

Why Disqus Is Winning the Web Comment Battles, and What's Next - bootload
http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/06/why-disqus-is-winning-web-comment.html

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ctbk
Can someone please explain to me why is this product worth creating a company
(and its subsequent fundings)? I mean... every major blogging platform has the
features Disqus offers. Even if this was not the case, creating a company to
fill a void that could be filled with a minor software release, why? What's
the big deal? What's the advantage in using it? I feel like I'm missing
something.

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metajack
All the comments for posts are aggregated in one place across a number of
blogs. IF comments are interesting, then this aggregation may also be
interesting.

For people running home brew blog software or people running their own
wordpress installs, etc, it may offer a nice decentralized way to avoid spam
as well.

I'm not saying it's worth millions, but it doesn't seem entirely useless.

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philbutler
I find it fascinating that a tool or startup (no matter how innovative) that
is utilized by only 6000 or so Web sites gets so much attention when:

Haloscan, JS-Kit, Sezwho and a score of others dominate this niche.

JS-Kit alone is used by over 50,000 sites and reaches in excess of 20 million
people

The entity in question has a nebulous monetization model

This same platform so far has no revenue sharing for publishers

And most importantly Disqus has no viable way to allow publishers benefit from
their own content's SEO aspect when their content will reside on Disqus
servers.

Disqus is a refined commenting system that in my opinion is designed to be
sold to a brand rather than taken to its natural conclusion by Daniel and his
team. This is the only logical reason for there not being a monetization or
business model in place (or at least in view) and for apparently pirating
massive SEO benefit from published comments (Google might like this, or any
business that can derive such an SEO bonanza).

It is in Fred Wilson's benefit to see that the world thinks a comment system
will replace Google, and this is why you see such assertions (he is in on the
investment). I on the other hand represent JS-Kit and have an interest too.
So, I suggest you do your investigating and see what the story is for
yourselves.

I was one of the first to review Disqus when it arrived om the scene - a great
platform and a bright developer. At the time I did not know of any flaws
however. These flaws appear to reside in the intentions of the startup toward
content, its owners and transparency in my view. Perhaps you should ask the
question: "Show me the money" a little more forcefully?

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paul
Those other comment systems must be dominating in a very subtle way -- I've
never once seen them. On the other hand, I encounter Disqus comments every
day.

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mynameishere
How could have never seen haloscan?

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paul
Where would I see it? Disqus seems to be on half the blogs I read, but I've
never even heard of haloscan. (or was your comment sarcastic?)

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mynameishere
Ugh, what a bad typo I had there.

Anyway, 5+ million hits:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=haloscan>

...so, yeah, you should have seen it by now.

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cperciva
This article inspired me to add Disqus to my blog
([http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2008-06-15-now-with-
comments...](http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2008-06-15-now-with-
comments.html)) -- I hadn't bothered until now, but the simplicity (just add a
few lines of javascript) convinced me.

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mvermut
Sometimes it's just enough to build a valuable tool that is worth something to
someone else...happens in high tech all the time when small one product
companies are purchased. Disqus will be valuable for a larger platform that
would like to bring in its userbase and believes that time to market is better
managed through acquisition. Why does every web startup have to be a $1
billion idea?

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ozanonay
I think Louis is right to point out that Disqus' approach to customer service
and their generally well-functioning product will lead to serious market
dominance, but I can't for the life of me figure out how they'd convert market
dominance into positive revenue.

Does anyone have a confident suggestion as to how they'd monetise?

~~~
louismg
I wasn't playing the role of "investigative reporter" at dinner, so I didn't
press here. One of the guesses I have is that the technology used for Disqus
could be implemented across corporate intranets, white labeled and licensed?

~~~
ozanonay
I think this is a better idea than relying on advertising, but do you think
there'd be enough demand for a white label version for it to be the core of
their model?

Another approach: Fred Wilson's post today on comments constituting blog posts
suggests that maybe they're building towards a sort of blogging platform for
non-bloggers, where the aggregate of a user's comments on other blogs would
form a new low-maintenance blog (on the Disqus site).

~~~
louismg
That's an interesting thought. At first, I was thinking what you were
suggesting would be very Tumblr-like, but Disqus would centralize your
comments elsewhere, and maybe you could opt to pull a subset in to make your
new platform?

~~~
ozanonay
Precisely. Then add simple tools for categorisation, design customisation and
so forth.

The point is that there are probably 10 active commentators for each active
blogger. Perhaps Disqus is building towards a platform for people like this,
who comment actively but who don't want or think they wouldn't be able to run
their own blog.

