JS-Kit, a company that offers an array of Javascript-based commenting, polling, and ratings widgets, is acquiring the assets of SezWho, a competing enhanced comment system. JS-Kit will continue to keep SezWho’s service running for the next 30 days, during which users will be offered a choice of moving over to JS-Kit or choosing an alternative system.
SezWho offered a universal reputation system for comments, allowing visitors to log in using their Email address or OpenID, establishing a reputation system that carries across onto other SezWho-enabled sites. And unlike some other comment systems, blog owners didn’t have to worry about handing over their data to SezWho – for quite a while one of the primary criticisms of some competing services, like Disqus, was that they housed the blog’s comment data, effectively keeping their owners hostage (this is no longer an issue, as these services now offer synced comment archives).
JS-Kit’s acquisition of SezWho is not particularly surprising. There’s definitely a need for enhanced commenting systems, but this space is overdue for consolidation. The problem with having all of these discrete commenting systems is that for the most part, they aren’t compatible with each other. Users’ comment histories and reputations are segmented across a handful of competing services, which sort of defeats the point.
And aside from JS-Kit, most of these services are free, leaving them vulnerable to drops in advertising revenue and perhaps also deterring major companies from entrusting their data with them for fear that they might go belly up. In the current economy, most of the services are either forced to shut down or seek an acquisition.
Aside from its acquisition of SezWho, JS-Kit has also bolstered its presence with the acquisition of Haloscan last summer. The company has also established partnerships with a number of major companies, including Sun and World Now.
Some of the smaller services may be dying out, but JS-Kit still has some strong competition. Last fall IntenseDebate, another commenting system, was acquired by Automattic, the company behind the incredibly popular WordPress blog platform. IntenseDebate continues to operate on other blog platforms, and is also slowly having its technology incorporated into WordPress itself.
Another increasingly important player in this space is Facebook, which just released a new commenting widget that allows sites to quickly integrate Facebook Connect with only a few lines of code. Users can have their comments relayed back to their Facebook News Feeds, where the conversation can continue. Some large sites have little interest in handing over their data to Facebook without getting much in return, but it’s a system your everyday blogger will love. And that’s a scary prospect for the rest of the widget makers.
JS-Kit needs a new logo real bad. 4.8 million in funding and they cant spend 100 bucks on a logo?
Haha, totally agree.
They need a new name, too!
I love the dash in the name and the domain. What’s funny is that jskit.com is a logo design firm! 
I totally support you Bannet,if TC give a simple voting in a new thread about JS-KIT design I will vote ,”LOGO reformation for them.”I agree the use of name is easy to remember,but with such design there is no way I will put them near my other “design wall collection from Myspace ,Muse or Twitter (What ARE you DOING )
Hey guy – what would you recommend for our logo
Any designers out there?
Many, many designers, Chris! We already recommended Davíd Airey last year – I bet you can still get him, although I am sure he is overbooked now. He is brilliant. He can definitely design a logo that will make up for the name of the brand. I actually like it – it’s memorable, simple, and it sounds right – although the “JS” is a bit obscure: what does it stand for? is the question. If you manage to send this message across to the public, you’ll do just fine.
Chris – any logo that doesn’t look so amateur, it’s a real turn-off. Even something very simple, whipped up in Photoshop. Just don’t let the same guy do it.
As for the name , if you have the space to maneuver, it might be worth considering a name without a hyphen – hyphens look unprofessional, suggesting that a website couldn’t afford a domain without one. Also, it means you are hemorrhaging traffic to jskit.com.
The JS in js-kit only appeals to coders, to everyone else it means nothing. SezWho is not a great name but it’s a lot better than JS-Kit.
Personally, I would go out and invest in a new, extremely good domain name because, in the upcoming battle, IntenseDebate and Disqus have a lot of advantages. A really smart name could make all the difference.
Got a kick a** logo if interested reply with mail address Chris
Yup RIght…
Nut i have not been a fan of SezWho..I first came to know about the site from Entrecard; I tried it but it was slow and got rid of it.
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
I agree, I had SezWho on my blog for a little while but it just didnt to much for me. I like the concept, but it just doesnt seem to have any traction.
Also got to it via entrecard and it was total failure. During the 3 days I left it, I had downtime almost everyday because of it.
It wasn’t too productive either, only got comments that weren’t readable from Indian dudes.
Congrats to the “SezWho” folks ….. let’s see how all these fair with Facebook’s Commenting System that got launched a few days/weeks ago …..
Hay you can get $$$ to check this one out! You guys are always talking about how you improve this and that, well your going to have to work at this GREAT pre-launch(so you still got some time, scotty taught me that one), anyways I got one to give to you to do DA, TWITTER.com IT, YAH, YAH! So go get yourself some money shares to make what you guys like to make $$$!! Have a fantastic eternity, get your relativity on, thank you very much, and God Bless!
test
Congratulations to Sezwho
JS-Kit will be dead within 400 days. How can you get folks to charge for a service that will be free. They are an appendage.
JS-Kit has the worst logo in history… but at least it’s honest. You look at that logo and you are thinking, “wow, i’m in for a real crap product here”. And you’d be right. Fixing their logo would only be putting lipstick on a pig.
We just used 99designs.com for a badge design. Interesting process and lots of good results. best of luck!
Follow up from the first post
Make a PR event out of it and have the community design your new logo like DataPortability did.
You pick the logo you like the best and you get a ton of press with it.
I agree, it’s a poor logo. But it is recognizable. the brand is liked. Why change it to make it look like something else, someone else?
Any word on how much they paid for SezWho?
!!! Congrats SezWho team !!!
No IntenseDebate technology has been incorporated into WordPress to date. WordPress’ threaded/paged comments system was developed independently. I can’t speak to what IndenseDebate technology Automattic plans on open sourcing (I’m independent from Automattic), but as a lead developer on WordPress I’d be resistant to integrating IntenseDebate with WordPress core. The way it works now is great — comments go to IntenseDebate as well as the local WordPress install. IntenseDebate could go away tomorrow and your WordPress comments would remain. And that’s a pure plugin implementation. I see it more as a symbiotic relationship than one of consolidation.