It’s been a little bit of time since we last heard from IntenseDebate – and to be quite honest, I wonder what’s really going on over there at times.
A few years ago there was a huge growth of 3rd party commenting platforms, all boasting crazy features that would blow your mind if you just took the time to install them. I know, I tried every single one of them at one point, even the ones that required you to pay for the service.
But it seems that the amount of innovation or at least attention to comment systems have waned a bit and unless you’re doing something like with Moot where you’re combining comments and forums it seems that the wild west of commenting apps has been won, or at least for now.
And unfortunately it doesn’t seem that IntenseDebate won out.
I’m not trying to knock the service entirely – I used it for a long time, but I’m simply basing that perspective on the fact that I don’t see many blogs using the service at all. In fact, I haven’t seen one in a long, long time.
I see far more blogs using LiveFyre or Disqus or even the Jetpack commenting system – you would have thought that after Automattic acquired IntenseDebate 5 years ago (wow, that long?!) that they would have promoted the crap out of it, even offering it as a native upgrade for WordPress.com users to choose from.
But it’s not and I think there was an opportunity lost in the shuffle. I don’t want to chalk this up to an acquisition-gone-south but I wonder what’s baking over there in the IntenseDebate kitchen? An announcement post about WP.com Connect integration is pretty neat but nothing ground-breaking; I’d love to see it come back with some serious energy and knock Disqus and LiveFyre off their pedestals, or at least make a go at it.
Shake things up a bit. Pivot. Create some noise. And don’t quit because we need options and choices out there to keep the other competitors on their toes. Convince us here to use it!
Oh, and please keep us informed on all progress, even if it’s not “that” big of a deal!
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