by psionmark on October 2, 2008
After the recent announcement that IntenseDebate had been acquired by Automattic (see my earlier post), I decided to give it another go here on Psionmark.
I’d tried it out in the past, but at that time I seemed to struggle with the blog integration. Maybe I just didn’t RTFM, or maybe it’s improved since I last tried it, as it seemed easy this time around.
I’ve been trying it out and am really starting to see the benefits now. Here’s some of the “Pros”:
- email notification of comments, with the ability to approve and respond via email. Very handy.
- They’ve got some nice widgets for your blog. I particularly like the Recent Comments which now has a nice shiny new home in my sidebar
- I like the layout of the comments section better than the default Wordpress equivalent.
- The ability to give a Thumbs Up or Down to comments
I think I’ll be keeping it here, and will most likely be trying it out on some of my other blogs.
On that subject, you now need to get another Invitation Code if you want to add another blog to your existing IntenseDebate account. I’m guessing they’re doing this to prevent too many new users during the transition period.
by psionmark on September 23, 2008
IntenseDebate, the threaded commenting system that can be used on Wordpress and other types of blogs, has been acquired by Automattic.
Here’s their press release:
We’re extremely pleased to announce that IntenseDebate will now be joining the Automattic team! This is a big day for us and we couldn’t be more stoked about what it means for the future of IntenseDebate.
So what does this mean for you, our valued users? A couple of things:
1.) We will be temporarily going back into private beta. This won’t affect our current users, but new installs will require an invite code. This is just to give us a little time to ramp up the hardware and get our ducks in a row as we join the Automattic team.
2.) You’ll be seeing IntenseDebate a lot more often. We’re really excited about the distribution possibilities this opens up, so expect to see our comment system and use your IntenseDebate profile on a lot more blogs.
3.) You can look forward to tighter integration with some of the other Automattic joints including Akismet and Gravatar.
But don’t worry!
You will still be able to use IntenseDebate on Typepad, Tumblr, Blogger, Movable Type, and other platforms with more to come! We will continue to improve our comment system and your commenters’ experience. IntenseDebate will continue to enhance and encourage conversation on your blog and build your reader community.
It’s business as usual except we will be ramping up in size and features, and integrating more closely with other Automattic properties to provide an even better commenting experience. The IntenseDebate name and logo isn’t going anywhere – it’s just going to get way more Intense! It’s been a long road to get here, but we’re just getting started…
