Back in December, we covered the rebranding of the startup previously known as JS-Kit, which has now assumed the name of its flagship product, Echo. Echo is a real-time commenting platform that allows users to log in using a variety of accounts, including Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, Google, and OpenID. After launching last July, by winter the company had signed on partners including CBS/Cnet, Discovery Channel, Dow Jones Local Media Group, and Hearst Digital News. Today, the company has announced the latest batch of publishers to implement the comment system, and there some big names: Newsweek, The Washington Post, Slate, Time, Forbes, AMC, Morningstar, and Sports Illustrated.
According to Echo CEO Khris Loux and Chris Saad, VP of Strategy, the service’s main draw to publishers is that it is multiplatform. Facebook Connect has recently gotten quite a bit of buzz as Facebook spreads across the web, but Echo has found that on its partner sites, Facebook accounts only represent around 25% of logins (Yahoo accounts for 34%). These proportions are probably different for the web at large, but it’s clear that there are plenty of users who aren’t using Facebook as their login standard. Saad and Loux also note that Echo lets publishers keep control over their content, whereas with a Facebook login system the content is housed on Facebook.
Echo’s main competitors are Disqus and Intense Debate, which we recently integrated on TechCrunch.