With the success of the JS-Kit Commenting System “Echo”  it was only a matter of time before the company took on the name full time. Now JS-Kit will be known from this point forward as “Echo.”

Echo provides blog owners with a ton of customizable information, including “Whirlpools” which automatically consolidate conversations, a “pause” feature which provides the ability to pause dynamic streams, “slipstreams” which can divide out comments and gestures, ensuring commenting doesn’t become jumbled up. Then of course there’s the company “Social Likes” option which actually provides a user avatar with the likes screen, adding a sense of community to the users commenting.

The customization of realtime streams will first be implemented on several of the companies core customer sites including: CBS/CNet, Discovery News, Dow Jones Local Media Group, Hearst Digital News, The Press Enterprise, CanWest, Technorati and KQED (an NPR and PBS affiliate).

In terms of numbers, Echo publishers on a conference call today mentioned that some of their commenting was up by 10x for some highly engaged articles, with an average of two to three time increases in user engagement.

The Echo team also mentioned that the time of engagement has increased for many sites, Inquisitr included, as users tend to engage more actively when comments are provided in any type of real-time format.

They’ve also found that many sites end up with active conversations within the commenting system, sometimes which actually provide more information than the original content being commented upon, another aspect that helps ensure longer on-site times and therefore stronger user engagement.

So how important is Echo to today’s website owners. Here’s a comment from The Press Enterprise:

“Echo challenges the notion that comments are static, isolated events.  Echo Streams liberate the ‘comment’ with thoughts from social web and a dynamic conversation that encourages participation and sharing.”

While Down Jones Local Media group Product Manager Sean Polay added

“Echo is the nexus for community conversation regardless of where it takes place is truly leveraging the strengths of the medium and exactly where we need to be as a digital content provider and engager.”

If you haven’t tried out Echo yet, it’s a great time to be a part of their innovations and we expect to see plenty more from their team.

Update: For the time-being you can still find the system at JS-Kit.com with a new site to be named at a later date.

JS-Kit Officially Renamed Echo, Continues To Innovate With Real-Time Commenting System is a post from: The Inquisitr

Third party comment platform provider JS-Kit (we use it here at The Inquisitr) has shipped a new version of the service. Among the new stuff is the ability to use your Friendfeed information as a login as well as having your comment automatically posted to Friendfeed.

In a post to the company’s blog Chris Saad outlines the new stuff as well as fixes and improvements for the platform. One of the other new options is the Comments in a Pop-up which will let you pop out the comments on a post and follow along with any real-time conversation for the comment.

Other updates from the last month

Bugfix – Ban manager is not showing Banned users in the Ban list
Polish – Yahoo and OpenID login windows made smaller/neater
Bugfix – Improve the JS-Kit logo with Transparent PNG
Feature – Added “Via Tag” on Items
Feature – Event supplier: JS class for delivering real-time events from server
Feature – Mini Profile on hover over of avatars or usernames
Feature – “From” field for the new “Leave a comment” form
Feature – Inline/Popup comments
Feature – Paypal integration for pricing page/install workflow
Bugfix – Blogger sync improved to install stalling if it encounters a comment with too many characters
Bugfix – Support for WordPress’ inconsistent data in post’s GUID attribute
Polish – Temporary warning and route to support for WordPress blogs with large comment databases
Bugfix – Tool for draining RabbitMQ backup queues for suspended comment syncs
Bugfix – OAuth-based sync can fail by network/timeout error
Bugfix – Step 2 of Blogger Install Wizard cannot display more than 25 blogs
Bugfix – Blogger wizard doesn’t normalize site names
Feature – Ability for users to login and publish to FriendFeed
Bugfix – Blogger import does not set correct account settings for the site
Site Change – Site Changes for Echo Public Launch
Polish – Admin dashboard updates to support payment workflow
Bugfix – Yaws is not restarted on crashes
Bugfix – Can only open main profile 1-3 times in IE6/7
Polish – Update JS-Kit favicon in the From field
Polish – Update text message shown to user when registration is required to reflect latest user experience
Feature – Allow admin users to turn login options on and off
Bugfix – TinyMCE works incorrect under certain page layout/div configurations
Polish – Support for WhiteLabel on the Echo skin
Bugfix – EPB ‘owner’ permission incorrectly behaves like a site moderator
Bugfix – There are no comment URLs in the moderation section
Bugfix – Temporarily override avatars=”false” until Gravatar support is improved
Bugfix – IE 6/7 users are not able to comment on the Comment Form
Feature – New Admin Panel Message – Echo Release Notification
Bugfix – Comments/Echo is rendering in German in the latest FF
Bugfix – Under certain conditions, comment data seems to repeat
Bugfix – Under some conditions, comment count incorrectly returns 0
Feature – New version of EPB
Polish – Improved help text on admin dashboard for user blocking/banning
Feature – Make “Echo” the new default template for all new users
Feature – Added a white Background to the Echo Stream
Bugfix – Under some conditions, moderation commands from the admin dashboard were not committing
Feature – Echo event counter to update with event updates (real-time counter)
Feature – Moved action scripts for comments widget to erlang (internal changes)
Feature – Comments – Follow and Add images panel
Bugfix – Possible vulnerability in our sites management (no we wont tell you what it was hah)
Bugfix – In some cases when there is more than one JS-Kit widget on a page, we return incorrect permission information
Task – Merge From/To, Miniprofile and Follow panel into Production/Echo
Bugfix – Prevent automatic reply loop in reply-by-mail
Bugfix – Authentication form layout issues
Feature – Update OAuth client to support spec v.1.0a
Bugfix – Blogger gadget display glitches in IE associated with the Blogger login event
Feature – “To” field for the new “Leave a comment” form
Bugfix – Current EPB implementation ignores wrong “mac” value
Bugfix – Ratings. Server error if rating’s path attribute has a percent sign
Bugfix – Unable to cancel authorization prompt
Bugfix – Advisor – JSKitLib usage refactoring
Bugfix – In some cases, EPB information is lost by polls widget
Bugfix – In some cases, Domain attribute dosen’t work correctly for ratings widget
Bugfix – Subsection Moderation is not supported if the section is defined by Uniq rather than Path
Bugfix – Login process does not complete in Safari 3-4
Bugfix – Repeated WordPress imports result in duplicate sync_peer_X fields
Bugfix – Invalid error message when trying to upload a non existing image file – Reports ‘File too large’ rather than ‘File not found’
Bugfix – Glitch adding new comment with profile open.
Feature – Automatic yaws restarts
Bugfix – Poll not working on GeoCities

JS-Kit Echo commenting platform updated is a post from: The Inquisitr

As of a few hours ago, comments here on The Inquisitr are powered by JS-Kit’s new Echo commenting and social aggregation service.

It’s not without a little bit of irony that after criticizing JS-Kit last year that they’re now supplying our comment platform. JS-Kit this time last year was a company that tended to lash out at competitors, something I still believe was unbecoming of a company that at its core is a community player in the social media scene. 12 months though is a long time, and JS-Kit has changed its tune and instead relies on innovation and selling itself to the market without attacking others in the space today.

Why change?

We’ve been mostly happy users of Disqus since very early on in The Inquisitr’s history. It was, and still is a good platform for comments. However there has been issues, particularly relating to spam. For weeks now I’ve had to spend time every morning deleting spam, blocking and marking it as I go, but it still got through. Spam is an issue on any site, but unfortunately Disqus has been doing a sub-standard job in picking it up. It wasn’t an issue with just The Inquisitr; other Disqus users I’ve spoken to confirmed that spam on Disqus is getting out of hand.

We looked at reverting back to native WordPress comments, however I’m still fond of the idea behind Disqus, IntenseDebate and JS-Kit: centralized comments, multiple comment options, and social service aggregation. Then JS-Kit’s Echo came along.

Echo offers a range of advantages over the competition, in particular live updating (good ol’ “Real Time Web”), additional aggregation options, and more depth in supported services. It’s an appealing package, and there’s only one way to test it, and that’s by using it.

So far, so good. We need to tweak the appearance on the page, but notably JS-Kit has placed spam missed by Disqus into moderation, and that’s got to be a good sign.

My thanks to Daniel Ha at Disqus for his previous assistance. Disqus still has a lot of potential, but I can’t help but think that Disqus is going through some growing pains at the moment. Competition is always good, and I hope Disqus get through the issues and go on to bigger and better things.

My thanks also to Chris Saad and Alex Peshkov at JS-Kit for setting Echo up for us.

Why we’re giving JS-Kit’s Echo a shot is a post from: The Inquisitr

In the biggest shakeup to hit the commenting 2.0 space so far, JS-Kit has announced the acquisition of rival SezWho.

The acquisition was made after SezWho was unable to raise a new round needed to continue operations.

Under the deal, SezWho will close down in 30 days, with publishers being offered the ability to transition to JS-Kit’s commenting platform. JS-Kit previously acquired smaller player Haloscan in July 2008, and signed a strategic partnership with coCommen in November.

The acquisition cements JS-Kit’s place as the largest commenting 2.0 provider, and offers further strength in its battle against the Automattic owned IntenseDebate, and the still independent Disqus.

And then there was three: JS-Kit acquires SezWho is a post from: The Inquisitr

Under the deal, coComment will automatically track comments from all sites using JS-Kit commenting on a opt-in/out basis, allowing users to follow comments on more than 600,000 sites. coComment will also offer JS-Kit commenting, rating, reviews and polls to its members.

Existing users of coComment’s comments engine will see no immediate difference, and will continue to be supported, although JS-Kit will eventually transition all existing coComment publishers to its platform.

coComment is announcing a new service call coComment PRO that will allow major publishers to understand and keep track of their brands. Comment data for the service will be supplied by JS-Kit.

It’s an interesting step for coComment, and nearly an abandoning of their original product for a primarily commercial focus. coComment CEO Matt Colebourne said the deal “allows us to focus on our core business of managing conversations for our users and providing our commercial customers with valuable information.”

coComment was the first comment tracking service launched, although the site has undergone a number of transitions since. For JS-Kit, it’s another win in the race to find new users in a still newish vertical with intense competition.

JS-Kit and coComment form Strategic Partnership is a post from: The Inquisitr

The AOL owned Userplane offers a variety of free and premium publisher tools, including message boards, chat, AIR applications and multimedia tools.

Userplane will offer JS-Kit’s Ratings service through Userplane’s distribution channels. JS-Kit will add Userplane’s Webchat application to its product offering. Combined the two companies will have a reach of over 900,000 registered publishers.

And so the battle for numbers continues in this space. JS-Kit announced $3.6 million in new funding October 14.

JS-Kit lands Userplane deal is a post from: The Inquisitr

New SezWho functionality includes four new profile templates, including support for popular threaded discussion formats. More importantly for site owners, SezWho now offers support for local CSS and JavaScript. Other new features include Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down ratings for posts, configurable pop-ups, improved support for filtering, support for multiple WordPress installations in a single database, and easier upgrading.

SezWho has also announced a new partnership with Instablogs, that will see SezWho bring reputation management and universal profiles and content to Instablog readers. Instablogs’ readers can now rate posts and user-generated content on Instablogs and across other SezWho-enabled social media sites, including blogs, discussion forums, and bulletin boards.

The new features will be a welcome addition to SezWho users, and help the service define itself in a competitive space. The deal with Instablogs sees SezWho now powering a number of leading blog networks, including Creative Webloging.

SezWho announces enhanced features, new partnership with Instablogs is a post from: The Inquisitr

JS-Kit said it would use the new round to expand its developer and executive team. The first hiring is Chris Saad, founder of Faraday Media (Particls) and the Co-Founder of the DataPortability Project.

Its money at the right time for JS-Kit, as the worst of the economic crisis is yet to fully understood in terms of direct impact on the sector. JS-Kit is well positioned compared to some competitors, offering a variety of site specific widgets on top of its commenting 2.0 service.

We’ve not been a huge fan of JS-Kit in the past. The company felt it necessary to trash talk their opponents when they acquired Haloscan in July, and a constant need to attack your competition in my books says more about the company making the attacks then it does about the target. Saad will add some charisma to the mix, and despite his young age, some reasonable street smarts in the PR 101 playbook.

JS-Kit gets $3.6 million, Chris Saad is a post from: The Inquisitr

The API itself has been is use for sometime, with an official WordPress plugin using the API instead of javascript to deliver SEO friendly commenting on WordPress blogs. We’ve been using the API plugin from the day with started using Disqus, and we have no complaints.

CEO Daniel Ha notes that developers can use the API to create import tools, export tools, or even a custom Disqus plugin for any platforms. This will allow users to create Disqus tools and plugins on platforms such as up and coming blogging platfrom Habari.

It’s a positive step forward for Disqus in the ongoing battle for users currently taking place between services in this space including JS-Kit, SezWho and the now Automattic owned Intense Debate.

Full documentation of the Disqus API can be found here.

Disqus releases a full public API is a post from: The Inquisitr

Voxant offers licensed videos from media outlets, including AP for use on websites. For bloggers the service also offers $7 CPM on ads shown with the videos, and attractive offering (we use them on occasion), although their catalog is not as extensive as competitor Clipsyndicate. Depending on the report, Voxant was either acquired or merged with Anystream, a provider of video encoding and content management to media companies including CNN and Sky. Financial details were not disclosed, but the statement from Anystream notes that the combined product will offer more content and become a leading playing the space.

Commenting 2.0 service Intense Debate, a competitor of Disqus, SezWho and JS-Kit but not widely used as it hasn’t yet launched (it’s still in closed beta) was acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress. Mashable reports that the deal will see Intense Debate rolled out across millions of blogs on the WordPress.com network, delivering the service a massive boost at a time all competitors are looking for more users.

Deals: Voxant, Intense Debate change hands is a post from: The Inquisitr

b5media’s entertainment blogs have long been the backbone of the network in terms of traffic, delivering millions of pages views by targeting niche verticals, such as dedicating blogs to specific stars and shows as opposed to offering one central blog. The network recently launched Starked.com as a portal for the entertainment sites and branding exercise for the blogs.

For SezWho, the b5media deal follows similar deals with Entrecard, Creative Weblogging and Izea in July and continues the arms race of numbers in the space where the various competitors are seeking to become the default commenting 2.0 service by having the biggest install base. In terms of exposure, the deal will expose SezWho to potentially millions of new users, although I am surprised the deal didn’t extend to b5media’s full network; perhaps it’s a try before they fully buy deal.

Disclosure: I am a founder of b5media, although I have no relationship with the company today, nor did I discuss this post with anyone within b5media prior to publication.

SezWho lands b5media entertainment blogs is a post from: The Inquisitr

One of the most common arguments against using Disqus has been the hosted nature of the service, with comments residing on Disqus alone without a local copy. The new Disqus confronts the criticism head on, by offering a new API driven WordPress plugin that stores comments locally as well as on Disqus itself. The feature allows users to try Disqus at any time then leave the service without every having to worry about comment storage. Disqus CEO Daniel Ha tells me that there is has been a great emphasis in the new version of making sure that comments on each blog can be seen by search engines, delivering a completely SEO friendly package.

The new Disqus offers automatic data sync between Disqus and the local database so blogs are never out of date, seamless import/export of old and new comments allowing users to embrace Disqus in full on existing blogs, and the ability to moderate comments from within WordPress itself.

The Disqus site has undergone a large reorganization and redesign to be more intuitive, useful, and accessible. Users now have immediate access to their (and friends) comments to track and manage the discussion.

In the added or improved list includes adding moderators, setting permissions, block lists and comment system configuration.

In an interesting new offering, user profiles can now act as comment blogs. Comments are displayed as blog entries with appropriate context so people can share their contributions on other sites with friends and fans.

Disqus has found strong support in a competitive market that includes Sezwho, Intense Debate and JS-Kit. Disqus is now used on over 30,000 sites, and Ha believes that with the new features and emphasis on a strong API and local data retention that this figure will continue to grow.

The last excuse for you not to try Disqus has just been hit on the head.

Disqus responds to critics: local comment hosting is a post from: The Inquisitr

JS-Kit isn’t often collectively bundled with the Disqus, Sezwho and Intense Debate as its commenting tools are offered along side a range of other inline blogging tools, including polls, ratings (placing it against Outbrain) and some in-blog referral tools. The move to acquire Haloscan would seeminly indicate that JS-Kit is getting more serious about its commenting platform at a time the 2.0 commenting market is heating up.

Venturebeat (also source on the news here) reports that JS-Kit took the opportunity to trash talk Disqus, saying that “Disqus hosts comments on its own servers and site and in so doing, takes away all the benefits that comments could have on a blog’s search engine ranking.” While Disqus does hosts comments on its own servers, comments can be seen in search engines when users use the API based plugin, one of the biggest selling points for me when I decided to go with Disqus to power comments on this blog.

But why the need for trash talk at all? Isn’t one of the 2.0 fundamentals that we can all get along?

I know when I considered joining a 2.0 comment service that one of the things that impressed me immensely (and it still does) about Disqus was not only Disqus founder Daniel Ha’s commitment to reaching out to me during the consideration process, but also his ability to respond to my concerns with positive responses about his own product without the need to belittle competing products in the process. I’ve also seen Daniel respond continually when criticism has arisen by embracing the criticism and challenging himself (and Disqus) to do better. The product isn’t perfect, and yes, there is always room for improvement, but Disqus continues to grow for the better, while being trasnsparent, open and friendly in the broader space. I can even remember Sezwho trash talking Disqus, and Daniel responded with an open invite to Sezwho on possible interoperability and never once denigrated Sezwho in return (that I’m aware of).

As competition between personal services in this space continues, and when the feature set from one service to the next is fairly close, I know I’m more likely to consider a service provider when and where they are positive players in the space, selling the merits of their service based on their service, without trash talking others. This may not always be the case (particularly for large, non-blog related services), but if I’m putting a service on a blog I own, it’s something that makes a great selling point for me, and as I talk to others, I hear similar positions as well.

JS-Kit acquires HaloScan, but why trash talk Disqus? is a post from: The Inquisitr