Tweet Comments & Mini-Profiles

We’ve been listening to your feedback and as a result, we have made a number of changes we’d like to share with you.

Twitter:

  • Tweeting comments is the ability in which commenters are able to tweet out every time they leave a comment, with a link back to the article. Disqus is now using Twitter’s OAuth support for tweeting comments. You may now securely use Twitter with Disqus without entering in your password.

    If you’ve added your Twitter credentials beforehand, you’ll just need just reauthorize using OAuth here:
    http://disqus.com/account/services/
  • When replying to a comment, you will now see this reply format show up on twitter.
    Example Tweet: RE: @fredwilson I saw Marcy contribute to the thread and I think that’s awesome! Also… this is a semi-worthless comment… http://disq.us/39

Mini-Profiles:

Many of you have requested to have a more compact mini-profile and your wish is our command. Hovering over a commenter’s picture now drops down a compact drop-down profile, while clicking on the picture opens up the pop-up profile.

  • Guest: Commenter has not claimed his or her comments.
    Where do I claim my comments? http://disqus.com/claim
  • Registered: Commenter is registered with Disqus but has not verified his or her email address.
    Where do I verify my email? http://disqus.com/verify
  • Verified: Commenter is registered with Disqus and has verified his or her email address. This email address is now securely attached to this profile.

Cheers,

Giannii
DISQUS
Community Manager
giannii@disqus.com

Giannii on May 5th 2009 in disqus

  • Love. This. Feature. Also digging the social media comments. I think Disqus is really on to something here. Comments as your social network:)
  • Sweet!
  • Great Job Guys!
  • =)
  • Very cool.

    Though one thing I personally find a tad odd is that tweeting a comment that I make tweets the actual comment. It looks good, but people on twitter are confused because there's really no context for the words they see me tweet and it's confusing to them. It's also a bit more confusing giving that the article shows up just as a short url and it's not clear where I'm commenting on, what blog, or what post it is.

    Just my 2 cents.
  • Very nice implementation, feels very fast.
  • 2 things: my tweet is automatically @danielha, should not be so unless the user types that. Also, the tweet has been published but the comment has not appeared. Disconcerting.
  • This automatic @danielha looks like a cheap attempt to increase his followers. I mean, the post I'm commenting on written by Giannii.
  • Anton Kovalyov
    For first level comment, we take blog owner's twitter username (@danielha in this case). But right now, I am replying to you and you will see tweeted comment in your Twitter Mentions page because the system will use your username.
  • Hey so how does it this work in regards to the first level comment. If im posting on a blog with no comments and mine is the first. Will the comment be sent to the blogowner's twitter?

    How would i map my blog to my disqus settings?
  • Anton Kovalyov
    When tweeting first-level comments we check if we have blog owner's (the person who added a blog to DISQUS) twitter username. If we have it, we send a message in a following format: 'RE: @username <msg> <link>'. If we don't have that information, we simply remove @username from the tweet.

    We made it that way so blog owners could easily find those tweets. If you want it for your blogs, just sign in to Twitter via our account/services page.
  • I understand your logic but I think you are making a fundamental mistake - when we tweet about a post and the fact that we have commented upon it, we are not trying to alert the owner of the blog, we are simply trying to tell our followers that we have made a comment on a particular post.

    By forcing the tweet to be @TheBlogOwner, you are making it look as if it is a message for that person, not our followers. Most people pay little attention to tweets that appear in their stream starting with @SomeoneElse, because it is probably part of a conversation they don't have time to follow.

    A good solution would standardize on something our followers will actually read, such as: Commented on "Tweet Comments & Mini-Profiles" http://disq.us/url

    A better solution would be to make that the default but actually open up a small text box, with that default pre-filled but with the option to change it before pressing submit (to submit both the comment and the tweet).

    The solution that people simply aren't going to use is the @TheBlogOwner solution you are forcing here. No-one who values their followers is going to bombard them with what looks like irrelevant messages to someone they don't know.

    If a blog owner wants to keep track of mentions, he can Twitter search "The Post Title", that is a more comprehensive search anyway. If he uses this ridiculous @danielha solution, far fewer Disqus commenters are going to tweet his post anyway.

    I love Disqus but you guys have totally misunderstood both the motivations of people who tweet about blog posts and the ability of blog owners to search Twitter.
  • Nothing is set in stoned. We thought through this, debated it, discussed it some more, and this is how we're doing it right now.

    I see your point completely and if it happens that it is the better way we'll look into that.

    Couple key points I want to make:

    * Bloggers will soon get to choose which @username the tweets are addressed to. It can go to none or to a certain one, so these tweets shouldn't all be @danielha for example

    * Tracking mentions is something that will be native to Disqus. We will have something grander to show you.

    * The RE: is to indicate an existing out-of-context conversation

    * Noting "Commented on ' Tweet Comments & Mini-Profiles '", etc. takes up the valuable character limit.

    Again... still weighing the pros/cons of both. Thanks for the thoughts though.
  • Hi Daniel, very glad to hear that this is still evolving - I don't claim to be any sort of expert but this was something that really stood out for me.

    If bloggers can decide to have it not @anyone, that is a good start but if @TheBlogOwner is the default, inertia will mean that the majority of blog owners will stick to that and, sadly, a few experiences of that will be enough to dissuade frequent commenters from bothering to tick the box in the future, no matter which Disqus-using blog they happen to be on.

    "Commented on "Tweet Comments & Mini-Profiles" http://disq.us/url" may use 64 of your 140 characters but, you know, it says exactly what someone who has just commented on a blog post is going to want to say!

    In fact, if you make it editable, users are going to have fun changing it to "Commented sagely ...", "Commented brilliantly ...", "Commented libelously ..." etc. and still be well under the 140 character limit.

    You could even write something as long as "Commented on latest crap to pour forth from Dvorak "Apple moves into gaming: Who should worry most? MS, Nintendo, Sony?" http://disq.us/url" and still have a couple of characters to spare.

    My point is that Twitter's core question is "What are you doing?" and not "Who happens to own the blog you just commented on?".

    So, yes, make it flexible, but don't make the default something inappropriate because most people will use whatever default you give them. They are talking to their followers, let the default reflect that.

    Very glad your ambitions are still grand, I suspected as much, you guys are really on a roll these days, can't wait to see what you come up with next.
  • Thanks! Agreed that flexible is a good goal. Just need it balanced with simplicity foremost. :)
  • @ Malcolm Bastien

    The Tweet should definitely be in the form:

    Commented on "Tweet Comments & Mini-Profiles" http://disq.us/url

    ... also, the @danielha should be gone, gone, gone - users simply aren't going to use this in it's current form.
  • doughamlin
    Yay! I've been waiting for this. I definitely agree with Malcolm and donnacha here. The tweet should look like this:
    Commented on "Tweet Comments & Mini-Profiles" http://disq.us/url
    And it should say x minutes ago from Disqus (maybe it does, we'll see when I hit post!).
  • doughamlin
    I'm a little slow and am just now realizing another problem. If you're signed out of Disqus you get the option to either sign in or sign in using Facebook Connect. Why can't you sign in with Twitter the same way you would with Facebook?
  • We are still developing that feature but it will be out soon. =)

    Giannii
    DISQUS
    Community Manager
    help@disqus.com
  • Excellent, I'm eagerly awaiting it! Thanks!
  • doughamlin
    One more observation: I hadn't yet authorized Disqus to access Twitter, but it gave me the option to tweet the comment anyway, which resulted in an error. Thanks again!
  • Most likely you had your twitter credentials entered in before today's update. Once you authorize your account it will not happen again.

    Giannii
    DISQUS
    Community Manager
    help@disqus.com
  • looks great. how do I claim on disqus a comment i made on a disqus box using my facebook account instead of disqus?
  • We are still developing that feature but it will be out soon. =)

    Giannii
    DISQUS
    Community Manager
    help@disqus.com
  • Will we also be able to combine our Facebook and Disqus accounts as I would prefer to have just the one profile?
  • Great Job Guys!
  • Very cool.

    Though one thing I personally find a tad odd is that tweeting a comment that I make tweets the actual comment. It looks good, but people on twitter are confused because there's really no context for the words they see me tweet and it's confusing to them. It's also a bit more confusing giving that the article shows up just as a short url and it's not clear where I'm commenting on, what blog, or what post it is.

    Just my 2 cents.
  • Very nice implementation, feels very fast.
  • 2 things: my tweet is automatically @danielha, should not be so unless the user types that. Also, the tweet has been published but the comment has not appeared. Disconcerting.
  • This automatic @danielha looks like a cheap attempt to increase his followers. I mean, the post I'm commenting on written by Giannii.
  • @ Malcolm Bastien

    The Tweet should definitely be in the form:

    Commented on "Tweet Comments & Mini-Profiles" http://disq.us/url

    ... also, the @danielha should be gone, gone, gone - users simply aren't going to use this in it's current, opportunistic form.
  • doughamlin
    Yay! I've been waiting for this. I definitely agree with Malcolm and donnacha here. The tweet should look like this:
    Commented on "Tweet Comments & Mini-Profiles" http://disq.us/url
    And it should say x minutes ago from Disqus (maybe it does, we'll see when I hit post!).
  • doughamlin
    One more observation: I hadn't yet authorized Disqus to access Twitter, but it gave me the option to tweet the comment anyway, which resulted in an error. Thanks again!
  • looks great. how do I claim on disqus a comment i made on a disqus box using my facebook account instead of disqus?
  • Sweet!
  • Anton Kovalyov
    For first level comment, we take blog owner's twitter username (@danielha in this case). But right now, I am replying to you and you will see tweeted comment in your Twitter Mentions page because the system will use your username.
  • =)
  • I'm really excited that DISQUS added "Tweet Comments & Mini-Profiles".
  • doughamlin
    I'm a little slow and am just now realizing another problem. If you're signed out of Disqus you get the option to either sign in or sign in using Facebook Connect. Why can't you sign in with Twitter the same way you would with Facebook?
  • ...and DISQUS gets even better!
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