Spent a little bit of time working with Disqus and Lijit today to learn how to best help the members of HighCallingBlogs.com. Did you realize we have more than 200 bloggers in that network now? Seriously.
So, I’m curious what you all think of the two new bits I added today.
First, and cooliest is
LIJIT
Besides cleaning up the sidebars, I worked with the wonderful people of Lijit.com to test a network search for all of highcallingblogs.com. On my blog it replaces the search field. On other blogs, there is a special widget. (L. L. Barkat already installed the Lijit wijit over at Seedlings in Stone even though she just got back from Paris.)
I met the Lijit people at Blogworld and Godblog in Las Vegas, and they were wonderful to work with. I cannot speak highly enough of my experiences with them. Absolutely incredible. And their service is already being used by b5media. So after I’ve made my list of justifications for their product, I can always just say, “Well, if it’s good enough for b5media…”
Second, and still cool but without the added benefit of Lijit’s shockingly wonderful customer service, is
DISQUS
The verdict is still out on Disqus, but it looks very promising. So, let’s give it a try this weekend to see if you like it. Here’s what I’d like you to do. Leave a comment here telling me if you think I should keep wearing lederhosen or not. When you do, see what you think of the disqus plugin.
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Just for kicks, I'll post the first comment so you can see what it looks like.
why not? It looks like you're all having fun.
Lederhosen. Whether you should keep wearing them. Hmmm….
Can I take The Fifth?
Sure L.L, do what you like.
[this is me talking to myself, partly because I like talking to myself and partly because I'm trying all the little DiSQUS buttons to see what they do]
I like smiles. I don't like the way there's this little grey, straight face next to my comments.
[this is me talking to myself again, because I'm kind of on a roll here.]
Egads. Not only did I have to put on a grey smiley with DISQUS, but I lost the link to my own site. The DISQUS gods appear to take over and direct traffic to themselves if a person goes so far as to “register” and “login” and all that jazz.
[I am going to assume that if a guy wears lederhosen then he might be the kind of guy who won't mind that I'm experimenting here in the comments.]
Now I tried going solo. No DISQUS affiliation. Still a grey straight-face. Not a pretty option. It's like peer pressure. If you don't log in and load a picture and all that, then the DISQUS gods grant you the icky face.
This is cool. You can rate people's comments.
Lederhosen? Is that a kind of strudel? Do people wear strudels?
Maybe. Do people eat lederhosen?
I created a Lijit account a couple weeks ago, but still haven't spent the time to play with it yet. Plus Wordpress.com doesn't like the widget. Guess it's another reason to take the plunge and move everything over to my domain. ugh.
Not sure what I think about this disqus business. Is it overwhelming for someone who is not a member? I don't really get it yet, but I haven't explored the site. It does, however, provide comic relief in the form of LL though . . .
Aw! You guys are so CUTE!
Only if someone puts them in strudel.
Talking to oneself is a sign of intelligence or… oh, never mind.
As for the grey face, definitely ugly. You should check out the Lijit face– at least it's got a bit of color (green… maybe they ate the lederhosen?).
Anyway, the Ligit default icon is not a bad color and it looks like a face instead of a droid. Plus, it's smiling!
Is it just me or does the no-personality-face look like an electrical socket…
cute family…lederhosen-ites
christa, the no personality face does look awful–I think as incentive to personalize it. (Which you did, I see.)
spagettipie, I was wondering if it was overwhelming as well. There are about a million settings one can tweak. I tried for simple, but I could maybe make it even more simple.
L.L., are you losing your mind?! You crack me up.
Other folks, thanks for dropping by.
L.L., look again at where it directs you. If you mouseover my mug (or my screen name), you get a popup window that links to my disqus page (the mug), my site (the screen name or the RSS icon), my facebook, my linked in, my twitter, my del.icio.us, and my Flickr.
As a bonus, it also lists my most recent twitter status and my most recent comments.
I haven't figured out yet whether I can have disqus track all of my comments the way cocomment does. THAT would be super cool.
[from one who has possibly lost her mind]
Um, yeah, MG, I know. But it's too much work. Too many choices. I don't want a life history (a life stream?) when I mouseover the cute faces or the icky grey faces. I just want a hot-link right where I want to go. You know?
Sometimes simple is just right.
Okay, I found a way around it, though it's not transparent….
… if one clicks very determinedly on the link and ignores the pop-up box, one can pass GO, collect $200, or at least get to the desired site in a single, very firm click.
I like experimenting. I'm assuming that you're accepting this, or that your lederhosen have cut off the circulation enough that perhaps you're not really noticing what's going on.
Patently NO. NO LEDERHOSEN! Scary! Kids and wife look marvy, though!
Mary, so good to hear from you again. My wife saw some of your books at the MOPS convention in Dallas this weekend and thought of you.
See, the thing about Lederhosen… I'm a trendsetter. Just give it a few years and it will be all the rage. You would believe how many guys were wearing them last night. Seriously.
Marcus.
I'm not sure I'll ever the be the same again.
rupzip, me neither. I spent the weekend tweaking the settings on this based on people's comments here. For all the complaints I received (some via email), I have to say this has more comments on any one post than I've seen in long while.
Maybe it's as simple as me asking people to comment?
Definitely the settings needed to be tweaked.
Hi Good Word,
Publishers Union of Bloggers currently advise Publishers hold off installing any Lijit Software on their blogs pending both Lijit’s promised upcoming transparency from Lijit concerning revenue sharing with Publishers and Lijit's current 'terms of use' which gives Lijit free reign concerning use of your content once our Publishers install Lijit Software into their blog.
Any thoughts on these critical issues for Pub's, pass it on, all appreciate it. We are probably all better off sticking with the Lederhosen, where can we buy it?
Barney
Founder, P.U.B.
Lijit's free reign concerning use of content?! What's that? Sounds scarier than a man in lederhosen.
Marcus,
I like the Disqus commenting system and your Lijit search…two great tools to make you a better blogger and allow your readers to engage more.
Thanks for giving Lijit a try. We appreciate your support and feedback. If any of your readers have questions, feel free to send them my way. I'm tara at lijit dot com.
And L.L., you don't need to be scared. Our publisher agreement is easily accessed on our site and basically states that in order to return search results, we have to be able to use your content.
Barney, I don't know the details of your stance, but I know we had to add a similar clause about content ownership to our HighCallingBlogs.com terms of service.
We found that legally, we weren't supposed to reprint paragraphs on our site from bloggers in our network unless they granted us access to reprint their content. People in our network grant us nonexclusive rights to use their material. Again, this is primarily so we can republish content without being accused of stealing anything.
Since we're a nonprofit network, I'm not really all that worried about it.
The value of Lijit as a network search tool far outweighs my own desire to maintain rigid exclusive rights to my own content.
Besides. I figure at the end of the day anything I post on my blog is really easy to steal anyway. If I want to maintain exclusive rights, I shouldn't be posting it online.
Thanks, Tara.
I added another comment to support what you said, but feel free to clarify
any mistake I made.
Marcus
Laura,
No worries about Lijit. HighCallingBlogs.com has a similar clause. Legally,
these things get complicated very quickly. The Blogger's union guy is not
really someone I'd trust. The only thing I've seen him do so far is stir up
trouble in people's comment sections.
Marcus
Barney,
Thanks for the comment. We've looked into Lijit pretty carefully. Also, we
have a similar non-exclusive rights clause with our network blogs already,
so their terms of service didn't seem unusual to us at all.
I do appreciate your concern though!
Marcus
Whatever floats your boat
Marcus
I never did understand the reason for Disqus. I visited their booth. Went to their website and I just never got the advantage.
David R.
David, I was with you there. So I took the weird avenue of just trying it
out. I'm seeing some advantages. But really, it's more important to consider
whether it is good for you as a reader/commenter.
Tara, hi. I'd like to install the widget on my other blogs as well. I installed it on Green Inventions after beginning with Seedlings, but I had to open a new account to do so. Is there any way to put more than one blog on one account? Like with Google Analytics? If so, I didn't see the way.
'Cause I want that really cool High Calling Header, like I have for the pop-up box on my Seedlings one. Just stop by Seedlings and email me through the Contact Link, and let's see what we can do.
(See how quickly my fears have been assuaged? : )
Cool man, lots of comments. Lederhosen? Eh, why not.
Lederhosen – now why would anyone living in Texas want to wear leather shorts…oh…I see…hot weather…cacti… hmm
I've started trying it out as well – it has some positive features, but there are a few things that you give up when you implement it. Having users register as subscribers and agree to an AUP? Disqus seems to bypass that – I may not have dug deep enough on the settings, but it does seem to be the case.
You look cute though
Well I think that you all look great
I got scared from Disqus . it popping an internal window when Im oving my mouse . Or is it a problem with my IE .
I think intensedebate is better than disqus at present because the former will let you import the old comments from blogger. Also it integrates better with the blog template and the css is aptly called the chamelion.
your family wears a cute outfit…LoL
busbytest you are right their family really wears cute outfits…
disqus is great, but beware of spammers
Lederhosen are great, greets from bavaria.
I've installed the Lijit wijit as well.
This is cool! And so interested! Are u have more posts like this? Plese tell me, thanks
Nice photo, I really like it. It looks very good.
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