This audio post shares some thoughts about what has happened since I turned off Livefyre and reimplemented the WordPress native commenting system alongside the CommentLuv plugin:
So here is the skinny: a little less than two weeks have gone by since I turned off Livefyre and returned to the WP native commenting system. I have augmented that system with the CommentLuv premium and subscribe to comments plugin.  As you may recall the reason for the change was because I received a significant number of complaints from people who said that they had difficulty using Livefyre to comment here.
I haven’t noticed a significant change in the number of comments received since then. I suppose that one could argue that people who really wished to comment did so in spite of any difficulties they may or may not have had. It appears to me that in somce cases there may be less conversation on posts than there was when I was using Livefyre.
Since I haven’t taken the time to conduct a hard analysis using real numbers this may or may not be accurate and for now I am ok with that. But IÂ am interested in getting your thoughts and opinion about this. Please share them in the comments.
Also, if you haven’t been by recently here is a quick snapshot of recent posts:
- Bloggers Are Narcissists
- He Didn’t Die
- How To Write The Perfect Blog Post
- Dear Stephen King
- There Are Boundaries In Blogging
- A Good Life
- Punching At The Wind
And if that is not enough you can also try reading:
But wait, there is more! Take a look at this video, it is kind of fun.
I installed Livefyre on my site about a month ago, at first comments dropped but now my visitors are getting used to it the comments have increased. Also a great feature about this plugin is that it transfers comments from my site’s facebook page straight to my site comments.
Livefyre is just too much work! CommentLuv is straight forward and intuitive and fun 🙂
Ellie
I’m not sure I’ve commented on your blog before, I’ve wanted to, but seem to get stopped at the Livefyre login. (I can also be a bit of a slacker in reading blog posts)
Well I am glad that you were able to get through today. Hope you can come visit again.
I was using livefye and jumped back to commmentluv because I saw a decrease in comments. I like livefyre better but I found that the login screen for it throws some people off. Furthermore if you try to comment via a mobile phoone like an Iphone it’s a pain. I’m back on commentluv now for the time being. I also integrated facebook comments as well.
~AL
Hi Al. Welcome to the blog. I have been flipping back and forth between the two with reckless abandon.
I am normally a decisive guy but this time I am sort of waffling- but I’ll fix that soon.
The mobile issue is important and a bigger factor than some might realize.
That was a cute vid.
Your page is too big now; I have to move the bar to get your full post in the window……….FWIW. Minor inconvenience, I don’t think it will slow my commenting down; especially since I’m from the days when your comment box was REALLY at the bottom of the page…………:).
Good luck on figuring out which system to use; I would say they are both equally ‘ok’ in my opinion. Why isn’t Disqus an option?
Hope all is well; as you can see, I been dragging your around with me lately…….
Hey Bill. Appreciate the feedback. This whole design thing irks me more than I can tell you, but I will fix it.
In internet explorer, your page shows as “done but with errors on the page” and a huge amount of white space before the comments section (so much so that I thought it wasn’t there). Instead of your reply being after each comment, they show up bunched up at the end. The default is “don’t subscribe” so you have to open the drop down box to get “replies to my comment”. I dunno, seems like this will limit your engagement. I am looking for a good solution too as I get my new site up (taking forever).
Hi Julie,
I had this issue with IE before and had completely forgotten about it. The page renders fine in Firefox and Chrome, but I need for it to work in IE too. So maybe i’ll switch again. We’ll see. I may end up changing the default to subscribe too.
Livefyre: why I didn’t comment before. Actually, the login widget never worked, and I had to open a new browser, log in externally to my acct in livefyre and then return to a blog, comment… nonsense. I like Disqus – less steps, and more login choices than most comment systems. Jack, what do you have against Disqus?
Hi Saul,
Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate that. There definitely seems to be a mixed bag of results for Livefyre. Many people really liked it, but there are enough who said that they had issues to make me think about it.
I used DISQUS before LF and it was good. The only issue I had was the lack of CommentLuv. I like using it and think that it is a really good addition. Although with the IE issue, I may have to turn off the WP comment system again, at least until I figure out whether I change the theme here.
For whatever reason, the comment feild is once again a mile down the page. Not sure if it is just me who is experiencing this.
For some reason there is a compatibility issue with IE. It doesn’t seem to be an issue with Chrome or Firefox. Might have to turn LF back on just because of that. I had completely forgotten about it.