VentureBeat reports that Automattic, provider of WordPress blogs, has acquired social commenting application Intense Debate. [Update - IntenseDebate has a post about this]. As a blogger on WordPress.com, I welcome this. I’ve seen the power of Disqus for other blogs, and I’ve wanted it here. But there wasn’t a way to add Disqus to WordPress.
In an earlier post, Could WordPress.com Create a Disqus Killer?, I wrote about what would happen if WordPress enabled a similar social commenting system. Here’s a quote from that post:
Imagine if a lot of those folks streamed their comments into FriendFeed. The viral nature of FriendFeed would be an accelerator on that volume. A WordPress.com commenting system would dwarf disqus.
WordPress.com has the built-in advantage of already hosting millions of blogs and comments. Disqus is still in its infancy in acquiring new blogs.
If Automattic is serious about this, they should enable a new commenting system to work on non WordPress.com blogs as well. As a blog reader, once you have a profile set up, you’d like to use it everywhere.
Interesting to see where this leads.
*****
See this post on FriendFeed: http://friendfeed.com/search?q=who%3Aeveryone+WordPress+Acquires+Just+Got+Big+Competition
This has the potential to be huge. If the millions of wordpress.com blogs out there get the ability to turn on ID at the flick of a virtual switch, that’s big!
No wonder Daniel was really nervous yesterday.
Comment by eng1ne — September 23, 2008 @ 10:11 am
This certainly could be a game changer. If WordPress moves fast, they could really stomp out the other guys, however I doubt they really have the fire to do it, I bet the Disqus team is certainly formulating a strategy today.
Comment by Caleb Elston — September 23, 2008 @ 10:28 am
Engine,
Agreed, the sheer scale of it is incredible. We are talking 8 million Wp.com and WP.org blogs, plus the thousands ID already has. There will be no one in the same neighborhood when it comes to numbers or adoption.
Caleb,
I think it will be interesting to see how Disqus approaches this. Personally, I think this is a checkmate situation for Disqus, JS-Kit, and others. They will have to find their niche. With ID on the top two blog platforms, there survival is certainly in question.
Comment by Paul — September 23, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
Phil, Caleb, Paul – yup
Comment by Hutch Carpenter — September 23, 2008 @ 8:40 pm
[...] that said, however, there’s little doubt that this is going to put some pressure on Disqus. WordPress is undoubtedly going to integrate Intense Debate into its [...]
Pingback by Things just got tough for Disqus — mathewingram.com/work — September 24, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
No two ways about it… Disqus is now officially under massive pressure. Daniel Ha is a legend — I love his energy — but, gee, he’s got his work cut out for him now.
-Alister
Comment by Alister Cameron — September 25, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
Nice blog btw
Comment by jthsmits — November 12, 2008 @ 1:43 pm