As part of a subtle change, Facebook has made a number of upgrades to their comments plugin. The changes include a new voting feature, the inclusion of a user’s network (their work place or location), as well as the percentage of likes a comment gets on a thread, and most significantly: threaded comments.
As the image below depicts, the comments are dramatically improved. So what are all of the new features? We’ll break down each one below. Currently there are four core upgrades:
- User network – While Facebook has technically removed the “networks” feature, comments will now display a user’s location, school they are attending, or company that they are a part of depending on what details they’ve entered in their profile.
- Comment voting – Another significant feature is comment voting. While it doesn’t appear as though comments are prioritized, users can provide feedback and rate a comment as either positive or negative. That vote is then used to calculate the next feature.
- Feedback rating & comment count – The feedback rating is the percentage of votes that were positive. If a comment received no feedback, there won’t be a rating. Unfortunately we have yet to determine whether or not this will become a global feedback rating as a mechanism for preventing spam, however it’s pretty obvious that having a higher feedback rating is a good thing. Additionally, a comment count will show how many comments a user has contributed to a thread
- Threaded comments – This is huge! As far as we can remember, comments were previously displayed in a single thread, however now you reply to specific comments to create sub-conversations.
While we’re not quite sure how far Facebook is intending to take this comments platform, this is definitely a significant upgrade to what was previously an extremely basic commenting system. By adding features there’s no doubt that Facebook will be able to increase adoption. We’re waiting to see what additional improvements Facebook has in store for their commenting feature (such as, will the company launch a more robust moderation tool?). What would you like to see Facebook add to this new comments plugin?
Thanks to Shourav for the tip!
The more input and interaction …the better! I think every individual~is treated as an individual on Facebook! Good stuff!
Comment by shirley johnson — October 13, 2010 @ 1:08 am
I'd like to see these plugins gain full Wall IDs so they can be moderated like Facebook Pages. Facebook doesn't need to invest in building a full-fledged, platform-wide moderation tool. It already has several third-party companies who offer that for large pages. (I work for one).
Comment by @SAMeLAWRENCE — October 13, 2010 @ 1:27 am
I particularly like your feature # 2.
Comment by Edward Franchuk — October 13, 2010 @ 2:05 am
How do you access this plug in ?
Comment by tom merle — October 13, 2010 @ 2:33 am
Very significant upgrade!! This ramps up the social conversation within a comment area 10 fold!
Comment by @mike_gingerich — October 13, 2010 @ 6:07 am
How do I get this cool plugin? I can only find the old one.
Comment by Mike — October 13, 2010 @ 8:15 am
I just wish they'd update their mobile site & smartphone apps to support these wild changes in a timely fashion. The webOS app that properly handled pictures exited beta a month or 2 ago, and already it's broken again in the ohoto area. It never has given the Like button for comments.
Comment by Joe Sewell — October 13, 2010 @ 8:41 am
wow… this is amazing… day by day improving Facebook!
Comment by Umarfaruk M — October 13, 2010 @ 9:14 am
I realy like the voting feature. Thanks for the heads up, I will share this on my page. http://goo.gl/RPn3
Comment by Richard Smith — October 13, 2010 @ 9:25 am
I did a takedown of this whole rigamaroll on my blog, Tech Dump. I just don't see how complicating the comments section advances us as a species.
Comment by Paul Bryan Pflupfy — October 13, 2010 @ 9:33 am
The threaded comments will be especially nice to see… when there are many it was very hard to follow along.
Comment by Kathy Colaiacovo — October 13, 2010 @ 9:49 am
I haven't seen the change in my facebook. When will it appear?
Comment by BrainBUG — October 13, 2010 @ 10:39 am
Where do I get the plug-in?
Comment by Raffy Pekson II — October 13, 2010 @ 12:55 pm
What am I missing, here? I think it's great, but …. how to get?…. where does it appear? Thanks
Comment by Dan Safkow — October 13, 2010 @ 2:16 pm
I have seen that upgrade on my facebook account, a like button will also represents that a person agree on another persons opinion and no need to type your own comment to express how you feel about the issue.
Comment by Steve Jobs — October 14, 2010 @ 1:10 am
Unfortunately the cake is a lie for now.
Only Facebook themselves can use this new comment plugin it seems. And it's not the old comment plugin that has been upgraded – it is a separate feedback plugin that is accessible from: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/feedback.php
Whereas the old comment plugin is located at http://www.facebook.com/plugins/comments.php
If we use the URL from the Facebook blog, you will see the plugin nicely: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/feedback.php?href...
If we strip this down to just the facebook domain like this: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/feedback.php?href...
… the plugin is still accessible.
But if we put in another domain like this: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/feedback.php?href...
… we get a "page not found"
Maybe Facebook will make this feedback plugin available for the rest of us, but they may also have just created it for their own usage.
Comment by @webhanspeter — October 14, 2010 @ 4:42 pm
Facebook just removed view comments from my page's pictures. Is there any way I could find my recent comments, since it is normally questions I need to answer?
Comment by Nikky — October 21, 2010 @ 2:11 pm
This is a great article. Thanks for spelling it out so clearly. Do you have any information about the current moderation tool that you could share?
Comment by Kathy — November 5, 2010 @ 10:41 am
As a site owner, how will I be informed of new comments?
I have many articles on my site and I'm not planning to enter each and every one of them in order to see that I'm not spammed or needed in order to answer someone's question…
Comment by Diamond — November 20, 2010 @ 4:40 am
New comments notification, votes on comments, and threaded comments – hope facebook will incorporate all these features.
Posting my comment here so I can get updates about this plugin.
Comment by sotes — December 15, 2010 @ 10:19 am
[...] in the coming weeks that’s capable of powering the comments on large online publications. Last year we noted a significantly upgraded comments platform that Facebook was using on their own blog however [...]
Pingback by Facebook Preparing To Unleash Robust Comment Platform — January 31, 2011 @ 5:49 pm
Very well said:
"By adding features there’s no doubt that Facebook will be able to increase adoption"
i agree completely
Comment by Diamond Factory — July 1, 2011 @ 10:40 am
wow from this post I get good info again
Comment by Rainforest — November 30, 2011 @ 2:43 am
wow
nice information
for me
Comment by animal rainforest — December 4, 2011 @ 8:44 am