The Simian Downtime Analyst

It is that time of year again.

Today I was focused on making a couple of banners for a few websites (SDA included).   I decided it was time for a web search intervention so I would not spend an entire day doing the wrong thing. In one of the top results, I found a nice straightforward video tutorial at Hiphop Makers.

This tutorial was done by Mark Valenzuela of New Ice Media.

While we still dig the idea of what Disqus does, it is about time for us to reevaluate the necessity of it.  To be honest, it was installed in an attempt to gain conversation.  When conversation did not happen, it didn’t bother me that no one was talking, but it felt like we put this big honking new engine in a car that nobody wanted to drive too fast.

This was the case until Disqus added a new feature, social media reactions. I saw it as a chance to ditch the plugin we were using to import Friendfeed comments and the like, but the update has not quite made it to our humble little home.  On another blog which I felt needed a different approach, Backtype Connect is installed.  Since that does function correctly, it is possible we will be using it in the future.

Also, lately I have been on a kick to seriously clean the code up on every WordPress blog I can get my mitts on. In each instance Disqus is installed,  validation is more difficult. This might not be an issue if I knew Javascript, but I don’t yet so there is another compelling reason to let the platform go. Maybe it is time to pare down a bit.