You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. We’ve been on Livefyre comments for a little under a year now, and while we weren’t the biggest fans of Facebook Comments* while we were using them, we’ve since realized that there is no perfect solution for commenting.
And Facebook Comments, as troubled as they can be, are actually not that bad. At least for TechCrunch’s purposes.
So until someone invents a perfect solution, or we have the developer resources to devote to an in-house commenting system, we’re going to revert from Livefyre back to Facebook Comments. Because Facebook Comments load faster — not to mention actually post — on mobile and because they don’t present as many quirky usability issues on WordPress.
And because we’ve listened to our commenters.
We know that the lack of anonymity is an issue with Facebook Comments, but we’re willing to accept that in return for a commenting system that is relatively stable. We also like the idea of comments sorted by Facebook Likes versus recency, and Facebook offers that as a default. Sometimes it’s that simple.
So no hard feelings, Livefyre, and hello again, Facebook. Let the commenting commence!
*Disclosure: I own some shares in Facebook. That doesn’t stop me from seeing its flaws.