How Facebook Comments Killed the Techcrunch Community @Disqus

Several months ago I was thrilled that Techcrunch moved over to the Disqus commenting platform for all it's comments. I'm a huge fan of Disqus and I only comment on sites that use it as it keeps all my comments in one place.

However, for reasons that Techcrunch are claiming are to do with Spam/Trolls they moved over to the new and IMHO awful Facebook comments. The Spam and Moderation controls on Facebook comments are vastly inferior to the well established Disqus system.

Since then I've not commented on Techcrunch and I've no desire to read what few comments are now left there.

Today as an example I looked at the Top 20 Posts at Techcruch to see how many comments their were. Here are the results

0 Comments - 5 Posts
1-5 Comments - 6 Posts
6-10 Comments - 3 Posts
11-15 Comments - 5 Posts
>15 Comments - 1 Post

In the past nearly every post when they used Disqus would have over 30 Comments each and it was a really great place to read peoples comments.

It's obvious to me that Facebook Comments has effectively killed the community at Techcrunch and I'm sure this is hurting their stats.

I wonder how long it will take them to realise this and go back to Disqus or are they too afraid of losing face by backtracking?

Some New Features coming to Blogger

Which ones are you most excited about?

I have to admit I love the new look of the Editor and Dashboard, and I hope the Rich Text Editor works well.