When you integrate Disqus (pronounced “discuss”) with your WordPress blog, you create a new Disqus community that mirrors the post/comment activity on the blog. The blog post becomes the start of a new discussion and the comments are the subsequent thread. Members can also post to the community that you create. This is a great way for readers of your blog to start discussions with you and all of your readers.

As a Disqus user, all the comments you post to other Disqus-enabled blogs will appear on your profile page (you don’t need a blog to have a Disqus account). This is a nice way for others to see all your words of wisdom that you have shared on other blogs. It is also a good method for finding other users and communities you may be interested in following.

Disqus also plays nice with the built-in WordPress commenting system. Existing comments will be imported into Disqus and when comments are posted onto Disqus they are kept in sync with your WordPress blog. If you change your mind later and you no longer want to use Disqus, you can simply uninstall it. You don’t have to worry about losing comments that were posted through Disqus.

To install Disqus on your Wordpress blog:

• Create an account on Disqus.
• Download the Disqus for Wordpress plugin.
• Place the contents of the archive in your WordPress plugins directory.
• Activate the plugin and navigate to Comments > DISQUS.

  

• Enter your Disqus login credentials and proceed with the installation process.

  

• If you would like to import your existing WordPress comments into Disqus, select Advanced Options and click Import.

  

For further installation details, you can visit the Disqus integration page and view the Disqus documentation for WordPress.

When a blog is converted to use Disqus, individuals that commented on the blog prior to the conversion can claim their imported comments. When users claim comments, verification links are sent to the email addresses used to post the comments. The Disqus users can click the verification links to associate comments on the converted blog with their profiles.

Disqus also automatically subscribes commenters to any responses to their comments. They will receive the responses at the email address they provided with the comment. The best part of this feature is that they can respond via email! There’s no need to revisit the blog post and respond there, as it can all be done by replying to the email.

Disqus also allows non-Disqus members to post comments just as they would normally on any WordPress blog. Users just provide their name, email address, and post the comment. Responses to their comments are sent to their email address and they can reply by email just the same as Disqus users.  Comments by non-Disqus comments are basically treated the same as imported comments.  If non-Disqus commenters do eventually sign up for Disqus accounts, they can also claim their comments to associate them with their new account.

Unfortunately, WordPress is the only well-documented platform for Disqus at this time. The Disqus help page states that MovableType, Tumblr, Blogger, and TypePad are also supported, but the help links just go to a “coming soon” page.  They also have a JavaScript interface in the works (which would allow you to integrate with any platform), but again there is no documentation for it yet.

Fortunately, there is a well-documented Disqus API. That means that developers can integrate Disqus on other platforms that are not officially supported, which is good news for users (and potential users) on the following platforms:

• Drupal
• b2evolution
• Graffiti
• Joomla
• RubyGem

If your blog does not use one of these platforms or uses one of the undocumented platforms that Disqus claims to support, then IntenseDebate might be a better option for you. IntenseDebate can use JavaScript to display comments, so it can be easily integrated into any blog.

However, IntenseDebate does not have the community features and profile pages are only limited to the last 5 comments posted. Disqus makes all comments you’ve made available from your profile, not just the last five. If you’d like to see Disqus comments in action, here are a few blogs that implement them:

• louisgray.com
• VentureBeat
• obscurely famous
• The Eagle-Tribune

You might want to also check out some Disqus profile pages:

• Louis Gray
• Duncan Riley
• Daniel Ha

What do you think of Disqus and other commenting systems?   Which one do you prefer?  Do you use Disqus on your blog?

Jorge Sierra is a geek that enjoys working with Linux and other free software and operating systems. He also enjoys programming as a hobby and has developed several iGoogle Gadgets. By day, he works as a Six Sigma black belt and by night he occasionally blogs as GeekLad.

Enjoyed the article? Please leave a comment and tell us what you think about it

New here? Get your cheat sheets and freebies at MakeUseOf Downloads. Enjoy!

Related posts

• The First Wordpress Plugins You Must Install (20)
• ScribeFire vs DeepestSender: One Blogging Addon to Rule Them All! (12)
• Psst…Do You Plurk? (10)
• Make Your Wordpress Blog iPhone Compatible with WPtouch (3)
• Liven Up Your Wordpress Blog Comments With MyAvatars (3)

Disney animation movie “Bolt,” where John Travolta lends his voice to the dog-hero in the title,  has a brief, fleeting moment of Apple product placement.

Pixar blogger and CoM reader Guido Rogall explains: in Bolt “there’s a chase scene on a train. For a few seconds you see a young woman with a laptop, either a MacBook or iBook, but what is funny about it is that the Apple logo is not lit.”

As another one of our sharp-eyed readers pointed out, this Apple turn-off  scenario happens every so often in movies.

Wonder if it’s a mistake or makes it product placement more memorable to clued-in viewers…

Rosenblatt is the guy who cut costs while building revenues at DoubleClick before selling it to Google (GOOG) for $3.1 billion. He beat out Google's head of sales Tim Armstrong and former AOL CEO Jon Miller in our final round of voting.

We haven't heard from Rosenblatt about whether he'd even take the job, but we decided to collect recommendations to send to Yahoo's board anyway.

We started with another former CEO of DoubleClick, cofounder Kevin Ryan, who also happens to work in our office as SAI chairman. Kevin loves the idea of Rosenblatt-run Yahoo. He gave us five reasons why:

• He's experienced. Rosenblatt successfully managed an Internet company with more than 1,000 employees.
• He owns the niche. DoubleClick wasn't just a tech company and it wasn't just an advertising company. It was both -- like Yahoo.
  
• He can cut and grow Yahoo at the same time. At DoubleClick, Rosenblatt cut headcount from 2,000 to 1,000 between 2001 and 2003.
  
• He can cut and grow. While selling off businesses DoubleClick needed to get out of, Rosenblatt managed to increase its revenues anyway.
• He's new. Yahoo needs someone who isn't responsible -- and isn't interested in defending -- past decisions.

Current DoubleClick/Google employees crush on Rosenblatt, too. One told me: "There is nothing not to love about him. [Rosenblatt taking the Yahoo CEO gig] would be great for him. Huge loss for us."

A few readers told us why they chose Rosenblatt:

David Rosenblatt is a incredibly smart and an amazing manager; he turned Doubleclick around and was behind the entire sale to Google. He is far and away the best man for the job. Yahoo would be crazy to let him get away...

Rosenblatt's banking connections prob facilitate another deal with MSFT quickly.

DR!!! Worked for him. Smart guy, understands the business and surrounds himself with strong people.

David R. Thats what people at DCLK call him. A great CEO worked with him, even played basketball with him (he was part of the DCLK b'ball team) in the league in nyc. A great competitor.

One reader composed a list of ten reason while Rosenblatt will get the job:

• Turned around DoubleClick as CEO, gave it a rebirth and sold to Google for 5x in less than 2 years
• Unlike the AOL guys, has had a history of success in the online business-- success follows people and breeds more success...
• Is not a homegrown, loyal Google guy like [Tim Armstrong] and would probably leave
• Has seen the insides of Google, whose organization is most likely factorial worse than Yahoo only masked by the 1 phenomenal revenue stream
• Probably made 95% of his DCLK acquisition money already-- time to diversify!
• As President of Display, he will always be the step child to the search guys [at Google]
• Is highly ethical
• Is a technologist who gets the advertising space, exactly what Yahoo! needs with its open strategy and apt platform
• Is smart-- street smarts combined with cognitive intelligences (Yale and Stanford MBA)
• Is respected in the industry-- advertisers, publishers, agencies AND investors.

See Also:
Everyone's Pick For Yahoo CEO

Here’s Mashable’s latest round-up of upcoming Web 2.0 events, parties, and conferences. For more upcoming event listings, check out Mashable’s Events section.

Not on this list? Contact us and let’s establish a media partnership.

December 3, 2008, San Francisco, CA: The 2008 Holiday Season is upon us and when the NYC Webgrrls Community gets together for the Holidays, it is an industry event, not only about revelry but also about the celebration of the achievements of women in technology and business. The event starts at 7PM with a 2-hour open bar followed by great Italian food, door prizes, and drawings. More information is here.

December 3, 2008, San Francisco, CA: Silicon Valley Rocks! is the first music showcase featuring performances from Silicon Valley’s tech community - from VCs and entrepreneurs to bloggers and software developers - to raise money for Music in Schools Today (MuST) a Bay Area non-profit that seeks to rescue school music programs from budget cuts. The full details are here.

December 4, 2008, New York City, NY: Webgrrls is having a NYC party just like the one in San Francisco the night before (scroll up for more information). Or just get the information and RSVP.

December 9-10, 2008, San Francisco, CA: The Mobile Media Investor Conference (MMIC) program will happen in San Francisco and is your opportunity to network with mobile industry leaders and investors. At the MMIC program, you can hear case studies and learn real examples of how to make money and how to raise money in the mobile media world. Your 10% discount is here. Further, an additional $500 off can be taken with code MMIC995.

December 11, 2008, Mountain View, CA: Add-on-Con is the first conference designed specifically for developers and marketers of browser Add-on’s. Organized by members of the community, the one day conference brings together platform vendors, developers, and marketers, with the goal of facilitating communication and sharing knowledge.

December 16, 2008, Los Angeles, CA: Meet up with E.Factor for Entrepreneurship: The Rise & Fall of An American Entrepreneurial Icon with an exclusive book signing with Jordan Belfort, Author of The Wolf Of Wall Street. Everyone who attends gets the book! Belfort will share his thoughts with the audience on the question of “Entrepreneurial Greed vs a Sustainable Company”.

December 13-14, 2008, New York City, NY: A group of top New York iPhone developers formed the iPhone Boot Camp NYC by creating a meetup for iPhone developers and wannabe developers. In December, iPhone Boot Camp NYC is offering two more workshops on basic and advanced iPhone Development. The goal is to train dozens of developers, then spin off a company so each developer has a chance to work full time on the apps in a community of fellow developers with a shared knowledge and training. A 10% discount off the already discounted early-bird rate to mashable readers is available using discount code mashable.

January 13, 2009, London: E.Factor hosts Commercial Opportunities in Mobile Phone Entertainment. Attend and learn more about this emerging face of advertising.

January 21, 2009, Amsterdam: E.Factor is hosting an event entitled Following the Trend which will cover how to understand trends. Keynote speakers of the evening are Rob Wageman and Marjan Ippel.

January 31, 2009, San Francisco, CA: The Teens in Tech Conference is bringing youth and technology together in San Francisco. Learn from teenagers what they think about the current trends of teenage technology. Feel inspired to create technology, at a younger age at the Teens in Tech Conference. From developers, to entrepreneurs, to video-blogging, find it at the 2009 Teens in Tech Conference. Only 25 tickets are available at this discounted rate of 250 for the entire event!

February 4-5, 2008, Denver, CO: Web Directions focuses on professional development for web designers and developers, interaction designers, user experience professionals and other practitioners in the web arena, whether they work as a contractor, in a design agency, in small or large businesses, in government, education or the not-for-profit sector.

The conference features two in depth days of leading web design and development experts, an optional two days of half day intensive hands on workshops, as well as numerous networking opportunities. Whatever your or your company’s role in building or managing web sites, applications or communities, Web Directions is full of practical, valuable insights, education and inspiration. Book before December 5th for just $795 — but Mashable readers can get another $50 off, simply by using the promotional code WDN09MB.

February 6-7, 2009, Orlando, FL: In today’s economy, maintaining a competitive advantage is crucial, whether you are a freelancer, or run a development shop. Using the productivity benefits of Rails helps us to stand out in the crowded space of developers and development firms. And the Rails core team hasn’t kept us wanting, adding features such as internationalization, compatibility with Ruby 1.9 and JRuby, thread safety, and much more. And if the Rails Rumble proved anything, it’s that a small team of Rails developers can accomplish a great amount with little time. So how do we as developers continue to improve how we work and what we produce? Get more information by attending the acts_as_conference.

February 9-10, 2009, San Jose, CA: User-generated content is a rapidly developing revolution in media. Average Joe internet users now wield power over online content, and businesses are adapting to respond to this trend. UGCX is the first conference and trade show organized to bring together content-trendsetters and business leaders to examine how these worlds collide and what the future holds.

Sessions within this two-day conference in San Jose, California, will focus on successful case studies and business models that are driving traffic and revenue to content sites worldwide. Mashable readers can save 15% with priority code UGCXMAS.

February 12, 2009, Santa Monica, CA: The highly-anticipated Twiistup will hold their 5th and largest event to date on Thursday, February 12th at a massive hangar in Santa Monica, CA. The search is on for startups to “show-off” at the event. Fifteen showoffs will be selected to showcase their products and services to an audience of investors, entrepreneurs, press and other influencers in tech, media and entertainment. You can find out how to apply and register for the event by clicking here.

March 9-10, 2009, London: The Social Networking World Forum is the perfect event for professionals to learn and discuss the future development of social media. The two day conference and exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global social media industry. The conference aims to address core issues such as monetization, future technologies/services, engaging social groups with brands and how businesses can get the most out of social and business networks.

March 9-12, 2009, San Jose, CA: Registration is now open for the eighth annual O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, O’Reilly’s flagship event for disruptive, innovative and groundbreaking thought. ETech 2009 will feature exciting program content in new areas of urban sustainability, personalized healthcare, mobile telephony and materials & mechanics. Register by January 12 and Save $300 - https://en.oreilly.com/et2009/public/register. Mashable readers get a 15% off discount on top of that using code et09mash. View the growing lineup of speakers at http://en.oreilly.com/et2009/public/schedule/speakers.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Windows Live Hints at an Upcoming Events Feature
WhatsThePlan Launches Event Planning with a Community
Wevent is Flickr Plus Evite
Socializer is not Affiliated with Socializr. But it Does the Same Thing.
LinkedIn Events Bring Conference Networking Online
Windows Live Spaces Takes on Evite
EventsPad is a Lackluster User-Generated Event Blog

According to AllThingsD, this puts the valuation for The Huffington Post at 100 million dollars. It’s a big valuation, and the 25 million dollar round is bigger than the previously rumored 15 million. A question that inevitably still pops up after any news such as this is: “How does this make sense? It’s just a blog!” I, however, don’t see why not.

I’ve checked out Huffington Post - which I rarely normally do as I’m not interested in politics - and I don’t see any crucial differences between this site, and any big media publication on the web. They’ve got news, reports, features, they seem to be timely and thorough, and they produce a lot of content. On the internet, that’s pretty much all that matters: whether you’ve got a team of 100 people behind the site or it’s just a one man gig, all your readers care about is the content.

The only difference between a blog and any other media publication is that blogs scale very well. Traditionally, if you want to start a newspaper, you need editors, journalists, graphic designers, you need money for print, you need marketing, and a zillion other things just to start off. And it all costs a lot of money.

On a blog, starting out is not only cheap: it’s free. You just start writing. If you’re good, then you get audience, and you can add all those things mentioned above as you go along. However, this doesn’t at all mean that a blog cannot be bigger than the New York Times: there’s absolutely no reason why it couldn’t. And one day, it’ll happen. In fact, blogs usually understand the new media better than old giants. Valuating The Huffington Post at $100 million may be brave, but it’s definitely not insane; we’ll see if this particular bet pays off.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Blogging’s 10th Birthday: Are We Journalists Yet?
Are 33% of Blogs Really Splogs?
Grokking OPML
The New York Times to Acquire Freakanomics Blog, and More
Blogs are Going to the Olympics
Six Apart Launches Blogs.com to Promote You — Maybe
BlogCatalog Gets Socially Networked

First, let's begin with a number of disclosures. Something that you would think the $100 million-valued Huffington Post would require of their authors but apparently that's not the case. Calacanis' company Mahalo has received funding from Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk. In addition, Jason's brother-in-law and Mahalo investor Ryan Scott is also a Tesla Motors investor. Boy that's something the readers of the Huffington Post piece should know, right?

As many of you know, I am a public transportation junkie. My belief is that all (or most) government funding should be used towards pushing mass transit. Creating cars powered by batteries, water, or anything else won't fix our growing traffic issues. Take the millions and billions of dollars and create better transit systems in cities across this country. There's so much that can be done with transit to create real environmental and human savings.

If we are going to look at ways to save oil, why not spend the money creating more efficient air travel? I have to imagine that the savings up in the sky would be larger than those on the ground but yet I never hear anyone talking about fixing air travel.

Ok, now let's talk about cars and what appears to be the hot trend now, battery-powered cars. I am no expert in battery-technology but if the concensus is to move forward building batteries for cars, I am all for it. However, instead of dropping hundreds of millions into Tesla, put it into the great universities across this country. Create a cross-university research center where students, scientists and industry professionals can work together to create the battery technology. Once it's perfected, then it could be sold/leased/provided to companies like Tesla. This would be a much safer investment than giving money to frankly any auto-company at this time. I bet this type of research project could even draw in some of our worldwide allies and help slowly regain some of our lost status in the worldwide community.

I haven't seen anything from Tesla that speaks to the average American family. A $60k sedan isn't for the average American family. Calacanis' math is interesting -- a person making $80k should be able to easily afford a $60k car. Boy that's exactly how we got into the mortgage hell we are in now - people living beyond their means! And Tesla hasn't displayed the leadership that would be needed for me to believe that they would be able to remain a going concern long enough to repay any loan. How many CEOs have they been through so far?

At the end of the day, we need better ways to move people from place A to place B. All transportation options should be considered and creating expensive cars isn't the way to accomplish what we're looking for.

Update: Philip James points us to this illustration of why we need more transit:

Back in my day, preparing for the SATs consisted of review books or signing up for an expensive in-person class or tutoring session. Now, using video, teachers walk you through everything you need to know for the Math, Verbal, and Writing components of the SAT exam, which is presumably even more competitive than it was during the college admissions process of the last millennium.

On a serious note, Brightstorm is the type of service that I’m happy the Internet makes possible. It makes something once reserved largely for kids with money – like SAT prep – available to everyone on the cheap (the service is $49/yr). Further, with video, you can watch lessons whenever you want, as many times as you want; with an in-person tutoring session, if you don’t get it or weren’t paying attention, it’s money down the drain.

If you’re a student or a parent of one studying for the SATs, Brightstorm has made 1,000 courses available for free to Mashable readers. Sign up here.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Facebook Courses Killed, Developers Do It Better
Livemocha: Poke Facebook Friends in New Languages
Facebook Application Courses Gets $500K in Funding
iKnow! and the Social Brain Network
Education Goes Online: 25 Free Online Education Resources
Meet Traditional Publishers and Information Marketers at the Mequoda Summit
Brightstorm Launches New Online Video Classroom for Teens

Continue reading A holiday idea: pay it forward

TUAWA holiday idea: pay it forward originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

What do you to do if you want readers to promote your content? Encourage your visitors to submit their favorite stories directly to Digg? Not everyone uses Digg. You have to decide on which bookmarking site, if any, to dedicate your precious screen real-estate. It’s a hard choice. If you choose poorly your reader won’t vote—it’s not a single click coupled and out-of-sight means out-of-mind—and your content losses its chance to make it big. You have to choose your horse wisely.

On the other hand, if you take the bird-shot approach, it overloads your reader with branded badge after branded badge. It turns your page into the village bicycle. Not pretty. Nobody seems to have solved the problem yet.

If you could detect which social bookmarking sites your reader uses, on a per-reader basis, you could display only the badges they care about. SocialHistory.js enables you to detect which social bookmarking sites your visitors use. SocialHistory.js has a big list of the most popular social bookmarking sites which it checks against.

Requirements: -
Demo: http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/socialhistoryjs/
License: License Free

Sponsors

Dreamhost: Get $50 Off with Coupon Code: WEBAPPERS