IntenseDebate Archive

Earlier today, Automattic announced that they acquired blog commenting service IntenseDebate. We’ve covered IntenseDebate a number of times including a technical interview on HTMLCenter. I was able to grab a couple of minutes with marketing director Michael Koenig and he agreed to answer some questions regarding the acquisition. The conversation is below.

Allen: Were you shopping for an acquisition when Automattic came calling?

Michael: We were not actively shopping for a sale. We believe that IntenseDebate has a very solid value proposition and were quite optimistic about our chances of success in the market. The opportunity to join the Automattic team, however, clearly accelerated our ability to put IntenseDebate in front of a much wider audience. It’s not everyday that you’re given such a great opportunity for quick, large-scale growth!

Allen: What synergies do you see with being part of the Automattic family?

Michael: Our goals have always been to enhance the commenting experience and provide the tools for blog publishers to benefit from insightful comments made around their posts. Joining the Automattic team gives us the chance to quickly integrate our value with all the Automattic products like Gravatar, Akismet, and of course WordPress. We’re pumped to hop onboard and help improve life in the blogosphere on a much, much larger scale. In addition, having access to the Automattic team’s expertise in scaling is invaluable as we look to improve IntenseDebate.

Michael: All around it’s exciting times here at IntenseDebate. Joining Automattic provides us with the opportunity to put IntenseDebate in front of more eyes than ever before. You can expect more blog readers to have IntenseDebate accounts and you will be able to comment on more blogs with IntenseDebate than you can imagine! It’s the perfect time to give us a try on your blog or website.

Allen: Can you share any financial details of the transaction?

Michael: Currently we’re not disclosing this information.

Allen: Will IntenseDebate remain in Colorado or will ya’all move to the Valley?

Michael: What’s amazing about the Automattic team is that they’ve got incredible talent spread across the globe. With that in mind, pull out the push-pins and add two more to the Automattic map. Co-founder and design wizard, Isaac Keyet, will be representin’ IntenseDebate out in Sweden for the time being, while we’ll be hanging out in Boulder, Colorado. We’re extremely proud to be part of the Boulder tech community and can’t imagine being away from TechStars and the great friends we’ve made.

Allen: How do you think this positions you against competitors Disqus and JS-Kit?

Michael: Our market is moving very quickly, as are our competitors. We firmly believe IntenseDebate is a comment system that brings valuable and insightful comments out of the muck of comment spam and into the light. The Automattic deal clearly gives us the opportunity to continue this on a much larger stage and at an accelerated rate. It’s about to get even more interesting!

Allen: How long do you expect this new private beta period to last?

Michael: IntenseDebate has been put back into a private beta while we ramp up our hardware and get ready for the main stage. While it’s always tough to give an ETA on something like this, the really irritating but necessary answer is; “as long as it takes to make sure the experience is a beneficial as possible for all our users.”

Michael: While, we don’t expect it to be too long – a week, two weeks…again, our goal is to make sure the value of the user experience is paramount and superior. We will be extending a limited but growing number of invitations as we proceed. I wouldn’t be surprised if we launch our shiny new WordPress plugin when we go live!

Allen: Will IntenseDebate become integrated into the installation of self-hosted Wordpress?

Michael: Certain elements of IntenseDebate will be rolled into WordPress Core, and WordPress.com. I recommend checking out Matt Mullenweg’s post IntenseDebate Goes Automattic for further details.

[My response aside, Matt comments: Going forward, the plan is to keep Intense Debate available as a platform-agnostic independent service, much like Akismet. We’ll start to integrate its features into WordPress core, WordPress.com, and Gravatar as appropriate. For example, comment threading is going to be in WordPress 2.7, but reply by email is a lot easier to implement on a hosted service like WordPress.com. We’re also going to be able to lend our expertise in scaling to the ID team to make sure their users enjoy the same hassle-free speed and bulletproof availability as users of other Automattic services.]

Allen: What’s next now that you are part of the Automattic family?

Michael: For all of us here, IntenseDebate is clearly our baby. We’ve always dreamt of an opportunity like this. Our goal now at IntenseDebate is clearly to maximise the value that we can provide across the entire spectrum of the Automattic offerings. I know that Jon and Isaac are blown away by the thought that something they created and worked on tirelessly now has the potential to reach millions of people – as are Tom, Austin and I. It’s pretty wild!

So what’s next? This is just the beginning. IntenseDebate is about to get way more intense!

Less than a day after Disqus announced the launch of their updated Wordpress plugin, blog comment replacement service IntenseDebate is out with their own. The IntenseDebate update will ship in private beta mode this weekend with a public release shortly thereafter says ID.

The updated IntenseDebate Wordpress plugin features a better admin control panel along with full data synchronization. This means that comments entered in IntenseDebate will also be sent to the core Wordpress install. This means that you can test IntenseDebate without the fear of losing comments should you decide to leave at a later point.

They have also updated the main IntenseDebate site with a "Swedish" look and feel they say. And there’s also updated Akismet spam protection. 

Check out our interview with IntenseDebate co-founder Jon Fox and our technical interview with developer Austin Hallock on our sister site HTMLCenter.

We’ve written about all of the new blog comment replacement services over the past few months. I recently had a chance to interview IntenseDebate developer Austin Hallock on our sister blog HTMLCenter. Below is an interview discussing the business side of IntenseDebate with co-founder Jon Fox.

Allen: Can we start with a brief bio?

Jon Fox: I’m 23 years old and originally from Illinois. I have a BS in Math and Computer Science from Illinois College and am about 3 classes away from a Masters in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis. I started programming when I was 10 years old and have loved it ever since. I’m also that guy that was obsessed with stories of great entrepreneurs growing up and completely fascinated by the web startup scene in particular.

Allen: How do you describe the Intense Debate service?

Jon: IntenseDebate is a replacement to your stock comment system on blogs and websites. We provide a tool to better facilitate community and interaction by adding loads of new features. Some of my favorites include Reply-by-email (reply to a comment by replying in email to the email notification), threading, voting, universal profiles, reputation, and the ability to track a user and/or topic across blogs.

Allen: Why did you decide to start Intense Debate?

Jon: IntenseDebate was originally started as a 1-on-1 debate site. Users would pair up, make 5 statements each, and then the rest of the community could vote on a winner (as well as comment on the debate). We realized, however, that there were already debates and other great discussions happening all over the web, but the tools were completely inadequate (and hadn’t really ever changed). We ended up moving to put our emphasis on this problem instead, and the IntenseDebate you now know was born.

Allen: What’s the team look like?

Jon: We’re a team of 6 at the moment.

• CEO – Tom Keller
• Graphics/Design – Isaac Keyet
• Voice of the users – Michael Koenig
• Software Engineer – Austin Hallock
• Software Engineer – Mehmet Alkanlar And of course myself, CTO

Allen: What’s your selling pitch for why I should switch my commenting platform to ID?

Jon: We provide a system to help facilitate community and improve interactions among visitors. Many of our users have told us they’ve noticed an increase in both pageviews and the number of comments after installing us. Our enhanced comment system allows the visitors to be more engaged and have a better experience when getting involved in the discussion that the site generates. More and more it’s the comments and discussion around the original content that is becoming important, valuable, and meaningful. We just provide tools to make that experience better for both the publisher and the visitors.

Allen: What’s your take on the SEO issue with regards to using a service like ID?

Jon: This issue is really important to some of our users, and as such it’s an issue we’ll be addressing shortly.

Allen: Why should I trust ID with my data, my users, etc. Can I grab my data anytime I want?

Jon: We get this question a lot, and there’s a couple points to make here. The majority of our users already trust 3rd parties with the data around their blog (posts, users, and even comments). We work very hard to ensure your data is safe. Comments are our life. The truth is we offer more protection than most of our users who store copies of the data themselves.

All that aside, however, we do understand that many users want to have that data in their own hands. As a result, we do offer the ability to export your comments at any time.

Allen: How do you compare ID to other commenting services like those offered by JS-Kit and Disqus?

Jon: There are obviously many similarities. I’m not familiar enough to give a feature by feature comparison, but I know many of our users have told us they like our design/ui and our data migration features more than that of our competitors.

Allen: Can you explain your business model?

Jon: We’re still very young and primarily focused on distribution at the moment. We’re looking into several revenue possibilities including white labeling and opt-in ad revenue shares for the future.

Allen: Do you find that being located outside of the Valley is an advantage, a disadvantage or neither?

Jon: I think at different times it is one or the other. For example, we do find ourselves visiting the Valley to discuss partnerships and other opportunities with other companies in that area. Obviously this would be a lot simpler if we were in the Valley instead. However, the community here in Boulder has been great. People here really want to help each other and it has a very different feel to it than what I’ve experienced in the Valley. In this sense I think it’s been a real advantage for us to be here.

Allen: What’s coming next from Intense Debate?

Jon: We’ve got a lot of exciting stuff coming up in the next month or two. Most of these enhancements will revolve around data migration and getting better integrated into the blogging platforms to make the experience for our publishers as easy and seamless as possible.

Allen: What tips do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Jon: I would say two things. First, find yourself a mentor, or at least a friend in the business that can help to get you hooked in. If you don’t know anybody yet, reach out to a handful. My experience is that these people are generally more than willing to help, and happy to bring someone new into the mix.

Second, don’t be afraid to just dive in. I realize not everyone can do this, but it’s really hard to go half way into the startup lifestyle. Recruiting a team, raising money, building a product, etc all require lots of time and effort and you really can’t do it only on the weekend. It’s a bit scary at first, but once you get in it’s tough to believe you’ve lived any other way.