I’ll admit it – I’m not super-fans of any other commenting system other than the one that comes with WordPress – in other words, I’m somewhat partial to just going out-of-the-box.
That isn’t to say that the other systems, like the very popular Disqus or the somewhat mediocre IntenseDebate aren’t bad – it’s just that I don’t like using them because I really want to limit the amount of data that heads off into other distant lands beyond my own installation.
But many users use them and they have done quite fine with them. Another quite popular commenting system is Facebooks’ own system that you have undoubtedly seen on many WordPress blogs. I understand the attraction very well – commenting via Facebook will drive traffic from Facebook itself as others may be able to see those comments in their own community stream.
But what about Google+? Apparently Google just launched their own implementation of Google+ comments to Blogger which you can opt-in to try them if you’d like if you run blogger.
And if you use WordPress, well, apparently there’s already someone who’s created a WordPress plugin that’ll do just that – it’s free to try but there’s a $10 premium fee if you don’t want a link on your site via the author.
I wasn’t aware of this implementation and I’m somewhat curious to try it out myself and if I have some time this afternoon I will. You will need to sign up for a Google+ API Key before you are able to use this extension though so make sure you get one here, then create a project and collect your API keys.
But the problem (or benefit) still remains the same: Will you actually get more traffic by using Google+ on your WordPress blog as people within those circles start coming to your blog via Google+ directly? I saw a large increase of sites that used Facebook Comments when it first came out but I see it’s died down a lot since then.
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