I have been experimenting various commenting systems for some time.  And I tell you, it was a tough decision to choose one of them.  IntenseDebate, Disqus and JS-Kit are the most popular options available for the blogging community.
Though every service has its advantages and disadvantages.  At the same time, there is no one service which is perfect.  Almost all provide you the facility of threaded commenting, replying the comments through email and moderating and flagging spam comments easily.
But finally the deciding factor will the kind of feature you are looking for and the interface user see and experience when you add that commenting service on your blog.
As I said, it was a tough decision to make, but I am happy to mention that I finally made a choice of enabling DISQUS on Knowliz.  For me, the only deciding factor was – with DISQUS I can enable Facebook Connect as well.  So I don’t have to worry about another customization to add Facebook connect.
Knowliz, Disqus, Blogger
Step involved to enable Facebook Connect using DISQUS for Blogger Blogs:
  1. Register at DISQUS.
  2. Add your website/blog details.
  3. Take a backup of your current blog template and save it for later use, in case you wanna roll back.
  4. Follow the online prompts on DISQUS and then save your Blogger template.  (You just enabled DISQUS on your Blogger blog)
Now to enable Facebook Connect the steps are as follows:
  1. Login to Facebook and ‘Create an App for your blog‘ to get an API and Secret Key.  See below:

  2. Remember to use http://disqus.com as the Callback URL while creating Facebook Application page.
  3. Once you get the API and Secret Key, come back to DISQUS and enter those details under tools.
  4. Check the box before Facebook Connect.
  5. Save the setting on DISQUS.
  6. Now when you refresh on your blog, you should see Facebook Connect as an option.
  7. Once everything is all set, you should see the commenting system as shown below:
Entire Commenting System
Not logged in
With this easy to use service I was able to enable Facebook Connect on my Blogger Blog.
If you wanna try other services like JS-Kit and IntenseDebate, please follow instructions mentioned by my friend on Destiny for JS-Kit.  IntenseDebate installation is quite straight forward.  So you shouldn’t face any problem.  But none of these two provide Facebook integration (as of now).  Some other customization tips are available on Technical Thought of You for JS-Kit.  You can even see JS-Kit enabled blogger blog on Technical Thought of You.

Some changes I would love to see in DISQUS:

  • User interface on DISQUS website is not at all user friendly.  Simple things are tough, like removing a website/blog from the use profile etc.
  • More customization options and integration with other services like twitter, linkedin etc.
  • Option to opt for follow-up comments by email notification.
  • Option to highlight Blog Author comments to segragate them, may be with a different background or something, not just a star.  Or at least a way to select any of those settings.
  • Support for OpenID, please.
For other readers who are not bloggers, I am happy to mention that now you have even more ways to leave comment on Knowliz.  And that is basically using your Facebook profile.  You have to just select ‘Facebook Connect’ and hit the button to authorize Knowliz to access your profile.  That authorization will in fact use your Facebook profile information to recognize you and nothing else.
Try it yourself and let me know if you face any issue.  Hope you like this integration of DISQUS on Knowliz.

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