizing the site, adjusting layout, or improving the comments section.
We know that our comments section and the OMG! community is extremely active, you guys love having your say and voicing an opinion and there have been some completely awesome discussions take place in the comments down there.
The other day I stumbled across Livefyre, a new comments system that puts social, real time commenting at the top of its priorities. It has nifty features that our current comments system (Disqus) can’t provide, and features that we think will enhance the commenting experience greatly.
Disqus in itself is a great commenting system, and there’s nothing wrong with it – the old adage says “don’t fix what ain’t broke” and we completely agree with that. But we think Livefyre does everything Disqus does, and more.
If we switched to Livefyre, all the existing comments would be imported into Livefyre so we wouldn’t lose them which is good. You’ll also be able to sign in with OpenID even though Livefyre doesn’t officially support it as an option yet.
tl;dr – Livefyre is cool.
Livefyre features
You can read the features here, but these are what we’re specifically interested in:
Live comment updating
No more page refreshes for you guys to see the latest comments, and less load on our server.
Tagging in comments
You can tag your Facebook friends, people you follow on Twitter and other Livefyre users in comments by using the @ symbol, and then they’ll be invited to join the conversation. We think this could be really, really useful – for example, if you were replying to somebody asking about Elementary OS, you could say:
“I don’t know much about it, but @DanRabbit might know more.”
And Daniel will be invited into the conversation, adding to the discussion.
Number of listeners count
Above the thread there’s a number that shows how many people are listening to the conversation, but not taking part. We think this could be a really cool way of showing how popular a comment thread is and encourages more people to join in knowing that their comments will be read.
Sharing of individual comments
Livefyre has the ability to share individual, unique comments on Twitter, Facebook, etc. If somebody makes a really valid point in the comments section and you think the world just has to read it, then sharing it is only one click away.
Everything Disqus does already
As you would expect, Livefyre has everything that you’re used to in Disqus – comment “likes,” user ratings, nested replies, spam filtering, social logins, abusive comment flagging, a mobile version, email notifications, gravatar support, comment link anchoring etc.
They’re really friendly
I’ve been talking to the CEO of Livefyre on Twitter over the last couple of days, asked questions in their Get Satisfaction account and had prompt replies and generally get the feeling they care about their community.
Will you let us give Livefyre a go?
The only downside is that you won’t be able to use your Disqus account to log in to comments on OMG! Ubuntu! anymore. Instead, you’ll have to create a Livefyre account or use Facebook, Twitter, Google, Linkedin or OpenID to log in.
We want to know if you’d be willing to drop your Disqus account to comment here on OMG! Ubuntu!
Thanks for your help!