
Zeta Global acquires Disqus (YC S07) - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/05/zeta-global-acquires-commenting-service-disqus/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
======
KajMagnus
All (?) upcoming alternatves to Disqus: (my own listed last)

\- Mozilla's Talk,
[https://github.com/coralproject/talk](https://github.com/coralproject/talk).
Open source, install yourself.

\- Discourse, [https://www.discourse.org/](https://www.discourse.org/). One
needs to navigate to a separate page, to post a comment. Not threaded. Min
$20/month. Open source. Facebook and Gmail login.

\- Isso: [https://posativ.org/isso/](https://posativ.org/isso/). Open source,
install on your own server.

\- Commento,
[https://github.com/adtac/commento](https://github.com/adtac/commento). Open
source. Moderation, spam-protection and hosting is under development.

\- Schnack, [https://www.vis4.net/blog/2017/10/hello-
schnack/](https://www.vis4.net/blog/2017/10/hello-schnack/). Open source,
install yourself. Has GitHub and Facebook login.

\- HostedComments,
[https://www.hostedcomments.com/](https://www.hostedcomments.com/).
Proprietory. Min $10/month

\- Remarbox, [https://www.remarkbox.com/](https://www.remarkbox.com/).
Proprietory. Min $4/month

\- Gitalk.
[https://github.com/gitalk/gitalk](https://github.com/gitalk/gitalk). Open
source, install yourself. Comments stored as GitHub issues.

\- [https://github.com/skx/e-comments](https://github.com/skx/e-comments).
Open source, install yourself.

\- And my own: EffectiveDiscussions:
[https://www.effectivediscussions.org/blog-
comments](https://www.effectivediscussions.org/blog-comments). Open source, or
$2 per month. Has Facebook and Gmail login.

~~~
judah
As a blogger of 15 years, the issue to me now is that comments almost always
take place in Facebook or Twitter, not on my blog.

I blog. Then post the link to social media. I'll get tens or hundreds of
comments on social media, but maybe 3 on the blog itself.

Do any of these commenting systems have a way to say, "Any comments that
happen on [Facebook/Twitter] should be added to the blog comment thread"?

~~~
chipotle_coyote
Well, the _technology_ is there already, with Webmention support.

[https://indieweb.org/Webmention](https://indieweb.org/Webmention)

I have these enabled on my own blog via the WordPress Bridgy plugin, which can
report back on links to your article from Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
Instagram and Flickr.

[https://indieweb.org/Bridgy](https://indieweb.org/Bridgy)

I doubt any of these "Disqus-like" services support this, because it sounds
like it's solving a different problem. (Although it'd be useful if they _did_
support it, the way earlier blogging systems display "pingbacks" as if they
were comments.

~~~
zaarn
Webmention is quite a cool tech, though it seems to have a very low adoption
outside the indieweb community. The validation tool seems to be broken too [0]
[1] and a lack of compliance [2] in the community. It's probably also not good
that there is only one test suite, I'd feel more comfy if I could validate
against more independent suites.

[0]
[https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/26](https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/26)

[1]
[https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/32](https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/32)

[2]
[https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/27](https://github.com/aaronpk/webmention.rocks/issues/27)

------
ivankirigin
Congrats to Jason and Daniel!

It's hard as hell working on a startup for 10 years, and their team's
consistent commitment is so impressive.

My first startup was YC W08, Tipjoy. We were just two people, my wife and I. I
feel lucky to have shared an office with Disqus way back in 2008. Besides the
founders, they and an engineer and an engineering intern. It was a great vibe
in the office.

In that time since, I've shut down a startup, worked at two unicorns, started
my 2nd startup, and just sold it. Time is voracious. This really highlights
the marathon sprint Disqus has been through.

~~~
dnaquin
hear hear. congrats guys!

------
ploggingdev
An acquisition was pretty much an expected outcome since there was no way a
company with $10.5 million in VC funding over 10 years could go public. IMO
the comments as a service space is a terrible fit for the VC model. It's easy
to get to scale by offering a free service, but very very hard to monetize.
You can force ads on your users, but you end up being at the receiving end of
users' wrath, as was the case with Disqus.

I've tried talking to VCs with the idea for a Disqus alternative [0] and many
of them shared the same concern : market size. It's tiny. A back of the
envelope calculation gives me a number between $100 million and $200 million
in ARR potential with most of the revenue being generated via ads instead of
paid subscriptions. Disqus serves 17 billion monthly pageviews which
translates to roughly $1.7 million in MRR. So yeah, I guess this space is more
suited for the artisanal variety (bootstrapped companies) than the VC model.
Another guy who's been working on an alternative for 3 years is `foxhop with
Remarkbox [1].

[0] [https://www.hostedcomments.com/](https://www.hostedcomments.com/)

[1] [https://www.remarkbox.com/](https://www.remarkbox.com/)

~~~
ttul
In that case, a $90M exit is extremely impressive. The data must be very
valuable to drive that valuation.

~~~
joering2
I just spoke with someone that works with Zeta (former XL Media). She said its
not about the data they have but rather how they can run their existing AI
over keyboard's of millions of users. 30% of US based browsers have some sort
of zeta cookie on their PC.. knowing what they type about is priceless.

------
schiffern
>Marketing tech company Zeta Global...

Add this to uBlock Origin's "My Rules" tab to block Disqus comments on all
sites:

    
    
      * disqus.com * block
      * disquscdn.com * block

~~~
DarronWyke
Ghostery will also block disqus if you have the Commenting tracker section
selected.

------
temp-dude-87844
For a marketing and ads company, any script that's embedded on multiple
websites is an attractive target for acquisition.

There's nothing terribly special about Disqus in this regard: they just have a
decent install base. Some lip service fluff about AI/ML mining the comments
for sentiment, likely to give the impression for ad sellers that they can
target specific demographics, but this is something they can fake -- grouping
user cohorts solely by the overlap of sites they visit is an adequate proxy.

It does, however, show that Disqus' business model was the usual fantasy: burn
cash to acquire users, coast by waiting for an acqui-hire until you're
desperate, then introduce ads, hemorrhage users, then firesale cash out. This
is a tried-and-true strategy for many web properties, from image hosts to chat
services, but it truly doesn't make sense here, because you'd figure that
their subscription plans should've been priced high enough to pay the bills.
They badly misjudged their market.

------
adtac
>Disqus gives these marketers the ability to target users based on their
interests. You can infer quite a bit about people simply based on which sites
they comment on, after all.

So we can expect more targeted ads in Disqus embeds from mining user patterns.
The platform is a already a mess; between making 105 network requests to 20+
domains associated with tracking, malware, ad platforms, and shady
fingerprinting services, and the fact that adding Disqus costs you upwards of
6 seconds [0], this announcement is making things more user-hostile.

Disclosure: I created an open-source, privacy-focused alternative called
Commento [1] so my views on Disqus might be somewhat biased :)

I will also be offering it as a subscription-based service very soon as many
people have asked me for one (the open source version will stay free software
forever). It'll have near feature-parity with Disqus and you'll have the
option to import all your Disqus comments. If you're interested in beta-
testing, please let me know (email in profile). Apologies if I'm breaking HN
etiquette.

[0] [http://donw.io/post/github-comments/](http://donw.io/post/github-
comments/)

[1] [https://github.com/adtac/commento](https://github.com/adtac/commento)

~~~
littlestymaar
Neat ! I wanted to add a comment section on my personal blog but I didn't want
to use Disqus for privacy reason. I tried using Isso[1] but installing it on
my server is really a PITA (I don't know the Python ecosystem, is it always
such a mess ?). I was on the verge of developing my own commenting system in
Rust, so I can have a stand-alone binary for ease of installation, but Go has
the same property, which makes your system really attractive, thanks !

[1]: [https://posativ.org/isso/](https://posativ.org/isso/)

Edit: from the readme

> if you're going down the self-hosting route, using Docker to run Commento is
> recommended.

Why ? What would be the problem with distributing a binary ?

~~~
adtac
Thanks! You can find the latest amd64 binary releases here:
[https://github.com/adtac/commento/releases](https://github.com/adtac/commento/releases)

About the docker part: I should edit that. I wasn't making point releases back
when I wrote it and docker was the easiest way to get it running back then.

------
r721
>Disqus gives these marketers the ability to target users based on their
interests. You can infer quite a bit about people simply based on which sites
they comment on, after all.

Not only that but also they will get a partial browsing history (on subset of
websites with embedded Disqus comments) of users which have third-party
cookies allowed.

------
mattferderer
Mozilla, NY Times, Washington Post & others have contributed to creating the
Coral Project which looks like it has a much better comment system for
websites to use. It's no where near as easy to use but you can get it up &
running with Docker pretty quick if you know how to use Docker. If you have a
larger audience, the engagement features really seem worth the effort.

[https://coralproject.net/](https://coralproject.net/)
[https://coralproject.github.io/talk/index.html](https://coralproject.github.io/talk/index.html)

------
le-mark
_A source close to the two companies tells us that the acquisition price was
close to $90 million. This marks Zeta’s eleventh acquisition since it was
founded in 2007._

Apparears adding ads worked out well for them. However distasteful most of us
think they are, obviously they were able to get some non trivial monetization
from them.

There are a lot of competing services and projects around, it's a mystery to
me why none of them have gotten any traction yet. It's also fairly trivial to
self host an opensource comment system, or roll your own. Does anyone here
have any insight into why this isn't a more popular option?

~~~
arca_vorago
I think this is mostly due to services like Disqus targeting the CMS space
like WordPress or Squarespace heavily, while at the same time making deals
with established online presences like online newspapers, etc. Essentially,
while it may seem trivial to you or me, we aren't their target user, they want
low hanging user fruit. Eg, copypasta this one line and it all works!

------
therealmarv
All comments now sold?! Somebody/we need to focus on self hosting JS comment
system like isso but more user friendly and less paranoia (Gravatar and social
media support and email notifications). Still have not seen any good comment
system self hosted... the best is maybe Wordpress but even with Jetpack it's
not as good as Disqus IMHO. Talk by Mozilla looked promising (but I did not
liked the UI design too much) but it requires registering/sign in. Any
alternatives?

~~~
z3t4
Idea: Send comments as e-mail plus save it in cookie, so when the commenter
reads the comments he sees his/her comment. Then a moderator or blog owner
hooks his CMS or static site generator into the e-mail program/service and
he/she can also reply to comments by replying to the e-mail! Or delete the
comment by deleting the e-mail. He/she could use a dedicated e-mail box like
comments@yourdomain.com. It would even work without JavaScript (form action
mailto)! And no server required except a e-mail service.

~~~
Pr3fix
How will commenters submit their comments? Would they be required to enter
their email? Or are you implying an email address would be generated for them
to associate with their activity/comment chain?

~~~
z3t4

      <form action="mailto:comments@yourdomain.com">
        <input type="hidden" name="subject" value="A new comment on the thingy" />
        <textarea name="body" rows="10" cols="41"></textarea><br>
        <button type="submit">Submit comment</button>
      </form>
    

When the form is submitted the default mail program will be started, subject
will be the subject and body will be the body. Now assuming the user does have
a e-mail client, all he/she has to do is to click send.

You can then read, delete, and reply to comments, and even send private
replies, all via your e-mail client. Then you add the comments to your web-
site either manually, or have a script do it automatically.

~~~
kindfellow92
Startup idea: application that automatically syndicates comment threads in
your email inbox back to your website.

------
tn_
This really puts into perspective of what kind of moat facebook has and just
how much overlap there is with companies like Disqus.

Personally, I like Disqus because you aren't required to log in to one
specific social media account and integrating it with your site is pretty
easy.

------
KajMagnus
Effective Discussions (ED) is an open source & track free & ad free
alternative to Disqus. There's €2 per month hosting too, if you don't want to
maintain your own server.

Demo: [https://www.kajmagnus.blog/new-embedded-
comments](https://www.kajmagnus.blog/new-embedded-comments) (scroll down.
that's a static Gatsby.js blog).

ED is inspired by HN, and I'm adding some new & unique features that I think
HN & Disqus would have needed, demo:

[https://www.effectivediscussions.org/-32/how-hacker-news-
can...](https://www.effectivediscussions.org/-32/how-hacker-news-can-be-
improved-3-things)

If you want to start using it — a beta version is available — go here: (that
page isn't finished yet)

[https://www.effectivediscussions.org/blog-
comments](https://www.effectivediscussions.org/blog-comments)

(I'm developing it.)

------
AznHisoka
I deleted my disqus after they installed ads a few months back. I am not anti-
ads but these ads were very distasteful (ie shady stuff like weight loss
products)

~~~
therealmarv
I'm pretty sure they are only visible on default setting, it's possible to
turn them off.

~~~
tn_
They also have a paid version where no ads are shown.

~~~
sytse
We have being trying to sign up for the paid version but didn't manage to. The
ads did disappear but we're not sure why.

------
Jaruzel
And... Disqus account deleted.

1) I never used it much anyway.

2) SO glad I created an account and didn't link my Facebook!

------
Tepix
I recently stumbled over commento

[https://github.com/adtac/commento](https://github.com/adtac/commento)

"A lightweight, privacy-focussed comment engine alternative to Disqus."

You can easily host it yourself.

There's a live demo at
[https://commento.adtac.pw/](https://commento.adtac.pw/)

------
gadders
This is one of the few occasions when you hope that an acquired service
actually is shutdown. I wish they'd sold to Yahoo.

------
thriftwy
It's a pity since they provided nice commenting platform, much lesser evil
than Facebook comments.

Was seriously gaining traction on politics sites since all trolling will
reliably drown, and you could ban annoying people on per person basis. If only
they also solve how to drown undesirable downthread comments...

------
crabasa
Instructions on how to export your Disqus comments:

[https://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/1104797-imp...](https://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/1104797-importing-
exporting)

------
alexdoma
Discourse could be a nice alternative as it can be self hosted and plays nice
with WordPress. [1]

[1] [https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-
discourse/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-discourse/)

------
foxhop
I'm building an alternative called Remarkbox
([https://www.remarkbox.com](https://www.remarkbox.com)). Please check it out,
a major promise is no advertisements or tracking.

~~~
voltagex_
How are you making money?

~~~
foxhop
By asking my customers for money.

------
wowtip
I just deleted my Disqus account, thanks for heads up.

------
joeframbach
I assume I won't be invited to game nights in the future.

It was fun, Disqus. Best wishes for everyone. I had a pretty good interview
once. Too bad our values didn't align.

