Yesterday, Internet Broadcasting launched a new web engagement service called Slantly. It’s essentially a polling service that lets users assert an opinion and then collect info on whether others agree or disagree. You can also start an “argument” by leaving a text comment. And then others can argue back and forth via a threaded comment interface. I like the service. Their decision to let non users agree or disagree was a smart one. Non registered folks can also rate other people’s comments as strong or weak. Good move. Their design is clean and simple and their embeddable widgets look great and are customizable. Lastly, their registration process is a breeze. Something that designers of other sites should study.

Web entrepreneurs have begun to attend to the inherent problems and backwardness of the commenting system that most blogs use.

I am particularly excited about the potential of Disqus. I like having my identity follow me to different blogs. And if I ever feel the need to post something anonymously, I obviously can. I also like that people can begin following my comments as if I were a blogger that randomly dropped in and posted on everyone else’s blogs. As Fred Wilson pointed out, comments can be blog posts. So adding Disqus to this blog was a no-brainer. Any tool that encourages more fulfilling conversation is a good thing. It fits in with what we believe the web needs most right now.

What I think Disqus does best is make commenting more fulfilling for those who are already predisposed to leave a comment in the first place. It will make the person who leaves two comments a month leave ten. I think that is the comment frequency bump that many bloggers who switch to Disqus talk about. And it is a great thing. However, I believe that the problems that typically passive readers face still remain: too many things going on at once; too fractured a conversation that makes it hard to jump in at any one place; no obvious call to action that spurs engagement; etc. And so bloggers still will have a problem getting these types involved in any kind of interaction with the community. I believe that the Qwidget will meet that need.

Seesmic is another player that is making the online dialogue experience a bit more smooth for those of us that enjoy the chaos of web conversations. It brings in video which makes the whole experience more personal. I think Seesmic will make it really fun for people in small tight knit communities. And one big benefit that Seesmic will have, at least in the tech community, is making it easier for people to recognize each other at conferences and events. Also, seeing someone on video before you meet them often makes you feel like you know how to interact with them because you already have a sense of their speech style, their voice, etc. Obviously, the Qwidget is a text based system and consequently very different than Seesmic. So I’ll happily install the Seesmic Wordpress plugin very shortly.

Update: I’ve activated the Seesmic integration with Disqus.