Wordpress + Social Integration. Some advice, and recommendations

Hey there Warriors,

I am having a hard time with getting social media running properly on my wordpress blog. I made a post yesterday concerning something else similar, so this is not a double post.

Anyway, here is what I currently have:

• Facebook comments. I have this plugin, but it's very buggy. It keeps giving me database errors and it MAY be conflicting with "Addthis" buttons. I am looking for an alternative. I've disabled it for now and am testing out the "Sociable" plugin. (update: I've enabled FB Comments again, but it seems to have lost it's "XID", and I don't know where to get it from - if anyone knows please tell me)

• Retweet button (I use "Topsy retweet button"). For some reason, the industry standard as I understand it - TweetMeMe, started giving me a redirect error out of the blue last night. The Topsy button does exactly the same thing and it works now. I am going to test "Digg Digg" which has share counters for FB, twitter, digg, stubleupon and a few others I believe.

• Gravatars. If you don't know what this is yet, it's basically a way to have one picture display next to your commenters. This follows them around everywhere and it's very cool (Gravatar - Globally Recognized Avatars)

• "Addthis" buttons. This allows your visitors to share your content on tpns of social media sites. "Sharethis" is a similar plugin, but I've heard that it slows page load times significantly.

• SexyBookmarks. Also allows your visitors to share. You've probably seen it as "Sharing is sexy!" with the connect buttons below. I use this alongside the "Addthis" buttons as it does not have a counter.

If you don't want share buttons displaying twice at the beginnning of your post (from using both plugins), just enable "addthis" buttons to only show at the top. That's where you want the share counter to be anyway.

Plugins to test out...

• The FB comments that usually sit inside of widgets. I don't know exactly what it's called, but I will be implementing it. It appears like a mini-version of your fan page, and allows people to comment and interact.

• More coming soon

Plugins to stay away from...

• Disqus. It's popular, and allows people to comment with different social media logins. However, this slows down load time and as warrior WillR explained yesterday the comments are not indexed. It's also got a messy backend that looks like it could go haywire at any moment.

• Same goes for IntenseDebate

My website is Internet Marketing Labz (there's nothing on it just yet, as I want to build this site from the ground up properly the first time).

What social plugins are YOU using? Any recommendations?

Stay tuned,
Dean