Welcome to LiveFyre

LiveFyre, promising to turn a blogs comments into a live stream of organic, reader created content from all walks of the Internet life. I have been a huge supporter of the people at JS-Kit and their product Echo, in fact I’ve had it running the back end of my comments for quite a while. But when I got word about LiveFyre’s new system, I had to give it a try.

For the last few months I’ve had a beta invitation waiting for me, sent from LiveFyre CEO Jordan Kretchmer. Unfortunately, work at Pure has kept me so busy that even updating my blog has become difficult. I’m going to do what I can to make these updates happen more regularly…

I finally got a few free minutes to install LiveFyre and ran into some major problems. First, it was incredibly slow, not the plugin itself but the entire site. It took a few seconds for every page to load on the back end. The front end of the blog, what you guys see, was just fine. Second, popup ads! Every time I tried to load the plugin I got a popup advertisement. Not cool. Third, it didn’t work. Simply wouldn’t import my existing comments or install into my theme which is the standard WP 3 2010 theme.

I tweeted my problems and faster than anyone could ever hope, LiveFyre was there with help. I turned control of my blog to the tech guru’s at LiveFyre, after clearing out all the orphan tables and remnants of previous plugins/themes/installs. They feared a bit of malware was hiding on my system. Nevertheless, even after wiping my database of all extraneous entries and my WordPress folder of any extra content, I still had these horrible popup ads.

True to their word, LiveFyre went in, did the install and import for me and wham, everything is perfect. They even did a sweep of my blog to check for any major issues including malware. Luckily, they found none.

I still don’t know what happened that caused all of these problems but I’m happy to say they are all resolved and I’m ready to try out LiveFyre. I’m going to use this post as a test so comment away! Link back to it from your blog, Twitter or wherever else. Let’s test out LiveFyre, put it through its paces.

I still have my Echo Live subscription but… if LiveFyre proves to be the powerful comment engine it promises to be (and it is affordable after their beta period) I’m sold. If not on the advanced features, the absolutely amazing customer service.

17 Hours for a Disqus Resolution

I hate that I might actually have to give up on Disqus.  It’s gotten so bad that even when @Disqus comments on my blog they don’t show up on their dashboard or the blog while somehow they show on my WordPress dashboard.

Not sure what’s more upsetting. My Disqus not working, over 1,600 comments missing or the fact that my blog has become a review of Disqus.  I typically only review products I adore, of course with few acceptions.  This time I feel disenchanted by a service I was so optimistic about.  And I’m honestly not sure what else I can do. I’ve exported my blog to @Giannii or @Disqus four times in three different formats.  What more can I do?

Oh and Disqus, why make a comment requiring a followup on a blog where the PROBLEM  is comments not showing up on the blog? You have my email address.

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Why I’m Quitting Disqus in 48 Hours

I tried Disqus a few years ago.  Didn’t work out for me.  So when @LeoLaporte talked it up on This Week in Tech while discussing blogs vs Twitter I decided to give it another try, even though he was actually recommending JS-Kit Echo.

A few weeks earlier I tried out IntenseDebate, which was buggy as all hell so the idea of a fresh start with a more established system was a great feeling.

The switch wasn’t so easy.  ZERO of my comments imported into Disqus, despite increasing my MySQL memory.  Disqus is pretty good about checking on things through Twitter however.  I tweeted my frustration and posted a formal complaint on their customer service system and within a few hours I had a response.

But over a week passed and nothing was resolved.  Eventually, @giannii was able to take my emailed WordPress database and upload it to Disqus for whatever they had to do at that point.

But only a handful of nearly 1,700 comments actually imported! All added up over the past year or two, only 14 comments made it in!  And that is still the case (beyond what have been added since October 21 by way of new comments to the blog).

I got a tweet from @Giannii that @Disqus would take a look at the problem last week. But another problem sprung up!  Missing old comments was one thing but missing comments that were new?

Unacceptable.  One person commented on my blog about being blacklisted by Disqus.  Hello, what?! I’m sorry but did I hear that someone can be permanently blacklisted? I can understand this for robot spammers but this was a human with a cogent argument. Their comment can show up in my WordPress comments through the dashboard but not actually on my site?  Even if what he/she is posting is relavent, which in this case it certainly was?

What about someone that posted a comment earlier in the day, which was given the “thumbs up”, and when he comes back to post a reply his comment disappears?  This was the case for @Vortex_Bits.  He left a reply to my reply on his comment.  I value his opinion greatly and considering the fact that this was a sort of debate between the two of us, not posting his comment makes ME appear as childish, sending his comment to the abyss.

On my WordPress Dashboard his comment shows up, I can even view the comment in WordPress’s editor.

So WordPress says it’s approved.  It shows up in the dashboard but it’s missing from Disqus and the blog entirely?! Doesn’t Disqus advertise the sociability of their service to create conversation within your site and the internet?  A conversation that permeates through what we typically understand as individual networks?

Unless Disqus can actually fix this by this time Saturday I’m quitting Disqus, recommending to all my friends, readers and followers that they do the same and trying out the third player in the game, JS-Kit Echo.  I love the idea of Disqus.  They have been really nice and helpful and even as late as early this week promised to look into fixing my problems. However, in the end, it is the results that matter.  You can be super nice over email, twitter and the like but if your service can’t deliver the results, I’ve gotta say see-ya-later.

If Disqus is able to fix this, and I have my nearly 1,700 old comments imported into the service and the ignored new comments published, I will sing their worthy praises.  I’m one of those people who is actually willing to pay for a service.  I’d pay for Disqus but not if it is this buggy, as bad or worse than IntenseDebate.  At least ID managed to show all my comments.  JS-Kit Echo is only $12/year, that’s looking awfully tempting.

I’d love to get your thoughts on this.  Horror stories or success stories.  Though, good luck getting them to actually post.  :-\

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Disqus the Frustration

Sad about it but my Disqus is still not working properly.  Only maybe a hundred or so of the comments actually imported.  As you can see in the screenshot below, the “latest” fourteen comments came in over the last two years.  Now, I know my blog isn’t BoingBoing.net or LifeHacker but I’ve gotten more than fourteen comments over the last two years.

Disqus Comment Moderation Panel

So, where do we go from here? How do we get the missing 1,500 comments imported?  How do I active posting a comment on an older post?  Yeah, another problem I just came across.

While I’m sure this is just a setting issue, I sure can’t find it.  That option is unchecked in WordPress and I don’t even see it as an option in Disqus.  Help?  I don’t want to poke and poke Disqus but I’d really like this to work.  I’m pay for Disqus, I like the platform that much.  But if this is how it’s going to work for, maybe I’ll look again for another option. JS-Kit Echo?  Any other suggestions of where I should send my comments should Disqus never work properly?

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