Facebook has just introduced its first widget, the Facebook Comment box for Facebook Connect. Now, you can easily add the Facebook Comment system to your own site which offers a great opportunity for you to tap into the Facebook community as users have the option to make their comments appear in their news feed, potentially reaching thousands of people.
There are a number of other services online that offer advanced commenting such as Disqus and IntenseDebate (recently acquired by Automattic (the company the owns WordPress)). I’ve recently contacted IntenseDebate and they’ve told me there are no current plans to support Facebook Connect. They do currently support OpenID, but I do think the opportunity to tap into the Facebook community is a significant advantage, enough so to ditch all the other services…if you consider the other services such as IntenseDebate, all you are really getting is gravatars, reply to comments, and the comments karma feature which no one really uses anyway.
Now, if you would like to easily get Facebook Connect set up on your WordPress blog, you can easily do it with these simple steps. Detailed instructions can be found at this Facebook Developer blog posting.
1. Get your API key from the Facebook Developers site by creating a new Application.
2. Download the cross-domain receiver file from Facebook and upload it preferably to the root of your site (http://yoursite.com/xd_receiver.htm)
3. Open index.php with notepad or Dreamweaver from your WordPress theme and add: xmlns:fb=http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml for php you can add:
<?php
xmlns:fb=”http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml”;
?>
4. In single.php of your theme, or any other page you want the comments box to appear, insert this code in your theme:
<script src=
“http://static.ak.connect.facebook.com/js/api_lib/v0.4/FeatureLoader.js.php”
type=”text/javascript”></script>
<fb:comments></fb:comments>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
FB.init(“YOUR_API_KEY_HERE”, “<path from web root>/xd_receiver.htm”);
</script>
Remember, you must replace the YOUR_API_KEY_HERE with the one from the Application you created in http://developers.facebook.com
You will also want to remove your current comment template by deleting: <?php comments_template(); ?>
You must also replace the “path from web root” to your own so it finds the xd_receiver file
5. That is all! You’re done!
Now, one major drawback over IntenseDebate is the comments made from Facebook Comments will not be stored in your WordPress database, and existing comments will not appear either. Hopefully Facebook will make a special plugin for the millions of WordPress bloggers for maximum adoption, especially as online web development isn’t an art most people are good at.
Update: I’ve removed FB Comment Box and replaced it with Disqus as it offers great comment management, and FB Connect out of the box. Sorry for the confusion! I would advise that you do not install FB Comment Box…as great as it is, there are many draw backs. For example, if typing a slightly long message, the textbox doesn’t get bigger so you can’t see what you are typing. It also requires annoying CAPTCHA. It doesn’t save comments on WordPress either. You should install the Facebook Connect WordPress plugin that allows you to keep comments on your own blog, send them to the Facebook news feed, and also adds a more social feel to your site OR even more simply, use Disqus as I do on here.
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