TechCrunch revealed that today Microsoft will announce a number of new data partners, including Facebook, Digg, Last.fm, SmugMug, TypePad and Yandex. This is, apparently, the first time Facebook feeds can be pulled into a third party service.

LinkWithin is a blog widget currently working with Blogger, Wordpress and TypePad that adds related posts under your articles, using images (photo thumbnails) and text links.

The widget is free and does not contain any ads. It takes a minute to get the widget up and running on your blog and there is no sign up required.

You can see an example here, at the bottom of the post (it's a test blog).

How LinkWithin works:

LinkWithin retrieves all your blog posts, not just recent ones. The widget links to stories that are relevant and interesting to readers of a particular story, keeping them engaged with your blog, and increasing your traffic. You need to wait a few minutes so that all of your posts get crawled, until then the related posts might not be so relevant.

The posts are chosen based on relevance, popularity, and how recent they are.

You can even inter-link two blogs using this widget. For instance, sign up with Blog#1 url and install the code on Blog#2. Then, the related posts from Blog#1 will show up on the blog posts of Blog#2.

[via socialwebtools]

I said "for Blogger" because blogspot.com's comment system sucks, but they also work in Wordpress, TypePad, Movable Type, Tumblr, etc.

These 3 websites let you change the comments system in your blog, by disabling your default comment module and replacing it with a new one (just a JavaScript).

1. IntenseDebate offers automated installation for WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, and Tumblr, comment threating and pagination like in the new Wordpress 2.7, full Gravatar support, reply-by-email, open-id support, import-export and of course commenter profiles. Also, when you post a comment with IntenseDebate you have the option to send a Tweet on a post-by-post basis letting your followers know you commented on a post.

IntenseDebate recently added plugins such as embedding YouTube videos or polls in comments.

Link to all the features.

Demo.

2. JS-Kit Comments (formerly Halloscan) supports automated installation for Wordpress and Blogger but you can insert the JavaScript on any platform.

Among top-features are: Akismet spam control, e-mail notification, skins and multiple display modes, comment pagination, rich text editor, YouTube embedded videos in comments, Gravatar support and comment sync with Wordpress and Blogger and of course, comment ratings and user carma, trackbacks/pingbacks, RSS feeds for the comment threads.

JS-Kit has probably the most features among these three alternatives.

Link to all the features.

Demo.

3. Disqus - automated installation for WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, MovableType, TypePad but of course, you can insert the JavaScript code on any platform.

Disqus has all the features mentioned above like comment threading and pagination, commenter profile, Gravatar support and so on but also integrates best with your blog's CSS as Disqus tries to use the same colors ad your blog does. Also, you can se custom CSS for it.

For a demo, just check the comment form on this page, it uses Disqus :)

You're probably wondering why i use Disqus on my blog, and not the other two. Well, because for one: IntenseDebate did not work with Opera, i just couldn't click the "Submit" button, but mostly because it loads faster than the other services like it AND has all the features such a service needs. I fully recommend it.