Disqus is one of a handful of third party comment systems that bloggers and web publishes can install to supercharge the comment sections of their web sites. It provides tools that are missing from many web publishing platforms, including threaded comments, rankings, and the ability for users to login with their Facebook, Twitter, or OpenID credentials.

Today Disqus rolled out version 3.0, which includes a handful of major updates. The first thing you'll notice if you visit a web site that uses Disqus is that the comments can be updated in real-time, although they can also be set to show you a notice that says "x comments were just posted" instead of auto-refreshing and rearranging the page.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Disqus 3.0 has a beefed up profile page that lets individuals track the comments they've posted across any blog using the Disqus plugin. Users were always able to track this info, but Disqus 3.0 spins off profiles into a separate product with a new look and an integrated search box that makes it easy to find comments, replies, and subscribed threads all in one place.

For web publishers, the Disqus comment moderation page has been refined, making it easier to find and filter comments. Disqus can also show reactions from FriendFeed, Twitter, Digg, YouTube, and other web sites, and version 3.0 reportedly brings these reactions in faster than the previous version of Disqus.

Another feature I noticed for the first time today (I don't know for certain if it's brand new) is the ability to import comments from JS-Kit or Intense Debate, which makes it easier for web publishers that have been using one of these competing services to switch to Disqus, or at least try it out.

[via TechCrunch]

Intense Debate is a third party comment service for blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad. Automattic, the company behind WordPress bought the company last year and began adding its features including threaded comments to WordPress. But you can still install Intense Debate for use with other blogging platforms. And now you can also install plugins for Intense Debate that add new features.

For instance, there are already plugins for PollDaddy and YouTube that let users embed polls or videos in blog comments. There's also a Seesmic plugin that lets you record video comments within your web brower.

There's also an API allowing developers to create their own plugins adding other features.

Intense Debate competitor Disqus has also been busy rolling out new features including the ability to tie in social networking comments from FriendFeed, Digg, Twitter, and other sources.

[via Mashable]

First, there were blog comments. But then there were Twitter, FriendFeed, Disqus, Google BlogSearch, and a host of other ways people could attach feedback to a particular URL. YackTrack is a service that aims to help you see all of these different types of comments in the same place. Just enter a URL, and it will return every comment on that URL that it can find across multiple services.

YackTrack is just getting started, so new features are rolling out quickly. There's already a bookmarklet you can use to avoid unnecessary copying and pasting, and a FeedFlare you can use to track a given URL. On top of that, YackTrack features a "chatter" search, so you can see what people around the web are saying about any given search term. I tested it out with my name, and it looks like a fantastic ego-surfing tool. It's probably even more useful if you're in customer relations and want to track what people are saying about your product and service. You can even subscribe to the search results as an RSS feed.

Blog comment company Disqus was built around one pretty simple idea: the comment systems on most blogs stink. Disqus offers advanced comment features for Blogger, TypePad, Moveable Type, WordPress and other platforms. Features like avatar support, threaded comments, and the ability to rank other users comments. The biggest difference between Disqus and the default comment systems on most blogs is that once you register with Disqus you can leave comments on any blog that uses the system without registering over again. And you can track your comment history across all of those blogs, or see comment history for other users.

But Disqus has faced a few challenges. When the service first launched, comments were not indexed by search engines. Or rather they were, but the search engine would find them on the Disqus web site, not yours. So while Disqus was adding value to your readers, you it could actually be taking some value away from your site in terms of search engine traffic. That issue was fixed in August and Disqus comments are now properly indexed by search engines.

Second, Disqus couldn't handle trackbacks properly at launch. Eventually the the developers did roll out a trackback feature. But in order for trackbacks to show up on your site, anyone linking to a post had to use a special Disqus URL, not the URL of your post. Last night, Disqus rolled out a fix for WordPress, allowing Disqus to display all the trackbacks or pingbacks to your blog.

With this latest update, I can't think of many down sides to using Disqus at this point. At least for WordPress users. But there's the rub: WordPress 2.7 will likely have many of these same features built into the platform. No third party plugin necessary. Last month Automattic, the company that develops WordPress purchased Intense Debate, a company that competes with Disqus. And if you can give readers threaded comments, commentor rankings, the ability to register once and post on many blogs without installing a third party plugin like Disqus, why would you? It'll be interesting to see how Disqus works to differentiate itself from Intense Debate once WordPress 2.7 is released.

Automattic, the company behind the popular WordPress blog publishing software has acquired blog commenting service Intense Debate.

We've covered Intense Debate in the past. The service provides web publishers a replacement for the default comments systems supplied by WordPress, Blogger, and Moveable Type and other blog platforms. By installing the plugin, you get threaded comments, reputations, and other advanced features. And readers can track their own comments and those left by others across any blogs or web sites that use Intense Debate.

Intense Debate will continue to be available for use on blog platforms besides WordPress, but Automattic plans to add some features, like threaded comments to WordPress 2.7, which will be the company's next major release.

This can't come as good news for Disqus, another company that provides enhanced commenting features for bloggers. While Disqus has gotten a lot of good press over the last year, and has rolled out an impressive suite of blog comment management features, an awful lot of blogs are powered by WordPress. And pretty soon most of those blogs will have quick and easy access to Intense Debate's features, giving bloggers and blog commentors one less reason to sign up for another blog commenting service.

Disqus offers web publishers the ability to spruce up their comments sections with advanced features including threaded comments, avatars, and ratings. Perhaps the most significant advantage Disqus offers over the default Blogger, Wordpress, TypePad or Moveable Type comments features is the fact that users can sign up for one Disqus account and leave comments on thousands of blogs and web sites.

There's just one problem (for web publishers): Up until now, user comments were stored on Disqus servers, not on your web page. That means search engines didn't notice any information left in comments on your site, which could hurt your page rank. Today, Disqus took the first step to address this shortcoming with a new Wordpress plugin.

The new plugin is much more tightly integrated with Wordpress than the old version. First up, the comments are now indexable by search engines since they are stored both on your site and on Disqus servers. Second, it's now easier to import and export comments. And third, you can now moderate comments using the Wordpress Admin interface. No need to login to a separate web page. Improved plugins for other blog platforms should be coming soon.

The Disqus web site has also been redesigned to make it easier to navigate through comments. It's also easier to follow comments left by a particular user.

And the race for complete and total dominance of the blog comment marketplace is on. OK, not really, but Disqus isn't the only blog commenting system launching today. After spending a few months in private beta, Intense Debate is launching an open beta this morning.

Both Intense Debate and Disqus offer web publishers an advanced comment system with support for threaded comments and the ability to track users' comments. Both services also offer integration options with popular blog platforms like WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, and Moveable Type.

As a reader/commenter, you can subscribe to comments via email or RSS. And both services let you create a profile allowing you to see all the conversations you're currently participating in from one user-friendly screen.

Intense Debate is doing more than emerging from private beta today. The service has also added a few new features which set it apart from Disqus:

If you only read one website every day, it's probably not too difficult to keep on the conversation around various posts. Just leave a comment with your two cents and keep checking back to see if anyone's responded. Some sites will even let you subscribe to blog comments by e-mail.

But if you read and comment on dozens or hundreds of blogs on a regular basis, this can get a bit tedious. A few months ago we reported on Intense Debate, a new startup that tackles this problem by providing a unified commenting platform. Sign up for an account, and you can easily track all of your conversations on various blogs. You can even syndicate your blog comments as an RSS feed.

Now it looks like Intense Debate has some competition from Disqus, a company launching a similar service today. Like Intense Debate, Disqus has several components. Web publishers can incorporate Disqus into their blog or website to offer advanced commenting features like threading and avatars. And users can create profiles to track their comments across various sites.