Our Plugins API is seeing a lot of activity now, and we’re pleased to announce the release of the new Blog Tweets plugin.  Developed by Vivek Puri, the Blog Tweets plugin uses LinksAlpha to aggregate Tweets linking to your blog post in your IntenseDebate comments section.  Blog Tweets will show up to 20 Tweets in your comments section – pretty cool!

Aggregating Tweets linking to your blog can help provide a more holistic view of the conversation going on about your posts.  This has been a popular feature request, and we’re really excited about Vivek’s work.

About the plugin:

When you activate the plugin, LinksAlpha.com indexes your blog feed and scours Twitter for related Tweets that link back to your post. This includes Tweets that link to your post using URL shortening services like bit.ly.

There is a 5-10 minute period for your post to be indexed by LinksAlpha, which means there will be a slight delay for Tweets to start showing up in your comments section.

Also, when the plugin hits the Twitter API it is likely that Twitter will only return results for recent posts, so Tweets about your older posts won’t necessarily show up.

All Tweets are displayed just below the comment section under the header, “Social Trackbacks,” so Tweets won’t interrupt the comment stream.

Like all IntenseDebate plugins, adding advanced features to your comment section is a piece of cake: just visit your Plugins Page at http://intensedebate.com/plugins, and select “Activate” next to the plugin. That’s all! There’s no additional code for you to manually install, so there’s no need to get your hands dirty messing around with your template.

Please keep in mind that activating plugins for your IntenseDebate comments means that additional code will be loading in your comments section, which may impact load times (especially if you’re running loads of our cool plugins 😉 ).

Interested in flexing your own coding muscles and developing a super-slick plugin? Check out our Plugin Resources and documentation. You can also check out our Plugins blog post for more information.

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

[ From the WordPress Publisher Blog ]

We’re excited to see that Microsoft installed IntenseDebate on the Microsoft Partner Network to power comments and develop their community.

They’ve used our Generic Install process to add our JavaScript directly to their template, and have a unique (and pretty cool) configuration: all posts and comments are mirrored on http://digitalwpc.com.  So if you comment on a post at microsoftpartnernetwork.com, it will also be posted at digitalwpc.com.

About Microsoft Partner Network

Community is the Foundation of the Microsoft Partner Network
With our more than 640,000 partner organizations worldwide, the network offers real-time connection and support through communities that spark innovation and help you discover opportunities. You can build the relationships that best serve your business and customer needs. Connect and collaborate with other great minds to deliver innovative solutions.

[ Visit Microsoft Partner Network ]

Posted by Michael Koenig in News

We absolutely love seeing IntenseDebate pop-up in new and interesting locations, so we we’re thrilled that Neil Boyd put together an excellent guide for integrating IntenseDebate with Sandvox. Sandvox is a do-it-yourself website builder for Mac OS X (10.4.11, 10.5, or 10.6).

While we highlight some of the key steps for integrating Sandvox in this post, you should check out the complete step-by-step instructions (along with loads of other software tutorials) at Neil’s site, Step How To :: Step-by-Step.

Sandvox features a built-in IntenseDebate integration option, so all you have to do is:

1. Create your account
Visit http://intensedebate.com/install > enter your URL > and select our Generic Install option.

2. Locate your IntenseDebate Site Account ID
Go to http://intensedebate.com/sitekey select your site from the list > your Site Account ID is located at the bottom.

3. Add your Site Account ID in Sandvox
In Sandvox: select Inspector > Site > Properties > and then paste your IntenseDebate Account ID.

And you’re all set! Make sure you check out all of your IntenseDebate account settings at http://intensedebate.com/editacct.

Many thanks to Neil for his help!

Posted by Michael Koenig in Other Platforms

This is super-cool!  We’re excited to introduce a new IntenseDebate plugin developed by Sam Walters: Comment Translate.  Built using Google Translate, Comment Translate gives your readers the option to translate all comments and trackbacks on your post into their language of choice.

Languages available for comment translation:

Sam’s plugin couldn’t have come at a better time as we continue to expand our localization project to make IntenseDebate more accessible for everyone. Thanks to our fantastic group of volunteers, the IntenseDebate comment section is now available in 20 languages with more on the way!

To activate the Translate Comments plugin, visit your Plugins Page in your IntenseDebate account at http://intensedebate.com/plugins. Locate the Translate Comments plugin and select “Activate”. That’s it! It’s just that one simple click and your comments can now be translated to 51 languages!

Interested in flexing your own coding muscles and developing a super-slick plugin? Check out our Plugin Resources and documentation. You can also check out our Plugins blog post for more information.

Hat’s off to Sam for his contribution!

Posted by Michael Koenig in features

We’re excited to welcome Scott Beale and the Laughing Squid blog to IntenseDebate. Scott installed our WordPress plugin over the weekend, and we’re excited to have him and his readers join our community.

In case you’re not familiar:

Laughing Squid is a resource for art, culture & technology and independent web hosting company. It is run by primary tentacle Scott Beale, who is also the publisher & editor of the blog and is joined by the occasional guest blogger.

Swing by and check out the latest and greatest over at Laughing Squid!

Posted by Michael Koenig in News