Is it worth a shot? I'd like to increase comments from other bloggers in my niche to hopefully build a tighter bond with them. I'm just afraid of all the spam and unrelated comments that may come. What are your experiences?
My experience: I had commentluv active on my blog for about 2 months, it was great. But as time passed, I started getting loads and loads of unrelated spammy comments. So i decided to remove it
That's exactly what I was afraid of. I hate spam and think it devalues the blog if you don't delete it. And it's such a pain in the arse to monitor all the comments when I should be working to build fresh content.
I also use for a few months, then i remove it. It can give you benefits if the comments are related to your niche. But if not, then you have to be careful to take care of the comments.
I found commentluv far too spammy. There were so many people saying how great it was, but I ended up with better comments with just the normal wordpress system. And I also did not see the "link-back" benefits they go on about. I don't think it is for everyone.
Spam is part of the territory no matter what. I have never used it, but if looks like a good tool, I don't see any harm. Even if you decide not to, you are still going to get spam...just put your blog in your sig here...you'll get all of the spam you can handle.
i use IntenseDebate at my blog. Installed it a few days ago - looks like there's an option to use Akismet with IntenseDebate.