Your Friend the Geek

I’m trying out two Facebook comments plugins that can be used to replace the WordPress comments system.  Here on Your Friend the Geek, I’m using a plugin called Facebook Comments by pleer.  This is a free plugin that requires that you set up a Facebook application for your comments, which might be a little more than some people will want to do.  It’s not difficult, but not that straightforward.  The plugin has pretty good guidance on where to go an what to do for the setup.  The plugin gives you a robust set of choices regarding the comments set up and allows moderation.  Comment spam is not as big a problem with Facebook as it is in general, but the idea of reviewing things to check and see if they really contribute to the discussion is attractive to me.  I’d rather not have people discussing politics on my web site.  

On my Weaving in Beauty site, I’m trying the Facebook comments feature of a plugin called Frolic.  Frolic is a premium ($45 for one website, $75 business, $150 developer) plugin that’s just been introduced by PlugginBuddy.com.  Frolic is trying to be a comprehensive Facebook/Twitter/Google+ tool (and at those prices, you’d expect that).  Frolic doesn’t require you to set up a Facebook app, but from what I could see from the time I worked with it yesterday, it doesn’t hook into comment moderation and I will have to generate a separate short code for each post in order to link the comments directly to it.  PlugginBuddy is a company that I want to like but find annoying.  They have one plugin, BackupBuddy, that I really like and use all the time, but some of their products that I’ve tried seem to get about 90% of the job done and then leave me hanging.  For instance, I submitted a question regarding the need to generate a new object to link each post for comments and it’s been sitting in their support forum since last night.  Same with the question that another used submitted regarding moderation. They’re probably on their way to WordCamp Phoenix, so I might see them there.  

Why ditch the on board WordPress comments system?  Because Facebook engages the readers, that’s why.  On the one post where I used the Facebook comments, I got three comments right away.  Usually, I only get one or two over the course of a week.  Those comments can also be seen by the friends of the people left them, so it’s another way to get exposure for your site without sticking an advertisement out there.  

Which plugin is winning right now?  Facebook Comments.  I have put up a score box in the sidebar so that you can see how it all turns out!

Thanks for stopping by.

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