Wizard's Blog

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Since IntenseDebate was bought by Automattic (makers of WordPress), they've been in private beta upgrading their infrastructure.

A couple days ago they came out of private beta with a new WordPress plugin.

The new plugin seems to overlap a lot with the features of the Disqus v2 plugin:

• Comment sync - comments are stored in WordPress as well as the external service so you don't lose them if you stop using IntenseDebate
• Search Engine Optimization - comments are served by PHP same as the rest of your blog rather than added dynamically using JavaScript.  This means that they can be indexed by search engines same as the rest of your site
• Comment threading - puts replies to comments in a logical tree structure rather than a long list
• Comment voting and reputation - helps you identify good comments and commenters
• Comment moderation by email - lets you reply to and moderate comments from anywhere you have email access
• Trackbacks and Pingbacks are handled

Where the IntenseDebate plugin seems to exceed the Disqus one is in better integration with the WordPress admin page and widgets.

I've been using the Disqus v2 plugin since it was released so at the moment I don't think I'll be switching to IntenseDebate, but due to their newfound close relationship with WordPress they may provide better features and integration, in which case I'll reconsider. 

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