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News Development Product Features Tips and Tutorials Resources Customer Stories
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News Development Product Features Tips and Tutorials Resources Customer Stories

Automattic Acquires Intense Debate

September 23, 2008  ·  Updated on March 6, 2025  ·  1 min read

POSTED BY

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Matt

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I’m pleased to announce that Intense Debate is now an Automattic joint.

Intense Debate is a richly interactive comment system that includes cool features like threading, reply by email, voting, reputation, and global profiles.

For more details on the product and our plans, check out my blog, Toni’s blog, and Jon’s blog at Intense Debate.

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218 Comments

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Newer Comments »
  1. alejna's avatar alejna Sep 23rd at 6:09 pm

    Cool beans. I can’t wait to see where you guys go with this.

  2. Pingback: Automattic Acquires IntenseDebate « Wir sprechen Online.
  3. Hurricane's avatar Ry Cooder Sep 23rd at 6:13 pm

    Cool!
    Keep workin’ guys!

  4. bentoet's avatar bentoet Sep 23rd at 6:16 pm

    Very great!! Brilliant idea..

  5. legoless's avatar legoless Sep 23rd at 6:16 pm

    Cool! I can’t wait.

  6. Paul Roman's avatar Paul Roman Sep 23rd at 6:24 pm

    Great !

  7. Mr.Rockmantico's avatar Mr.Rockmantico Sep 23rd at 6:24 pm

    Good system It’s very interesting, It’s cool 😉

  8. David Osbon's avatar dmosbon Sep 23rd at 6:25 pm

    Does that mean we’ll see this incorporated into wordpress.com settings?

  9. Pingback: Bättre kommentarssystem på gång för WordPress
  10. admin's avatar domestic empire Sep 23rd at 6:31 pm

    Sounds good (“;) You intend to integrate it as a core feature of WordPress I presume? Do you have a time frame in mind?

  11. Heather M.'s avatar Heather Sep 23rd at 6:32 pm

    @domestic empire: There isn’t an official roll-out date now. Keep an eye out for more updates 🙂

  12. Pingback: Unknown's avatar IntenseDebate acquisita da Automattic
  13. Chittaranjan's avatar Chittaranjan Sep 23rd at 6:38 pm

    Wow! “Intense” news this :mrgreen:

    Congrats!

  14. Gerrit Eicker's avatar Gerrit Eicker Sep 23rd at 6:42 pm

    Great news!

  15. club penguin's avatar ojoc Sep 23rd at 6:45 pm

    Thats cool to hear!

  16. Armando Netto's avatar Armando Netto Sep 23rd at 6:46 pm

    Very Nice!

    Thankz to wordpress guys.

  17. Yasir Imran's avatar Yasir Imran Sep 23rd at 6:50 pm

    Wow that is great feature, like a forum software
    Surely I need to check out these blogs
    Thanks 🙂

  18. Masterclass Lady's avatar masterclasslady Sep 23rd at 6:58 pm

    Thanks so much WordPress. I just signed up.

  19. ismailimail's avatar ismailimail Sep 23rd at 7:03 pm

    Excellent. How soon is it coming to WordPress.com?

  20. T3CK's avatar Teck Sep 23rd at 7:18 pm

    Cool It’s Christmas around here lately. 🙂

    Also Thanks for the update

  21. Staff's avatar Jackson Sep 23rd at 7:24 pm

    Awesome guys! I just love ya…

  22. Agus Ciptosantoso's avatar draguscn Sep 23rd at 7:26 pm

    can’t wait to see the change

  23. djchiclet's avatar djchiclet Sep 23rd at 7:40 pm

    This sounds cool! I can’t wait to hear more about it… like when we can incorporate the features into our blogs. Thanks WordPress!!!

  24. maikelneris's avatar maikelneris Sep 23rd at 7:55 pm

    I hope this service can be installed in my self-hosted WordPress!!!

  25. mclearskin's avatar mclearskin Sep 23rd at 8:00 pm

    Good news. Thank you.

  26. commontater's avatar commontater Sep 23rd at 8:10 pm

    Kewl, man! Especially if you incorporate this feature into WordPress.com blogs..heh heh

  27. Philip Arthur Moore's avatar bigsquaredot Sep 23rd at 8:14 pm

    Congrats gang. Keep up the good work.

  28. gap's avatar gap Sep 23rd at 8:24 pm

    Fantastic!!!!

  29. jewaira's avatar jewaira Sep 23rd at 8:32 pm

    Just what we need to facilitate discussions / replies on blogs. Great idea.

  30. junaidalee's avatar afifashah Sep 23rd at 8:34 pm

    Looks like WP is going towards a full blown Social Network in nice easy manner….

  31. Pingback: Sistema de debate no seu blog em breve | Maikel Neris - guru Wordpress (título auto proclamado)
  32. PhilB's avatar raydacteur Sep 23rd at 8:36 pm

    voting … that would be really cool !

  33. Nick's avatar Nick Sep 23rd at 8:39 pm

    Nice! Looking forward to this new feature on WordPress.com.

  34. s0cialmind's avatar s0cialmind Sep 23rd at 8:41 pm

    Nice, there’s massive room for improvement in this kind of service

  35. Daniel Florien's avatar Daniel Florien Sep 23rd at 8:58 pm

    This is excellent. One of the big things WordPress is missing is threaded comments. Can’t wait for that!

  36. Sam Page's avatar Sam Page Sep 23rd at 9:02 pm

    Awesome. I am happy to see WordPress continuing to evolve to the emerging demands and innovations of the rest of the blogosphere.

  37. drcorner's avatar drcorner Sep 23rd at 9:09 pm

    After reading the way ID worked, and how it would be implemented on WP’s various platforms/services, I can’t wait…like I said in an earlier Announcement post, you guys are really cranking out the big-guns in Sept. this Year. Great job!

    Can’t wait for the Comments’ Face-Lifts to come.

  38. David Ker's avatar David Ker Sep 23rd at 9:36 pm

    Can we have it yesterday?

  39. Odette Herbert's avatar hoh Sep 23rd at 9:49 pm

    che?

    > Automattic Acquires Intense Debate?

    automatic what?

    >I’m pleased to announce that Intense Debate is now an Automattic joint.

    are these yet more new themes?!

    blogging at word press is no monkey business alas

    hard to debate when you don’t know what the bleep anyone is talking about!

    really don’t want to have to go to all those other sites to have to read a mountain of stuff to try to work out what your saying
    maybe heather could help here – as the deputy communicator – to put yr speak into ordinary speak?!

    unless this announcement is only aimed at geeks and their ilk

  40. dc's avatar Arpit Shah Sep 23rd at 9:50 pm

    Awesome news.. Keep rocking..

  41. Heather M.'s avatar Heather Sep 23rd at 9:50 pm

    @hoh: But web surfing is so fun 🙂 Automattic is the company behind WordPress. Intense Debate, as mentioned, is a commenting service. Check out Matt’s post for more details.

  42. trollboy's avatar trollboy Sep 23rd at 9:53 pm

    sweet. it’ll be like having mini forums

  43. netsolns's avatar netsolns Sep 23rd at 10:19 pm

    I hope it has templates. Nearly all comments so far are like “Cool”, “Great”. Why not have template responses and have readers pick these instead of typing. Or add these in their typing. Or maybe add these as a classification. So the header of each comment look like Gravatar, name, thinks (template), actual comment.

  44. AA's avatar arif Sep 23rd at 10:42 pm

    Interesting. I hope you would enable a feature to allow people to receive blog posts via email (not just the comments, as I’m assuming, which will be enabled after this upgrade). The third-party solution for receiving blog posts via email is not satisfactory (feed burner or what have you), I only wish WordPress has it’s own email solution for visitors to receive email notifications when blogger makes new blog posts.

  45. Mai's avatar sensico Sep 23rd at 11:12 pm

    Are, you freaking kidding me, this is great. I am kind of curious, you say,

    For more details on the product and our plans, check out my blog, Toni’s blog, and Jon’s blog at Intense Debate.

    So does that suggest that we have to pay in order to get this feature, because if thats the case, then this poor college student de-clines…

  46. Heather M.'s avatar Heather Sep 23rd at 11:13 pm

    @sensico: Nope! This feature will be free, just like Akismet. Check out Matt’s blog post for more details.

  47. Bee's avatar Brigitte Sep 23rd at 11:14 pm

    Fancy! Thanks! ;3

  48. Pingback: Intense Debate Now Automattic « Changing Way
  49. ClapSo's avatar ClapSo Sep 23rd at 11:35 pm

    I looked at Intense Debate and considered using it on my blog months ago. I am not a fan of parts of it. I don’t like the “ruputation” and voting up and down on comments feature. I would prefer that anyone who takes issue with another readers comment answer with a full comment of their own, not simply vote up or down.

    As Intense Debate is probably eventually going to become a new feature here on WP I would hope that we bloggers will be able to choose whether it replaces the current comment feature we use here on WP on our own blogs. Unless the vote up or down feature can be disabled on my blog, I would very much prefer not to have Intense Debate as the comment feature on my blog. The voting feature makes it far too easy for gangs of cyberbully trolls to harass commenters.

    We all love comments on our blogs, but I don’t want to wind up becoming the admin of a chat room. On a couple of occasions I have had to smooth the ruffled feathers of commenters who rubbed each other wrong in comments on my blog. This is not something I like having to do, and I worry that Intense Debate would increase the likelihood of such happening in future.

    I have seen this kind of cyberwar stuff on several other blogs and it seems to happen the most on blogs that use threaded comment features like Intense Debate.

    Thanks in advance for giving us the widest choice possible when it comes to the comment feature…

  50. Heather M.'s avatar Heather Sep 23rd at 11:37 pm

    @ClapSo: Intense Debate features will be incorporated, rather than turned on outright. Reputation points and comment voting are actually ways to encourage quality comments. If you have further suggestions as new features are rolled out, please feel free to contact Support. Suggestions sent there are logged in a list that is reviewed regularly. Thanks for the feedback. It’s always welcome.

  51. Pingback: Unknown's avatar Mais uma aquisição da Automattic: Intense Debate « InfoBits
  52. that girl again's avatar that girl again Sep 24th at 12:20 am

    oh, so that’s why threaded comments are suddenly going into core. I did wonder.

  53. Andreas's avatar Catshade Sep 24th at 12:30 am

    After seeing ID in-action in their website, I know you’ve made the right choice. It looks and feels better than Disqus, and I can’t wait to see threaded comments and reputation points in my future WP.com blogs 😀

  54. Belle's avatar yoakow Sep 24th at 1:04 am

    Great one

  55. raincoaster's avatar raincoaster Sep 24th at 1:16 am

    Oh, man, I”m just getting used to Gawker. THE WHOLE INTERNET IS CHANGING!

    Dammit, you kids get offa my lawn!

  56. Pingback: fattening the calf « wordpress™ wank
  57. katroboy's avatar katroboy Sep 24th at 1:56 am

    Nice, good, awesome, great! 😀

  58. Robin's avatar Robin Sep 24th at 2:14 am

    Awwwwwwww! And it’s not even Christmas. THANK YOU!

  59. JP's avatar Rodrigo Díaz Sep 24th at 2:24 am

    Cool Beans.

  60. allforblue's avatar allforblue Sep 24th at 2:44 am

    thank u good debate

  61. rizkivmaster's avatar rizkivmaster Sep 24th at 2:58 am

    It’s cool! But it’ll be better if it has some advanced option in the feature…

  62. Scott E. Lee's avatar Moderator Sep 24th at 3:08 am

    Awwww, I was hoping for Haloscan. Bummer.

    Nah, I likey it, and I signeded up for the notification. You make me wait long, and I’ll be upset. I need that! I need that! I need that!

    Nice work youse guys. You keep adding neat stuff, and I may actually have to consider donating some more scratch.

    @ClapSo: I have to believe that we will have either the option to disable certain features or edit the reputations of our commenters so that trolling won’t be that kind of issue. But I do not speak for the Great and Powerful Ozes. I am simply assuming that it will be so, based on what has come before.

    Again, SWEET!

  63. કાર્તિક's avatar કાર્તિક મિસ્ત્રી Sep 24th at 3:38 am

    Good news!

  64. Amyth's avatar Amyth Sep 24th at 4:02 am

    Good stuff! – Anything to make blogging MORE interactive gets a Thumbs Up from me! :mrgreen:

  65. meenas17's avatar meenas17 Sep 24th at 4:29 am

    WordPress is becoming comprehensive.
    A focused progress.
    Wish you well.

  66. 34 Dsilva's avatar Trevor D Sep 24th at 4:50 am

    Looks something nice and new….but emm….I really didn’t understand what you said I mean….do we gotta sign up for that thing? or is it like you’ll place it on every blog soon?? Cheers!

    Trevor

  67. Heather M.'s avatar Heather Sep 24th at 4:51 am

    @Trevor D: Certain features will be incorporated into WordPress.com. Check out Matt’s blog for more details.

  68. Harshad Joshi's avatar Harshad Joshi Sep 24th at 4:58 am

    Ummm, thats sounds cool. 🙂

  69. Harshad Joshi's avatar Harshad Joshi Sep 24th at 4:59 am

    BTW, from where do you guys get capital to purchase companies?? It would be interesting to know it.

  70. Heather M.'s avatar Heather Sep 24th at 5:00 am

    @Harshad Joshi: It’s a bit out of date, but the Automattic page on CrunchBase is a good place to start learning about the company.

  71. Pingback: Good News/Bad News « Silverstar’s Magical Adventures (and assorted rants)
  72. Kunal's avatar Kunal Sep 24th at 5:28 am

    Congrats!
    I read that WP.org 2.7 would have Intense Debate commenting system, but what time does the WP.com users get the access to it?

  73. JenT's avatar Jennifer Sep 24th at 6:39 am

    Fantastic! Looking forward to the day when my blogs have some comments so I can try out the new feature.

  74. Pingback: Rewolucja w systemie komentarzy WordPressa | WPNinja
  75. Nita's avatar Nita Sep 24th at 7:27 am

    wow, this sounds exciting. As you said, spicing up the comments section will really take blogging to a new level. What makes blogging special is the high level of interaction on blog and the various communities. Now you have really got us all agog.

  76. opensource's avatar opensource Sep 24th at 7:58 am

    Great! Jope this will be inplemented soon

  77. Pingback: Automattic compra IntenseDebate para integrarlo en WordPress Loogic.com
  78. Helda's avatar HeLL-dA Sep 24th at 8:42 am

    😉

    Nice work..!

  79. braybon9's avatar braybon9 Sep 24th at 9:25 am

    Cool

  80. Pingback: Unknown's avatar Threaded Comments. « Gary William Murning Online
  81. Imaad Majeed's avatar St.Fallen Sep 24th at 9:54 am

    awesomeness 😀

  82. Pingback: Unknown's avatar It keeps getting better and better: Intense Debate acquired by Automattic » A Division by Zer0
  83. Toronaga's avatar Toronaga Sep 24th at 10:52 am

    Cool!

  84. Pingback: Automattic Acquired Intense Debate
  85. Pingback: Unknown's avatar Auseinandersetzung « rufus still thinks about his title …
  86. Pingback: BlogChemistry » WordPress and the intense debate
  87. hamas gaza's avatar hamas gaza Sep 24th at 12:21 pm

    Good news. Thank you.

  88. ارسلان's avatar URCHIN7PC Sep 24th at 1:15 pm

    GooOo00O0ooOoo0o0O00O00OO0Oo0O0O0o0O0Oo0o0O0o0oo000oOOOoOooo000od news. Thank MATT.

  89. Pingback: Unknown's avatar This Post Has Sixty-Five Words « それは熱い
  90. Pingback: IntenseDebate pasa a formar parte de Automattic
  91. portorikan's avatar portorikan Sep 24th at 2:39 pm

    awesome… goodbye disqus hello intensedebate. Looks like I picked the wrong commenting system to try out first on my self hosted blog.

    Looking forward to the changes.

  92. Dilip Prakash's avatar Dilip Prakash Sep 24th at 3:09 pm

    Great work man…

  93. timethief's avatar timethief Sep 24th at 3:23 pm

    Thanks for this improvement that many wordpress bloggers will benefit from.

  94. Ros's avatar Ros Sep 24th at 4:10 pm

    Threaded comments would be so great!

  95. Omar's avatar mohd222 Sep 24th at 4:21 pm

    Good job Matt, I like the way wordpress is improving everyday!!! keep it up guys 🙂

  96. Matthew's avatar Matthew Sep 24th at 4:50 pm

    Very Great!!

  97. blunty's avatar sky Sep 24th at 5:26 pm

    cool-aid!

  98. lariosola's avatar lariosola Sep 24th at 5:48 pm

    Clear. I’m eager to know more about it. Coolest!

  99. Dark Crow200 aka Moonkey's avatar Dark Crow200 Sep 24th at 5:56 pm

    Awesome update

  100. Pingback: It’s Time for an Intense Debate » Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie
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