6 ms·

Disqus launches Sponsored Comments

36 points by dko 12y ago

minimaxir 12y ago
It should be noted that Disqus ads are opt-out, meaning that new accounts have to explicitly disable ads. Ads were OK when they were text link to another site a la AdWords: it was clear that they are ads. Native comment ads, however, can be deceptive.
- bergie 12y ago
  Interestingly I don't see an opt-out option for sponsored comments in the admin panel.
  - jamesbritt 12y ago
    Do you already have ads turned off?
- cordite 12y ago
  They were okay.. but I actually sent back some feedback to them by showing other "related" articles. The trashy ones. You know, showing a picture of someone groping their belly fat and mentioning some diet. This was on a programmer's static blog compiled by octopress. I really felt like it lowered the quality of my experience reading the post, even though it was entirely Disqus's fault and not the author.
- bentlegen 12y ago
  This is no longer true – they're opt-in. And by invitation only.
  - minimaxir 12y ago
    I checked my admin and you appear to be correct.
nilved 12y ago
It was clear that Disqus had jumped the shark after they first added opt-out ads, but I suppose the slope is slippery.
- bentlegen 12y ago
  I commented on this elsewhere in this thread: > This is no longer true – they're opt-in. And by invitation only.
  - nilved 12y ago
    I don't see what that has to do with my comment.
lnlyplnt 12y ago
Honestly I think this is promising. The format is not "shady" or disruptive, and the company seems to have a good understanding that adds done poorly can be damaging.
akilism 12y ago
wonder how much this has to do with them getting rid of showing down votes on comments
baby 12y ago
I do own a couple websites using disqus but I don't care too much about what comment makes it first. But for a personal blog, or a company that makes a lot of money, seeing people advertising in your comments would be a good excuse to start coding a home-made comment system.
- brokentone 12y ago
  A. Commenting at scale is hard. Believe me, I know. We run the largest Wordpress website out there, and decided to rewrite commenting inhouse. It's been... hard. B. There are a handful of other good providers out there that hopefully this will give more business to.
  - larrys 12y ago
    "We run the largest Wordpress website out there, and decided to rewrite commenting inhouse." Can you elaborate on the reasons for doing so and what motivated that action?
    - brokentone 12y ago
      We wanted to own our data, wanted to maintain existing user accounts, don't care about federated commenting login, want to keep old comments on old stories, and didn't really feel like paying someone (or letting someone suddenly add ads to it). Building it from scratch on top of the WP database made sense for us. The WP commenting code is some of the worst (and oldest) stuff in the entire codex.
  - opendais 12y ago
    What scale are you finding it difficult at? I'm pretty sure the first poster was thinking more along the lines of an official company blog, not a major website.
  - baby 12y ago
    > A. Commenting at scale is hard. Believe me, I know. Other than just believing you, what makes it hard? I've had to scale comments on some very high traffic websites and it was pretty straight forward. Unless it's a complex comment system, but then you wouldn't use Disqus anyway.
ilamont 12y ago
Disappointing, considering how ubiquitous Disqus is on American news sites. This means we'll be seeing more ads and promos on pages already packed with commercial messages. FWIW, I rarely bother reading Disqus threads (glacial load times and poor sorting) and stopped contributing after many of my comments started being flagged as spam.
- singlequote 12y ago
  Step 1: Ubiquity. Step 2: Profit. But honestly, YouTube is a good example of this model. It's the go-to site for videos, and bombards you with ads.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  I already have Ghostery set to block Disqus both because of the slow load times and because 99% of the commentary on news websites and blogs is mind-polluting drivel. I struggle with clinical depression and ADD, and I've taken up using blockers and CSS restylers to hide the comment interface completely on most websites I visit because I reliazed I was only look at them to get an emotional kick similar to troll venom. I think there's a much better business model that Ghostery (and many other vendros) have completely missed, but I'm pretty sure I would gt heavily flamed for proposing it.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    Sigh...that should have said 'that Disqus (and many other vendors) have missed', not Ghostery, which is awesome and has a smart business model already. Sorry about that.
mattmaroon 12y ago
I am sure they will be pilloried for this, but I never begrudge a company trying to come up with a sustainable revenue model. Nobody ever thought "I sure wish I saw more ads online" and people gripe every time they pop up somewhere new, and yet everyone wants free services. So I say good luck brothers.
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  Free service does not mean "riddled with advertisement". A lot of the sites I consider high-value don't do advertising at all. Khanacademy, Coursera, Hackernews, Github ... It's like saying open source software is created by students trying to avoid license fees.
  - mattmaroon 12y ago
    That's kind of silly to point out not for profits and freemiym services. Not all products lend themselves to one of those.
    - bayesianhorse 12y ago
      It's kind of silly to point out that not all products lend themselves to any particular model, isn't that right? I have the impression that would-be-creators are rushing towards specific advertising or pay-for-access models too quickly.
      - mattmaroon 12y ago
        They've been in business for over 7 years. I know because I was in the same YC batch as them. They have not rushed into anything.
jqm 12y ago
Are the ads going to say things like "my sisters cousin makes $2000 a month by surfing the internet"? Because if so, I think the program has already started
- rebel 12y ago
  I wonder if people already have gotten a head start on becoming ad-blind to these types of ads...
danso 12y ago
From the OP: "So, What Are Sponsored Comments?" > Sponsored Comments let businesses deliver a message to the people they need to reach. A Sponsored Comment can use all types of media to get their point across, just like any other Disqus comment. But they’re not part of the discussion happening on that thread or community itself. That’s too disruptive. So instead, they’re pinned to the top of the discussion environment where things are just getting started. It’s like movie previews. So...why not call them by their old fashioned name: "ads"? I don't disapprove of ad-based models, but something seems a bit disingenuous to use the term "Comments" when they are not "comments" at all. Unless users are able to respond to them and not have their comments hidden. It's hard to imagine advertisers being happy about users getting to attach negative comments onto the ads. And if those threads get to be a snark train, then that pushes all the regular discussion down even further. So either the "sponsored comment"-discussions are hidden, or advertisers AND site-users are inconvenienced.
- jlgaddis 12y ago
  > Unless users are able to respond to them and not have their comments hidden. In the screenshots, there's a "Reply" button under the ad^W"Sponsored Comment". Want to take bets on how long it'll be until that goes away? I can see exactly what you described happening.
cm2012 12y ago
Just reached out to them to test this out.
xxxmadraxxx 12y ago
"Sponsored Comments", "Sponsored Tweets"... amazing how many people struggle to spell "Spam" properly. Oh well. Won't bother me. I've already got Ghostery configured to block Disqus.
- jlgaddis 12y ago
  Seriously. Let me say up front that I have a strong dislike for marketing and sales people. They surprise me sometimes, though. FTA: > "If we can complement the experience people already enjoy using Disqus ..." > "So instead, they’re pinned to the top of the discussion environment where things are just getting started. It’s like movie previews. It’s not the thing you came for, but if done well, it adds a little bit to your experience ..." I've learned over the years that some of these folks really truly believe this -- that they are making the world^Wweb a better place by displaying more ads in more places. I don't remember the last time I left a comment on a site that uses Disqus but, seriously, who the "enjoy[s] using Disqus"? It's just not something that you "enjoy" doing, although the marketing/P.R. people would seem to believe that you do.
  - smacktoward 12y ago
    > I've learned over the years that some of these folks really truly believe this -- that they are making the world^Wweb a better place by displaying more ads in more places. As Upton Sinclair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair) used to say, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
    - 001sky 12y ago
      "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." This is a useful reminder for many topics.
leejoramo 12y ago
Any recommendations for alternatives to Disqus that have roughly feature parity and which allow me to pay them for their services?
- opendais 12y ago
  LiveFyre, IntenseDebate are the only two that have rough feature parity and they don't take money either. I guess an opportunity for someone to go build one? ;)
beerz 12y ago
This is disappointing, but not surprising. Sigh.
booruguru 12y ago
How do you propose Disqus earn revenue/stay in business. There's little incentive for publishes to pay for a commenting platform when they could just go back to using a shitty internal solution. (Although, admittedly, some publishers do pay discuss for enterprise solutions, but if that were more lucrative than ads, why would the bother with ads?) I never cease to be amazed by people who bitch about seeing ads within a product/service they use for free. Someone has to pay for this.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- bayesianhorse 12y ago
  Ads are annoying. People bitch about annoyances. No wonder there. "Someone has to pay for this" is the wrong attitude. Either the service provider provides the service or he doesn't. If I'm not in a contract to pay them, I don't assume responsibility for paying anything...
na85 12y ago
Yet another reason to avoid Disqus

36 points by dko 12y ago

It should be noted that Disqus ads are opt-out, meaning that new accounts have to explicitly disable ads. Ads were OK when they were text link to another site a la AdWords: it was clear that they are ads. Native comment ads, however, can be deceptive.

bergie 12y ago
Interestingly I don't see an opt-out option for sponsored comments in the admin panel.
- jamesbritt 12y ago
  Do you already have ads turned off?
cordite 12y ago
They were okay.. but I actually sent back some feedback to them by showing other "related" articles. The trashy ones. You know, showing a picture of someone groping their belly fat and mentioning some diet. This was on a programmer's static blog compiled by octopress. I really felt like it lowered the quality of my experience reading the post, even though it was entirely Disqus's fault and not the author.
bentlegen 12y ago
This is no longer true – they're opt-in. And by invitation only.
- minimaxir 12y ago
  I checked my admin and you appear to be correct.

nilved 12y ago

It was clear that Disqus had jumped the shark after they first added opt-out ads, but I suppose the slope is slippery.

bentlegen 12y ago
I commented on this elsewhere in this thread: > This is no longer true – they're opt-in. And by invitation only.
- nilved 12y ago
  I don't see what that has to do with my comment.

lnlyplnt 12y ago

Honestly I think this is promising. The format is not "shady" or disruptive, and the company seems to have a good understanding that adds done poorly can be damaging.

akilism 12y ago

wonder how much this has to do with them getting rid of showing down votes on comments

baby 12y ago

I do own a couple websites using disqus but I don't care too much about what comment makes it first. But for a personal blog, or a company that makes a lot of money, seeing people advertising in your comments would be a good excuse to start coding a home-made comment system.

brokentone 12y ago
A. Commenting at scale is hard. Believe me, I know. We run the largest Wordpress website out there, and decided to rewrite commenting inhouse. It's been... hard. B. There are a handful of other good providers out there that hopefully this will give more business to.
- larrys 12y ago
  "We run the largest Wordpress website out there, and decided to rewrite commenting inhouse." Can you elaborate on the reasons for doing so and what motivated that action?
  - brokentone 12y ago
    We wanted to own our data, wanted to maintain existing user accounts, don't care about federated commenting login, want to keep old comments on old stories, and didn't really feel like paying someone (or letting someone suddenly add ads to it). Building it from scratch on top of the WP database made sense for us. The WP commenting code is some of the worst (and oldest) stuff in the entire codex.
- opendais 12y ago
  What scale are you finding it difficult at? I'm pretty sure the first poster was thinking more along the lines of an official company blog, not a major website.
- baby 12y ago
  > A. Commenting at scale is hard. Believe me, I know. Other than just believing you, what makes it hard? I've had to scale comments on some very high traffic websites and it was pretty straight forward. Unless it's a complex comment system, but then you wouldn't use Disqus anyway.

ilamont 12y ago

Disappointing, considering how ubiquitous Disqus is on American news sites. This means we'll be seeing more ads and promos on pages already packed with commercial messages. FWIW, I rarely bother reading Disqus threads (glacial load times and poor sorting) and stopped contributing after many of my comments started being flagged as spam.

singlequote 12y ago
Step 1: Ubiquity. Step 2: Profit. But honestly, YouTube is a good example of this model. It's the go-to site for videos, and bombards you with ads.
anigbrowl 12y ago
I already have Ghostery set to block Disqus both because of the slow load times and because 99% of the commentary on news websites and blogs is mind-polluting drivel. I struggle with clinical depression and ADD, and I've taken up using blockers and CSS restylers to hide the comment interface completely on most websites I visit because I reliazed I was only look at them to get an emotional kick similar to troll venom. I think there's a much better business model that Ghostery (and many other vendros) have completely missed, but I'm pretty sure I would gt heavily flamed for proposing it.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Sigh...that should have said 'that Disqus (and many other vendors) have missed', not Ghostery, which is awesome and has a smart business model already. Sorry about that.

mattmaroon 12y ago

I am sure they will be pilloried for this, but I never begrudge a company trying to come up with a sustainable revenue model. Nobody ever thought "I sure wish I saw more ads online" and people gripe every time they pop up somewhere new, and yet everyone wants free services. So I say good luck brothers.

bayesianhorse 12y ago
Free service does not mean "riddled with advertisement". A lot of the sites I consider high-value don't do advertising at all. Khanacademy, Coursera, Hackernews, Github ... It's like saying open source software is created by students trying to avoid license fees.
- mattmaroon 12y ago
  That's kind of silly to point out not for profits and freemiym services. Not all products lend themselves to one of those.
  - bayesianhorse 12y ago
    It's kind of silly to point out that not all products lend themselves to any particular model, isn't that right? I have the impression that would-be-creators are rushing towards specific advertising or pay-for-access models too quickly.
    - mattmaroon 12y ago
      They've been in business for over 7 years. I know because I was in the same YC batch as them. They have not rushed into anything.

jqm 12y ago

Are the ads going to say things like "my sisters cousin makes $2000 a month by surfing the internet"? Because if so, I think the program has already started

rebel 12y ago
I wonder if people already have gotten a head start on becoming ad-blind to these types of ads...

danso 12y ago

From the OP: "So, What Are Sponsored Comments?" > Sponsored Comments let businesses deliver a message to the people they need to reach. A Sponsored Comment can use all types of media to get their point across, just like any other Disqus comment. But they’re not part of the discussion happening on that thread or community itself. That’s too disruptive. So instead, they’re pinned to the top of the discussion environment where things are just getting started. It’s like movie previews. So...why not call them by their old fashioned name: "ads"? I don't disapprove of ad-based models, but something seems a bit disingenuous to use the term "Comments" when they are not "comments" at all. Unless users are able to respond to them and not have their comments hidden. It's hard to imagine advertisers being happy about users getting to attach negative comments onto the ads. And if those threads get to be a snark train, then that pushes all the regular discussion down even further. So either the "sponsored comment"-discussions are hidden, or advertisers AND site-users are inconvenienced.

jlgaddis 12y ago
> Unless users are able to respond to them and not have their comments hidden. In the screenshots, there's a "Reply" button under the ad^W"Sponsored Comment". Want to take bets on how long it'll be until that goes away? I can see exactly what you described happening.

cm2012 12y ago

Just reached out to them to test this out.

xxxmadraxxx 12y ago

"Sponsored Comments", "Sponsored Tweets"... amazing how many people struggle to spell "Spam" properly. Oh well. Won't bother me. I've already got Ghostery configured to block Disqus.

jlgaddis 12y ago
Seriously. Let me say up front that I have a strong dislike for marketing and sales people. They surprise me sometimes, though. FTA: > "If we can complement the experience people already enjoy using Disqus ..." > "So instead, they’re pinned to the top of the discussion environment where things are just getting started. It’s like movie previews. It’s not the thing you came for, but if done well, it adds a little bit to your experience ..." I've learned over the years that some of these folks really truly believe this -- that they are making the world^Wweb a better place by displaying more ads in more places. I don't remember the last time I left a comment on a site that uses Disqus but, seriously, who the "enjoy[s] using Disqus"? It's just not something that you "enjoy" doing, although the marketing/P.R. people would seem to believe that you do.
- smacktoward 12y ago
  > I've learned over the years that some of these folks really truly believe this -- that they are making the world^Wweb a better place by displaying more ads in more places. As Upton Sinclair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair) used to say, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
  - 001sky 12y ago
    "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." This is a useful reminder for many topics.

leejoramo 12y ago

Any recommendations for alternatives to Disqus that have roughly feature parity and which allow me to pay them for their services?

opendais 12y ago
LiveFyre, IntenseDebate are the only two that have rough feature parity and they don't take money either. I guess an opportunity for someone to go build one? ;)

beerz 12y ago

This is disappointing, but not surprising. Sigh.

booruguru 12y ago

How do you propose Disqus earn revenue/stay in business. There's little incentive for publishes to pay for a commenting platform when they could just go back to using a shitty internal solution. (Although, admittedly, some publishers do pay discuss for enterprise solutions, but if that were more lucrative than ads, why would the bother with ads?) I never cease to be amazed by people who bitch about seeing ads within a product/service they use for free. Someone has to pay for this.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bayesianhorse 12y ago
Ads are annoying. People bitch about annoyances. No wonder there. "Someone has to pay for this" is the wrong attitude. Either the service provider provides the service or he doesn't. If I'm not in a contract to pay them, I don't assume responsibility for paying anything...

na85 12y ago

Yet another reason to avoid Disqus