Blog Azeroth

Automattic, the company that runs Wordpress.com and which has a heavy influence on the development of WordPress, has acquired Intense Debate, one of the major plugin-commenting systems.

More details

Thoughts?

Wow, I think that sounds great. It would be so nice to be able to centrally track all of your comments, even if were only within one blogging platform. I hope they incorporate it into the Wordpress.org platform, simultaneously.

Well, it looks like it'll be in 2.7 to some degree.

Of course, you can install in right now with the plugin - or you could if they hadn't suspended sign-ups for the time being.

I just got my IntenseDebate beta key, and have it running on my blog now. Random thoughts follow:

Installation was a dream. It was literally: install, activate, wait for converstion, and you're done. No tweaking.

It's purdy looking! Integrated with my theme with no effort on my part. Nested/threaded comments are awesome. Ajax comments, comment ratings, comment sorting (by date, by rating), integrated comment profile... all very cool.

It doesn't play well with CommentLuv. I imagine that when ID becomes stable, CL will catch up. CL is disabled for now.

The comment management interface is pretty nice (with built in email reply and comment management), but I liked the wp-comment-remix interface better. There's a weird page within a page in the dashboard for managing comments, I don't like that part. I imagine that they'll work at a better interface once WP 2.7 becomes stable.

Overall, I dig it.

How did you get a beta key? I'd love to try it!

On the front page of http://www.intensedebate.com/, there's a form to submit your email for an invite code.

I wish that I could say that I were well-connected or something.

I got my invite a few days ago as well...just installed. Now waiting for conversion. I run comment love so I'll see how well it works but ID is my new toy so it'll win out over CL. I've been getting a lot of emails from CL lately so he's pretty active. Even exchanged a few with him...if its broke I'll shoot him a short message on it and post here if I get a reply.

I'm officially giving up on IntenseDebate. Too many lost or dropped comments, requires javascript (not all people have), and basically just pre-beta software.