Online community platform Spot.IM Ltd. brightened up an otherwise dismal publishing market with the announcement that it closed a $13 million funding round led by Index Ventures and Altair Capital Management LLC, along with several media and marketing luminaries.

The company’s platform replaces commenting systems, such as Disqus and Facebook comments, with a live discussion platform that comes with features that are more typical of a social network. They include real-time commenting, live blogging, user reviews, notifications, follower capability and cross-publisher promotion. Discussions take place across any platform Spot.IM, supports, and profiles reflect a user’s activity across all platforms. You can see an example on RT.com.

“Our goal is to build not just comments but communities within the websites,” said Spot.IM co-founder Nadav Shoval (above right, shown with Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Ishay Green).

Founded in 2012 in Tel Aviv, Spot.IM claims to be doing business with more than 4,600 sites, including one-quarter of the U.S. digital publishing industry. Publishing partners include Time Inc., Meredith Corp., CBS Interactive Inc., The Huffington Post, Advertising Age and Refinery29 Inc.

Its funding comes as many publishers have begun to question the value of supporting comments at all. As comments have moved off of branded websites and into social networks like Facebook and Twitter, publishers have seen search and traffic benefits plunge. Comment sections can also be a magnet for trolls and spammers, which damages the user experience and reflects badly on the publisher’s brand. Several major publishing brands have turned off commenting entirely or implemented tight controls on which comments can appear.

Spot.IM says it’s giving publishers control again. “Back in the days of print, publishers controlled reach and distribution channel,” Shoval said. “Now much of the traffic comes from Google, and discussion happens out of the website of the publisher. We want publishers to increase retention of the website and distribution.”

Spot.IM’s platform is free for any publisher to install. The company works on a revenue-share basis, with publisher and community platform, each getting 50% of any revenues derived from the service. The company will use its Spot.IM posts its terms of service here.

Shoval said partners have seen an average increase of 17% in activity and traffic after installing the Spot.IM platform, with some seeing gains of as much as 80 percent.

Images courtesy Spot.IM