A Blog Comment System That Steals Comments From Facebook | minimaxir

I’m not a fan of the LiveFyre commenting system for blogs. As I’ve talked about before, LiveFyre is difficult to use, and actually hurts blogs more than it helps. Despite its faults, more and more blogs, such as CNet and AllThingsD, have switched to LiveFyre.

AllThingsD’s reasons for switching to LiveFyre from the widely-used Disqus are interesting. Under LiveFyre, users can “more readily share comments to Facebook and Twitter” which Disqus already did; “tag friends and draw them into the stream” which increases clutter; and “accurately flag other comments as spam or offensive” which flat-out doesn’t work, if the spam on TechCrunch is any indication. Additionally, they can “follow conversations across multiple platforms,” which the post doesn’t elaborate upon. Does it aggregate social media which links to the parent post, a la Disqus?

No, it’s something much more important.

A Commenting Möbius Strip

Recently, LiveFyre implemented a comment feature called SocialSync:

With Livefyre SocialSync, the conversation happening on Facebook and Twitter automatically syncs directly to your content, where it belongs. SocialSync comments can be replied to and interacted with just like any other comment, including being automatically posted back to Twitter or Facebook.

Currently, this feature is enabled for TechCrunch and Mashable.* Let’s say a Facebook user comments on one of TechCrunch’s Facebook posts. Those comments are synchronized to the LiveFyre comments for the linked post.

Those comments become LiveFyre comments. And the Facebook user has no input, nor any notification that their comments are being used this way.

SocialSync’s Flat-Out Lie

In LiveFyre’s own words, the conversations “sync” across platforms. Synchronization implies a two-way interaction, i.e. actions on one platform affect the other. In this example, there are four major use cases that would imply a two-way interaction:

New comments on Facebook should appear on LiveFyre. New comments on LiveFyre should appear on Facebook. Replies and Likes on comments on Facebook should appear on the corresponding comment in LiveFyre. Replies and Likes on comments on LiveFyre should appear on the corresponding comment in Facebook.

Out of those four scenarios, only #1 is true with SocialSync, and even more importantly, #2, #3, and #4 are impossible to implement.

LiveFyre doesn’t know what your Facebook account is and cannot perform actions on your behalf on Facebook unless you register with that account. Therefore, your comments won’t sync to the Facebook comment thread if you use any other login type. (the ability to use multiple types of logins being another touted feature of LiveFyre, of course). Likewise, Likes on Facebook Comments can’t translate to LiveFyre Likes since the users don’t have a LiveFyre account.

The lack of connection also breaks notifications of replies to Facebook accounts. Since there’s no way to ensure the two accounts are linked, there’s no way to notify a Facebook user when their synced comment on LiveFyre has a reply. This has two effects: a) the Facebook user won’t continue the discussion and b) the LiveFyre replier is wasting his time making a comment to a person who likely won’t ever read it. Both result in less motivation to comment and less fruitful discussions.

SocialSync is fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed.

Who Owns Your Facebook Comments?

When I said that LiveFyre “steals” Facebook comments in the headline, I wasn’t being facetious. It’s not obvious that this feature even exists in the first place, especially if you’re not a comment addict (I sent a tweet to the TechCrunch head editor to confirm that this was intended behavior). How is the typical person supposed to know what their comments are being used for?

Yes, your comments on TechCrunch’s Facebook wall post that are synced to LiveFyre are Public to everyone, and there is no expectation of privacy. But who owns those comments?

The comments appear in LiveFyre matching the style and functionality of any other LiveFyre comment, except with a “from Facebook” designation. For all intents and purposes, it’s a LiveFyre comment that you have no control over. It’s worth noting that since LiveFyre doesn’t know your Facebook account, you can’t even delete the syndicated comment in LiveFyre (deleting the original comment on Facebook doesn’t work either!). LiveFyre comments on the post have greater SEO than Facebook comments, so hopefully you don’t say anything embarrassing on the Facebook page. LiveFyre is in control of your destiny.

What are the benefits to SocialSync anyways, when it barely works? Bigger numbers for the comment count of a post? That’s irrelevant when the comments on the Facebook posts are made spur-of-the-moment, and are usually very low quality.

The idea of sync between isn’t terrible in itself. Facebook Comments and the recently announced Google+ Comment System essentially does sync by blurring the lines between a  post and a comment, but unlike LiveFyre, both services are vertically intergrated with their corresponding social nerwork. The user still retains control over the comment, receives reply notifications, and can delete their comment when necessary. And, there’s no undisclosed syncing when posting on a brand page: the only comments that appear in blog posts are ones you explicitly make.

Syncing content like LiveFyre does benefits no one. Not the blog post author, not LiveFyre, and definitely not the commenter.

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*Interestingly, SocialSync is not enabled on CNet or AllThingsD’s implementations of LiveFyre.