

Disqus Gets A New Look, Premium Add-Ons, New API - bdr
http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/17/disqus-4/

======
Groxx
> _Speaking of the API, with this version 4 roll-out, it has been completely
> redesigned from scratch. It’s still a bit of a work in progress, says co-
> founder Daniel Ha, but it should be more powerful. In fact, the new Disqus
> website is running off of it._

Dogfooding the API is the only way to _really_ know what's useful. This is
fantastic news.

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albahk
Disqus seems to be on a tear - congratulations to them.

<cynical rant>

Of the big internet companies, which of them develop features in-house and
don't rely upon external plugins/apis? Facebook (photos, comments, feeds, ads,
login) Google (everything!) - in fact they try to export their
logins/search/"Like" etc to other sites perhaps because they see the immense
value of keeping control over this information.

Yahoo, meanwhile, has apparently outsourced or "plugged-in" third party
providers for just about everything from dating to real estate - and at the
end of the day they gave away too much and are left with nothing.

Perhaps this is the way things go now, but where are the other paranoid
developers that want to hoarde all their interactions and user data and keep
it to themselves in order to build up a competitive advantage?

</cynical rant>

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alabut
The new public pages look gorgeous, especially that huge 3D graphic on the
home page. Good job Chris Jennings!

~~~
chriskjennings
Thanks Al!

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vinhboy
I switched my blog to disqus, on wordpress, because I thought it would help
increase interactions since it has all these hooks into other services.

Surprisingly, it did not.

I guess people will leave a comment regardless of what commenting system you
use.

That being said. I love disqus. You can build interactions into any webpage in
a matter of seconds.

Ps. If disqus admins are reading this. Please do some testing around importing
comments from wordpress blogs with lots of comments... I emailed you guys
about this before.. Just a reminder...

~~~
invisible
Just for curiosity's sake, how many comments do you currently get per article
(rough guess/average)? I wonder if there is a threshold where a better
commenting system increases comments (e.g. TechCrunch has 89 on this article
as of now - maybe 3-6% wouldn't have commented if it wasn't Disqus).

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kadavy
I haven't seen anyone mention performance, but as I understand it, Disqus can
make your pages slow to load. Anyone know if the new version is faster?

~~~
zeeg
We constantly address performance issues and it is our top priority. On that
note, yes, it _can_ take a bit longer to load than embedded comments (server-
side), but they load asynchronously so your content isnt waiting on your
comments.

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toppy
Biggest Django app ever?

~~~
kingkilr
Probably, until Mozilla moves their "check for addon updates" endpoint (which
gets hit everytime any Firefox window is opened) gets migrated anyways :)

~~~
zeeg
Disqus is larger than the Mozilla Addons application

~~~
kingkilr
Sure, but would it be larger than the "check for addons" endpoint, which is
still PHP?

~~~
zeeg
Based what was presented at the last DjangoCon, I believe so. We're doing
around 1b pageviews a month now.

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citricsquid
It's interesting that they're having success, I'd personally have never said
it possible that a company could role out a global comment system, what caused
this success for disqus? The only thing I think it could be is tumblr adopting
it for some blogs, but I don't see it much. Anyone know what caused their
success, a tipping point of sorts?

~~~
kmfrk
The number-one thing Disqus had going for it was Daniel Ha's omnipresence and
superhuman kindness. When they had a forum, Daniel Ha made an effort to answer
every question, no matter how ridiculous or rude, in the most elaborate,
inhumanly kind way. If a blogger - oftentimes a big one - mentioned Disqus but
expressed some reservations, Daniel would be quick to contact them with offers
for a complete transition walkthrough - and I am sure a lot of people took him
up on the offer.

Second, you can not whisper Disqus's name in a toilet stall in the outskirts
of Siberia without Gianii or Daniel hearing you. They've got all kinds of
alerts configured so they can respond to every publicly declared frustration
with Disqus, and they're impeccable at what they do.

Daniel Ha's effort to fight any reservations and unfounded doubts about the
service is a case study that should be in every entrepreneur's mandatory
curriculum. I think of his philosophy every time I consider the community
aspects of a hypothetical project.

~~~
cbarning
Don't forget the rest of the staff. They bend over backwards to make their
clients happy.

~~~
kmfrk
They only started out as two people. Daniel was undeniably the most visible
person - not that the ratio of effort is to be inferred from this at all.

It was probably more of a Disqus effort than a Daniel Ha effort, but until I
know for sure, Daniel Ha deserves the credit. :)

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nicksergeant
This is excellent. Before, the fragility of the Disqus design and API (both
their site and the product itself) kept me from being interested.

The new design shows that they're serious about the product, and they're
willing to put their money where their mouth is.

I'll probably give it a shot, now.

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zeeg
I hear the new API is pretty sexy

~~~
brianbreslin
Lol zeeg didn't we talk about your new API at the mirage in Vegas last
weekend?

~~~
zeeg
I have no idea what you're talking about ;)

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Raphael
I was trying to remember what that frisbee thing is called. Discus!

