Reading online articles, news stories, or blogs, often leaves us wanting to contribute to the discussion with the author and other readers. That’s where a good commenting system comes in handy, something that Disqus excels at providing.

Now, you can take all those discussions with you when you’re away from your computer, thanks to the Disqus app – for Nokia Lumia smartphones.

With over six years experience, Disqus knows a thing or two about keeping the conversations flowing by providing a system that just works and is so simple to use. So easy in fact, that over half a billion people use this commenting system (including us here at Conversations), and about 640,000 comments a day are sent through Disqus.

It’s a commenting system that spans a vast array of different sites, from cars, gardening, technology, plumbing, flower arranging, anything you can think of. You name it; Disqus is powering their comments.

Comments are a vital part to every site’s ecosystem. It allows brands, companies, and individual authors to communicate directly, and sometimes more personally, to their readers. This is something we all expect in today’s fast-paced, digital world.

Let’s not forget the commenters themselves. The comment section on any site is where people meet with other people with similar interests and often virtual friendships are formed.

The Disqus app helps to keep you in the conversation when you’re away from your desk, meaning those conversations don’t just simply expire, but continue.

Ryan Valentin, Community Support at Disqus tells us why a mobile version is so important:

“It’s part of a broader effort to bring Disqus closer to you, the user. The most exciting part about this is that each interaction is in a place that likely wouldn’t have happened before, such as on a bus or while waiting for a doctor’s appointment.”

The app consists of four panels. The first is your dashboard that gives you access to app settings, a notification section and your own profile that details all the comments you’ve left across the Disqus network, as well as who you’re following or who’s following you. There’s also a top communities tab that allows you to jump straight to your favourite sites and engage with other commenters.

 

The second panel – suitably called network – is where you can see the latest comments from the people that you follow, but this can be changed to show your most recent discussion by selecting the text at the top – a drop-down menu will appear.

Explore is the best place to go to find new discussions with an assortment of categories which can be broken-down further when you select one.

 

Then finally, we have the moderate panel. I suspect this is only available if your Disqus profile is one of a moderator, and that’s to say that you run a site that uses Disqus as its commenting system.

If you have this feature available, this is a really valuable tool for site admins. While you can’t currently edit comments, you can approve pending comments, or delete comments that may have slipped through the filter system.

During your commenting time, you’ll undoubtedly begin to recognise other commenters within that particular community, as regular commenters are usually quite keen to express their opinion. If you want to hear more about what person has to say, select their profile and then press follow. That person will then appear in your networks panel we discussed earlier.

You can also ‘upvote’ or ‘downvote’ individual comments from each comment. These votes are a way of silently agreeing with what that person is saying. Think of is as a nod, or a shake of the head.

If you want to share those comments to a wider audience, then go ahead and press the share icon. You can let your LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook friends know what you’re into, hopefully encouraging them to join in the conversation.

As with most Windows Phone apps, Disqus utilises the Live Tile feature. If you want to stay up-to-date with your Disqus networks and discussions, pin the app to the Start scree. Periodically, the Live Tile will inform you of the latest content from within your networks. If you’re only interested in one story, you can pin individual articles to the Start screen, too. The same can be said for the moderator section.

These pins help you reconnect with the discussion without manually checking, prompting for continual conversations.

The Disqus app is available to download now from Windows Phone Store – for free. It works on Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 smartphones

Are you a Disqus user? Feel free to comment, via your newly downloaded Disqus app – or the usual way, below.