

The Numbers of Disqus - jnoller
http://blog.disqus.com/post/5192492910/the-numbers-of-disqus

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staunch
Congrats to Disqus guys. Presumably the $10M includes a couple million for the
founders to cash out, which is great.

They seem to be in a pretty difficult position though. The product is the very
definition of a "feature", and one that is most definitely a commodity.

Facebook Comments just launched and it's quite well done. Since most people
are logged into their FB accounts all the time it means instant commenting
with real identities. Exactly what most sites need to increase commenting
while maintaining civility.

Revenue is also a big problem. Between Facebook Comments and other free
competitors there's not much room to charge for pro features or add
advertising.

I'm a fan, but don't really see how they're going to become a big business in
the future to return 5-10x on this $10M.

~~~
zeeg
Try using Facebook Comments as a large publisher. There's quite a few powerful
tools that we (Disqus) provide that Facebook hasn't yet.

Granted, they might in the future, but commenting is our sole product right
now, and you can bet we'll do the best we can do make it awesome :)

~~~
suking
I can't even go on TC anymore because there is no trolling or funny comments.
FB comments killed the discussion there. BRING BACK DISQUS! Also - they have a
digg button where every article has 0 diggs, wtf is the point? I bet Arrington
is an investor with someone high up at Digg, etc.

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corin_
The numbers I would love to hear are a slight break down of where the
uniques/comments/etc come from.

Disqus is used on a number of really big sites, some are listed in this blog
post (such as RWW and Wired), but there are other massive examples, such as
the MLB network of sites.

Of the 530m uniques and 35 million disqus-using people, is it a case of x%
coming from y% of the websites that have disqus on them, where x is close to
100 and y is close to 0?

For example, 750,000 websites use disqus, if you take only the stats from,
say, the 50 biggest, what percentage of the 35 million is that? (Replace 50
with any number that turns out more interesting.)

Any chance a disqus person might care to share?

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Smirnoff
congrats guys. i was really upset when techcrunch took you off their website.
i have facebook disconnect, so now i dont go to techcrunch that often because
i cant see comments without incognito mode.

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RichardPrice
Congrats guys. Terrific stats and incredible growth.

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jsavimbi
Twelve.

The number of probable months since I've commented using Disqus.

~~~
joshfinnie
Really? Is this because you do not like Disqus? Or is it because you are
commenting more on websites like Hacker News instead of commenting on the
original articles?

I have found myself much more interested in commenting on Hacker News than any
of the articles I read here. The only exception I can think of is when I need
to comment to the author of the article and it is obvious that they don't read
Hacker News.

As for the popularity of Disqus, I see their commenting system everywhere
today! And I have to admit, I think the world is a better place for it.

~~~
atourgates
I think there are many applications where it's fantastic - but at least one
notable exception: Engadget.

Engadget's commenting system has always been its weakness. The site has (I
blieve) the best gadget reporting on the internet, but its comment section is
on-par with YouTube's. I can't remember the last time I tried to read the
comment's on a popular article that didn't devolve into a flame war between
some kind of fanboy faction.

If that site's planning to rescue its users from inane, inflammatory or
outright inaccurate commenting, it needs to use a moderation system that's
much more aggressive about filtering and burying the bad, while promoting the
good. And that's not something that Disqus does very well.

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ecuzzillo
HN feature request: Make the color of links I've already read something other
than semi-invisible grey. Currently when I'm looking for a link I just clicked
on, it takes me a very long time because it's so anti-eye-catching.

So, in particular, when I click on a link to read it, then hit back to upvote
it and/or comment on it, it takes a long time to re-find it.

(Yes, I could open it in a new tab, blah blah.)

