You may notice a few new things in your Disqus dashboard this morning.

Check the top right of your dashboard and you’ll see a toggle to switch from managing comments to managing threads. This is something that we’ve been promising for a little while now, and we’re pleased to finally get it out there. The ability to “Lock” threads is not yet online, but look for it in the next few days.

Also, you’ll see a new “Admin” toggle next to comments in your dashboard. This is a work in progress and it will soon be updated with the ability to block unsavory commenters, right from this interface.

I personally use my mail client (Apple Mail) to read my RSS subscriptions. It’s convenient, but it’s also not the best feed reader in existence. It seems to me that most people are using Google Reader instead, which I have been intending to switch to for some time now.

This week, I’ve found the perfect reason to make the jump. Paul Arterburn just released the new version of his excellent Firefox plugin, gReader. This plugin allows you to discuss any item right from Google Reader. gReader cleverly uses Disqus to achieve this.

If the blog uses the Disqus comment system, it will share the same discussion thread as well. Also available on the website are bookmarklets that let you join discussions on any page, whether it has a comment thread or not. Very cool.

Give gReader a try if you are a Google Reader user. Or just use the bookmarklets. Me? I’m going to start using Google Reader to so I can use gReader with Disqus.

(more screenshots after the jump)