JS-Kit, a provider of Javascript comments, ratings, and poll widgets for blogs, has announced their acquisition of HaloScan, one of the largest hosted comments service providers. This announcement is also coordinated with the launch of several major features. Financial terms were not disclosed.
HaloScan had previously partnered with JS-Kit in January to provide the users of their comment system with “one-click” deployment of JS-Kit’s ratings widget (providing ratings for articles, not ratings for comments). This acquisition will result in an exponential increase of JS-Kit’s customer base, providing new access to over 520,000 participating sites, bringing its total reach to about 550,000 sites. JS-Kit also claims that with this new acquisition, it will be registering 300+ new sites per day. HaloScan’s comment systems will integrate with JS-Kit’s Ratings, Polls, Reviews, Navigator, and Advisor widgets. JS-Kit’s comments also comes with full Akismet spam protection and profanity filters.
Blogger’s original comment system only allowed for comments from other Blogger users, so HaloScan gained popularity early on as an alternative to their innate system. Blogger also recommended it as the system to use for providing Trackback links. It’s seen a drop in usage recently because of temperamental server issues (possibly related to the transition), so hopefully JS-Kit can solve these issues when the transition is complete in 30 days or so.
JS-Kit will leverage its newly acquired users to launch important new features. One of which is the implementation of an open standards-based, portable, user profile. Users will have access to all of the comments made on any JS-Kit participating site through an OpenID login system (pictured below). The portable profile is accessible through a pop-up on the hosting site. This does lend itself to easier discovery, which could possibly help with adoption for new publishers.
Another feature will be easier synchronization with Wordpress and Blogger. This could allow for easier adoption by existing blogs, with the automatic import of older comments from either site. In addition to the easier import, JS-Kit will also update a participating blog’s Wordpress or Blogger comments when new comments are made in the widget.
This also goes hand-in-hand with another new feature that JS-Kit is implementing, SEO support. JS-Kit now sets up a static page for indexing comment content, which you can host on your server as a sub-domain, so search engines see the content on your site, and not JS-Kit’s.
There is no back end network to JS-Kit like competing comment providers Disqus and Sezwho. Disqus and Sezwho offer social networks based on the comments left in participating blogs, leading to better content discovery. The competition has significantly less users than JS-Kit (reportedly 550,000 participating sites, 8 million users, 80 million comments left), so JS-Kit adding a social network functionality to Haloscan’s already massive user base potentially puts them on top of the market. But Disqus has been gaining a lot of momentum (reporting 20,000 participating blogs), and could give JS-Kit some very real competition.
One major difference is that Disqus uses a proprietary login system, while JS-Kit uses OpenID, which is what the social web is trending towards. To get involved in the Disqus community for a blog, users are directed to the Disqus site, instead of remaining on the blog, like with JS-Kit, which may explain why the Compete graph below shows Disqus gaining so fast on Haloscan. The graph does not count widget users.
Congratulations. Good job!
I like the service and have used it here in the past. I have a question about SEO and js-kit. If you use it for comments, will those comments get picked up by google?
But Js-Kit have to acquire Intense Debate!It rocks!
WORLD OF TECH & FUN!
I would also like to know if js-kit allows for comments to be picked up by Google. Any additional information on that would be appreciated.
i have been using Haloscan commenting service on my blogspot blog, hope it gets even better =D
“…JS-Kit is implementing, SEO support. JS-Kit now sets up a static page for indexing comment content…”
That’s a pretty cool feature. I would like to see what comes out of this.
I abandoned HaloScan as soon as Blogger opened up their comments to non-Blogger users.
I wonder how active the purported 500,000 users are.
–rj
Well, if people don’t mind giving Disqus proprietary information (which I personally do mind) then I see why Disqus could be considered a competitor. Otherwise, momentum or not… I find JS-kit superior.
To answer the question about the comments being picked up by google: yes. The comments are: “fully visible to search engines (requires simple DNS change, see the Customization page)” – according to JS-kit.
Hi Calley,
Just a few corrections:
1) >> One major difference is that Disqus uses a proprietary login system, while JS-Kit uses OpenID
Disqus has supported OpenID for about 5 months now.
2) >> To get involved in the Disqus community for a blog, users are directed to the Disqus site, instead of remaining on the blog
This is untrue. I’m not sure how else to put it.
Thanks for the mention.
- Daniel @ Disqus
I would include Intense Debate before Sez Who. Sez Who is woefully behind for a number of reasons, numbers are only one reason.
What JS-Kit, Haloscan, and Sez Who don’t have is an attractive user interface. Disqus and Intense Debate do.
I also think that much is made when it comes to indexing and proprietary info, but people tweet on twitter, tumble on tumblr, blog on blogger, and any number of other user generated sites where their info becomes partially proprietary to the host site. I think the proprietary claim is much ado about nothing.
Many of the Haloscan sites are abandoned. So, while JS-Kit may have more sites now, the question is how many of them are active. I see this as a tremendous waste of money on JS-Kit’s part.
I like the service and have used it here in the past. I have a question about SEO and js-kit. If you use it for comments, will those comments get picked up by google?
Well good for them. Does this mean it will become possible to read more than a handful of Haloscan comments? Their formatting and font size are the worst!
I can’t imagine someone else hasn’t done this better, since HS is pretty much the barest possible implementation of outsourced comments. I’d think this deal is more about JS-Kit finding something cheap they can integrate rather than finding a readymade comment system.
Oh, and that Gravatar junk. Did it ever work?
I know, I’m such a crabby dude. It’s just that some of the blogs I read several times per day use HS and it’s a fact that their crappy implementation has kept me from participating in comments or even reading them at all on these blogs, which is a shame. It just struck me as a 40LOC operation.
rant off!
Alex,
SezWho is not a comment replacement system.
Comment data stays within the blog and so there are no SEO implications and no issues if Disqus or ID or Haloscan go way or are down.
SezWho is a universal profile service that adds social features and context to existing sites without taking over the site content. SezWho supports not just blog comments but blog posts and discussion forums.
In fact it says it right on SezWho’s homepage
http://sezwho.com
Get your facts straight.
-Wayne
@Wayne
“Get your facts straight.”
umm, what exactly were the facts I didn’t get straight again? I never said you weren’t what you say you are.
I said:
“I would include Intense Debate before Sez Who. Sez Who is woefully behind for a number of reasons, numbers are only one reason.
What JS-Kit, Haloscan, and Sez Who don’t have is an attractive user interface. Disqus and Intense Debate do.”
How about challenging me on something I actually said? Do you dispute you are behind on numbers? Do you dispute your interface being called unattractive?
Simple questions…
I have always hated Haloscan as a commenting system for blogs. The pop up box is annoying. I see no advantage to an external system. You lose the search engine value of keywords in the comments, and you may lose old comments when you switch over to an external system.
Hi Calley,
A big THANK YOU from the boys and girls at JS-Kit for posting on our news!
For those interested there is a bit of a back-story. When we approached Mike about writing on JS-Kit he asked three questions; “How do you give a blogger the freedom to leave JS-Kit at anytime?”, “Do the comments get indexed to the site?”, and “How does the site owner control the user login [for use with other services or to switch to a competing service]”
That short meeting turned into long nights of coding which resulted in our release today of: Synchronization of comments back to the blog, 100% SEO support, and OpenID as the *only* login for JS-Kit services.
Be Well,
Khris Loux, CEO JS-Kit
khris@js-kit.com
‘pluperfecter aka steven e. streight ‘
Yes the SEO-unfriendly nature of Haloscan bugs me too – once someone finds an easy way to migrate a blogspot blog to wordpress AND bring haloscan comments with it, then byebye blogspot for me
Thanks for the questions on SEO and whether the information is picked up by google. The answer is, yes, it is picked up for *both* JS-Kit and Haloscan sites.
For specific details on how to set it up, please e-mail support@js-kit.com. Thanks again!
Nancy at JS-Kit dot com
Thanks for this post, really informative.
Also, thanks to the JS-Kit crew for jumping in with your information!
Hi, i’m new here. Need guidence. i don’t know how to integrate the new & old comments using haloscan widget. Pls help how to install JS-Kit. Thx
Hi, i’m new here. Need guidence. i don’t know how to integrate the new & old comments using haloscan widget. Pls help how to install JS-Kit. Thx………………
Hi, i’m new here. Need guidence. i don’t know how to integrate the new & old comments using haloscan widget. Pls help how to install JS-Kit. Thx…………………………..
Hi, i’m new here. Need guidence. i don’t know how to integrate the new & old comments using haloscan widget. Pls help how to install JS-Kit. Thx………………………………………………………………..
Disqus, in my opinion is the future of commenting. It simplifies that work of the webmaster and makes everything much much simpler.
Has learnt a lot of the new information about JS-Kit. Thanks for article