We’re constantly searching the globe for talented developers to join our crew here at IntenseDebate. Drum roll please…

Please meet the newest rockstar to join our crew here at IntenseDebate, Mehmet Alkanlar. New to Boulder, Colorado, Mehmet joins us from Izmir, Turkey and has some heavy PHP/MySQL experience under his belt.

Mehmet holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Montana State University. But there’s more to Mehmet than meets the eye. He’s a skydiver, windsurfer, and classical guitarist – that’s a pretty well rounded developer right there.

He’s been here a little over a week and his abilities are already blowing our minds. Currently he’s tackling some back-end projects but you can expect to see him flex his dev muscles with some shiny new features soon enough. Please drop Mehmet a line in the comment section below, and be sure to check out his profile to learn more about him. Oh and swing by his twitter profile – he’s brand new and trying to get the hang of it!

Stoked to have you on the team Mehmet!

Posted by Michael Koenig in News

All right, here’s the skinny. We’re getting ready to release our new Google Reader and Bloglines plugins for Firefox 2 & 3 and we’re looking for beta testers.

This isn’t your normal run of the mill RSS reader integration. Our Google Reader and Bloglines plugins allow you to not only access IntenseDebate comments, but also respond to them directly from your reader! Amazing right?!?! I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been playing around with our Google Reader plugin on Firefox 3 for the past week and it is so choice.

If you’re interested in testing out our betas please drop me a line at support@intensedebate.com and we’ll get you all set up.

Start getting excited!
Michael & the fellas at IntenseDebate

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

So Klondike is having this What Would You Do For a Klondike Bar? video contest where the winner gets $100K. Let’s face it, there’s no way you’re going to win that contest. But IntenseDebate is giving you the opportunity to still be a winner!

Introducing IntenseDebate’s What Would You Do For an IntenseDebate T-Shirt Comment Contest where the winner gets $100 NO!, $50 NO!, $25 NO!… to feed their ego and an IntenseDebate t-shirt.

The rules are simple: leave us a comment detailing what you would do for an IntenseDebate t-shirt and if it’s t-shirt worthy then it shall be yours! Seeing as this is the first batch of t’s, we’ve got a limited supply.

You don’t even want to know what these folks had to do to get a shirt…

Posted by Michael Koenig in News

We’re pleased to answer your calls and release two new admin features this week. Big ups to our dev team for keeping the good stuff coming and for keepin’ it real.

Close Comments On Posts
Let’s face it sometimes debates just get too intense. Honestly, it’s a health risk – blood pressures start rising, heart rates elevate…look we don’t need anyone keeling over from a heart attack. We don’t want to have to put a disclaimer on IntenseDebate that you should have Bayer Aspirin on hand when using our product. We’re concerned about your health. IntenseDebate cares.

So we thought it would be a good idea to take some preventative measures and give blog publishers the ability to close comments on posts. This feature can be accessed in your IntenseDebate comments on your blog post under the “Admin Options” tab.

Commenter Account Stipulations
In staying with the theme of keepin’ it real, blog publishers can now set commenter account stipulations. That’s just fancy talk for saying that you can opt to require all of your commenters to create IntenseDebate accounts in order to comment on your posts. Now you can choose whether or not you want to allow anonymous comments on your posts. If you’ve had issues with spammers or repeat anonymous comment offenders, you can require them to create an account and keep the debate real. This feature is available in your blog settings page at IntenseDebate.com (login, select the tab named after your blog, followed by the “Settings” sub-tab).

As always, we’d love your feedback.

Word out,
The Fellas at IntenseDebate

Posted by Michael Koenig in features