donnacha's dashboard

AWESOME!!

Now ... who's going to code the Viddler plugin ;)

Usually I'd agree but, for db0, I'm willing to make an exception.

Seriously, this guy haunted me in exactly the same way last time I checked in here, months ago. – donnacha, on March 05, 2009 21:05

db0, IntenseDebate might have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat today, but no amount of plugins can ever prevent you being a dribbling buffoon. – donnacha, on March 05, 2009 20:52

Yeah, looking very tasty so far.

I've asked about the possibility of a Facebook Connect plugin, let's see if I get an answer. – donnacha, on March 05, 2009 19:26

You know what, this could be EXACTLY what they need.

And, if I have been wrong, I will admit that.

Let's check this out! – donnacha, on March 05, 2009 18:48

Ah, I wondered when db0, "the man who always gets in wrong", would pop up - I see you still have that avatar of Michael Jackson walking away from an exploding children's nursery.

As ever, you seem completely unable to process the fact that this is a thread packed with unhappy and, now, ex-users of IntenseDebate, people who wanted ID to be great but were disappointed at how little has been done to address their needs.

I'm sure everything is just fine in the particular lah-lah land you inhabit, but here in the real world people ARE impressed that all the comments made about our content, on a wide variety of other social media sites, can be collected and placed neatly below our main comments and trackbacks. If you don't think that is impressive and reflective of a service that is actually LISTENING and THINKING about it's users needs, seriously, you need to get a clue.

You should apply for a job at IntenseDebate. – donnacha, on March 05, 2009 18:41

Jacks0n - they were acquired by Automattic half a year ago. In that time, look at all Disqus have achieved, at how responsive they have been to the changing needs of their users, to the dramatically shifting landscape.

We all wanted to see IntenseDebate do well, we all had high hopes for them, that is why we are so bitterly disappointed. It would almost be okay if they were to say "Look, we are listening, we understand what you need and it's coming real soon" but, instead, we get "Sorry, not on our dev list, not gonna happen ... now, how would you like a pretty profile instead?"

Paul and Trae point out exactly why your head-in-the-clouds attitude towards Facebook is ridiculous - with 200+ million ACTIVE users, Facebook adds more to our blogs than we add to it, and we know that making it as easily as possible for people to comment is key to sparking discussion.

Your attitude to Facebook is also hopelessly out of date, given all the massive revamp that was announced yesterday:

Facebook's Response to Twitter

Facebook is now moving with impressive agility to match it's private network functionality with new functionality as a public broadcast medium. It may not be as single-focused as Twitter but, with 200+ million active users compared to Twitter's 6 million, it will blow it out of the water in terms of critical mass. All the things that are most useful about Twitter, such as it's search facility and it's usefulness as a marketing tool, will be 30 times more useful with 30 times more users.

Essentially, we are seeing the mainstreaming of the Twitter concept and this is EXACTLY why Facebook Connect integration is so important - because this is going to be the main way in which people follow our blogs and the main way in which our readers tell their friends about us.

----

Half a year ago, when Automattic's acquisition of IntenseDebate was announced, I thought "Poor Disqus, what sort of future can they have now that the weight of WordPress is behind their main competitor?"

I was wrong. IntenseDebate decided to coast, while Disqus put their heart and souls into creating a better product and, the masterstroke, quickly moving to take advantage of the opening up of the Facebook giant.

I don't know where Automattic's magical touch has gone, I don't know if Matt is even involved in the decision-making around IntenseDebate (I mean, seriously, what decisions have even been made?), but I do know a failure when I see one. Disqus has won this one: game, set and match.

Wow.

http://mashable.com/2009/03/04/social...

How much further behind can IntenseDebate fall?

Don't hold your breath, Trae - it's been 3 months since Disqus implemented this feature, 3 months since Michael promised to look into it and 1 month since he casually announced, below, that "it's currently not on our dev list", a real slap in the face to all the users who have singled this feature out as an absolute must-have.

It is worth noting that this is, by far, the most active thread and the most requested feature (3x more votes than any other suggestion) but they have pretty much ignored it.

In the meantime, they have been kept themselves busy with ... prettier user profiles!

So much for "truly awesome innovations coming very soon"; we all expected great things after the Automattic acquisition but here we are, half a year later, and it's clear that the IntenseDebate team simply used it as an excuse to coast. – donnacha, on March 04, 2009 14:18

Why is this thread marked as "Implemented" when it shows up in search results? You can test this by typing "Facebook" into the main search box on the front page of the IntenseDebate section.

As far as I know, there has been no announcement to suggest that ID has now integrated Facebook Connect, all we've had so far is the bizarre news, a month ago, that this hugely desired feature is not even on the dev list.

Marking such a popular suggestion as implemented, when you clearly have no intention of listening to your users, seems to be a pretty shabby way to sweep it under the carpet.

The problem now seems to have cleared up.

Thanks for suggesting testing with Transmit, I'll try that first if it crops up again.

On a personal note, I would like to see Expandrive build up an extensive amount of support material here on Get Satisfaction because I think it is a good system, always making it easier to search for answers before bothering support staff. The Internet would be a better place if more companies kept their support out in the open rather than reverting to email support.

Keep up your amazing work on Expandrive, I love it and use it every day.

GAME OVER

"Commenting with Facebook Connect"



"Since Facebook Connect launched, we've seen over 6,000 developers make their sites more social using Facebook Connect. One of the most common features we've seen sites add with Facebook Connect is the ability to allow users to log in with a single click and comment with their real name and profile photo from their Facebook account. Sites have seen as much as 40-50% more comments since they launched added these features.

Today, we're launching our first social widget for Facebook Connect, the Comments Box. The Comments Box is a great way for any website, blog or photo gallery to add social comments to their page in just a minute with a few lines of code. We want to help bring you social widgets that make it easier for users to communicate and share across your site and with their friends on Facebook.

With the Comments Box, Facebook users on your site can comment on your content, post those comments to their profiles, and share them with their friends on Facebook. The Comments Box allows non-Facebook users to make comments on your site as well. And via our APIs, you can access related comments made on Facebook as well to bring the conversation together."

Sparta - so, are you King Leonidas or the dude who got thrown down that well?

... and don't forget, there were only 290,000 Persians to fight, Facebook has 150 million active users:

A Great Start to 2009 - blog post by Mark Zuckerberg

I notice that this idea has now been labeled "The company is considering this idea."

Does this mean that ID has reversed their decision not to place Facebook Connect integration on their dev list?

I hope so because, for all the talk of "building the best comment system out there", nothing much seems to be happening. People trying to decide which system to use need some sort of signal that ID are still in the game, that they haven't simply been fully absorbed up into the warm fluffy cloud that is Automattic.