There were a few big things that didn’t quite make this week’s release. It’ll come soon and it’ll be great.

There was, however, a small update made. There are a slew of bug fixes along with some minor changes to the comment system. Head on over to your Integration Settings to tweak away.

You can now choose the size of the avatars (the pictures next to the comments) as well as change the relative time to an absolute timestamp. Those are just a couple of new options added to your Integration Settings so be sure to check it out.

We’re aiming for a good-sized release by the end of this week. Hopefully many of the things we’ve been working on will make it in for this release.

Did you know you could follow people’s comments through Disqus-enabled websites? Start by following me.

Since being in a “public beta” for a month now, we’ve been covered and reviewed on a number of different places. We pay close attention to how we’re received and what people like or dislike. The main concern that people have is on the ownership of the content that comes from the discussion. If you use Disqus, does Disqus own and control your comments?

The answer, of course, is No. One of the great things about using Disqus is that ownership is given back to the content creator. If you’ve left comments somewhere, it can be a great contribution that you’d like attributed to you forever. And it’s not chained down or lost to these separate blog islands.

What does this mean for you as a blogger or site-owner? You don’t lose any ownership or functionality that you’ve had before. Comments (content) left on your website, using Disqus, also belong to you. You can remove, filter, or save the comments as you wish. The comments, as they appear on your website, belong to you. The difference is that the content creator, the commenter, still has a copy of his comments if the blog ever disappears.

We have some work to do, software-wise, to make sure this works as seamless as we wish it to be. Disqus is meant to evolve and open up how discussions happen across the web, not create another closed system.

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I thought to write about this because of something that arrived in my inbox this morning, with subject “Legal Actions”. It is as follows:

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I’m still trying to figure out how to unload these on people: daniel@disqus.com

There was an update made to the email notifications feature today. It may catch some people by surprise, so I’d like to explain it here.

By default, you will now be notified (and sent) comments that are either unapproved or flagged as spam. Don’t worry — these comments are not displayed on your blog or forum (and the spam did not get through). You can choose to approve or delete these comments by replying to the email notification with Approve or Delete. Simply replying to the comment will also approve it.

This note will appear at the top of notifications for unapproved/spam comments

Don’t like this new change? You can change this at your notification settings.

The below is just an image. You can stop clicking on it.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet Dhrumil and Nirav, who both work on WeLikeitRaw.com. Dhrumil is a very early user of Disqus and has been very encouraging and helpful to us along the way. He’s been one of the most passionate members of Disqus to date.

We had noon tea at The Imperial Tea Court and talked about Disqus, startups, and the raw food lifestyle. They’re doing some great stuff over at WeLikeitRaw and it’s even gotten me interested in the raw philosophy. But I digress.

It was especially nice to hear what Dhrumil likes most about Disqus. I love hearing about how Disqus works for people. One of the features that he’s most excited about is the ability to comment through email or through a mobile phone without having to muddle through a phone browser.

When a reader from WeLikeitRaw makes a comment, Dhrumil gets that delivered to him on his mobile phone, which he can then post a response by replying to the email. Here at Disqus HQ, Jason and I have been talking about the direction that Disqus is heading in, and it most definitely involves a heavier focus on fixing mobile conversations on blogs and websites. If you don’t have this enabled yet for your account, take a look in your account settings.

I hope I’ll be able to hear more Disqus stories from you all in the future!