14 DAY TRIAL // Google may be working on third-party commenting system which is set to launch soon. The platform will be similar to Facebook's comments plugin and will rely on Google+. There's no official confirmation for the move, but it would be an interesting product, even if it's yet another copy of an existing feature, something Google has been doing to excess lately, especially with Google+.
The move was reported (in Arabic) by Tech-WD blogger Saud Al-Hawawi who was at a Google conference, G-Saudi Arabia.
Apparently, the platform will be linked to Google+ but will be integrated with other Google products as well, in the same way Google+ is integrated, if only via a share box.
Other sites will be able to embed the comments box as well. Already, there are several popular commenting platforms, independent ones like Disqus or, of course, Facebook's plugin.
Facebook has been gaining a lot of ground with the comments plugin. It's an easy sell, websites using it enable users to leave comments without having to create an account, since they already have a Facebook one, while also forcing them to provide a real identity, their Facebook profile.
The same things would be true with the Google comments platform, the difference being that it's Google and not Facebook. It may be reason enough for some sites. Roughly as many people have Google accounts as they do Facebook ones, so reach isn't a problem, though the platform will probably require a Google+ profile as well.
There is also talk of comments getting a more prominent placement in search, presumably if you have Search Plus Your World enabled. Given that Google already integrates plenty of Google+ features into search, adding comments as well would be hardly surprising.
On an unrelated note, the blog also mentioned that Google is getting ready to roll out vanity URLs for Google+, just like Facebook has, to replace the ugly codes that now link to profiles and pages.