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]

Less than two months after being acquired by WordPress's parent company Automattic, blog commenting system Intense Debate is again available to the public. The service had been in private beta for the last two months, not because the company was busy adding a ton of new features, but because it was busy scaling Intense Debate's infrastructure to handle the additional traffic that is likely to come when WordPress starts to include Intense Debate features by default.

For now, Intense Debate is rolling out a new plugin for WordPress that adds the following features to your web site:

• Threaded comments
• The ability to vote on comments and show comment reputations
• Simultaneously post a comment to a blog and Twitter
• Replly to comments and moderate comments by email
• Commentor profiles can include links to social networking pages
• Ability to add sidebar widgets with information on things like your top commentors

Intense Debate also works with Blogger, TypePad, and Tumblr.

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.

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: