The hosted comments market is definitely heating up. Part of it is blog owners wanting some control over who comments without requiring visitors to create yet another login. A bigger part, I think, is the growth of Tumblr, which is becoming popular — even with people that already have a blog — but does not have its own commenting system. Regardless of the reason, there’s already a number of players in this market, including Disqus, TypePad Connect, and IntenseDebate.
Now, IntenseDebate has announced an interesting new feature: plugins. With their new plugin API, developers can add new functionality to any site using IntenseDebate. To get things started, they’ve released plugins for embedding polls, videos, and smiley icons. This is a good start, but it will be interesting to see what outside developers create for the platform.
What do you think? Does this make you more interested in trying IntenseDebate? Would you want this kind of functionality in your comments?
i can’t install it on blogger blog >_<
cool application will definately improve debates