DISQUS

For anyone interested, we(Intense Debate) already address the concerns above:
1) We support OpenID and have for a while
2) Your comment system data is portable (with the click of one button, for those using Wordpress and Blogger, your comments can be reverted back to their original form [not available in other systems]. Also, at any time and for all platforms publishers can download an xml file of all their comment data.

I think what Nick is doing is cool, but it still doesn't solve the problems inherent with factory installed comment systems: Comments become unreadable, conversation is squashed, no good way to learn more about the person behind the comment, etc. A lot of people want more out of their comments and we give them many tools to this end.

Pete,
Josh from Intense Debate here. We have an importer exporter feature. We dont hold your comments hostage. You can save your comments at any time. :)

We are out to partner with publishers and provide them with a comprehensive solution. That means we want to help market and drive traffic to our partnering blogs. We deliberately decided not to reproduce all of the comments on our site because we feel this draws page views from the publisher. Publishers we speak to want value added widgets, not widgets that takeaway traffic. It is common sense really.

I would be happy to clear up any confusion you may have...josh at intensedebate dot com

Hey guys, Josh here from Intense Debate. I am Isaac's partner. Our reputation solution is certainly not finalized. We enjoy user input on how to solve this question. It is something we need, it is just a matter of how to fix it. Zoli, I just emailed you back.

Top three reasons to use Intense Debate:
1)We are a comprehensive solution. We provide all our features within the comments, inline with the post. It is only the publisher that has to install anything. No commenters have to install a plug-in of any sort.

2)We focus on the publisher. We don't try to takeaway attention from the publisher's page by posting the exact same thing on our site. The mothersite is there to tie everything together. We want to bring MORE traffic to the publishers blog, not leach off of it. That is why we "partner" with publishers.

3)With us, the user does not have to change their behavior. They simply comment as they normally would without clicking any buttons. There is no downloading of a browser button, and only a ten second account creation that takes the same amount of time as signing in on most blogs. (If it takes longer, we want to know)

I hope this helps. Cheers.

There is no secret. I am the co-founder of intense debate and we have been in the open for quite a while.

Cool blog. I had never heard of "fatblogging" until now. Noticed you signed up for ID. Interested in testing the comments on your blog?

Have a look at Lijit.com

Debate 2.0 will come with the launch of http://www.intensedebate.com