Let's Discuss Disqus

We initially reviewed comment replacement system Disqus when it launched last October. Disqus is basically a "smarter" way to handle comments on a blog, microblog or traditional Web site. Intense Debate offers something similar and launched at about the same time but Disqus clearly has the "250" force in effect.

Disqus investor Fred Wilson posted an informercial for why he believes Disqus is superior to the commenting systems that blog platforms offer by default. He noted three major benefits for Disqus over the normal commenting systems:

1. threaded discussions
2. email replies/email replies for commenters
3. shared profiles

I assume these are his three top reasons for using Disqus. Let's take a look at his reasons with regards to what we use here on CenterNetworks which runs a basic out-of-the-box drupal setup.

• threaded discussions - we have that, you can click reply on any comment and it will produce a threaded discussion
• email replies - we have this as well, just check the box and anytime a person replies to your comment, you will receive an email notification straight away. Disqus also allows you to email a reply and it will be added to the comment thread. This is pefect for a personal blog - not crazy about it for a business blog (one that earns revenue).
• shared profiles - openID anyone? Drupal also supports central logins so all Drupal blogs can use the same login.

Canadian blogger Mathew Ingram throws Disqus two-thumbs up and says that the email function is his favorite. He also notes spam prevention as a major factor in his decision. I would have assumed that Fred would have the same in his top 3 reasons. Comment spam freaking sucks. We are using Mollom on CN and as I've written before, it's given me back an hour a day.

Disqus offers distributed moderation which means that you can select anyone who uses Disqus to help moderate your blog comments. I like this feature, especially for popular blogs/Web sites.

In Fred's infomercial, he forgets to note some of the things you will be giving up when you move to Disqus. Let's take a look:

• Comments are no longer attached to your blog. If Disqus goes down or out of business, you are borked. (fyi, I don't expect them to go under). There's also no data portability currently so you can't take your comments with you. I asked Daniel about this last October and he said it was coming - I assume it's still coming.
• A privacy policy must now include the Disqus privacy policy. Will the average commenter understand that when they comment on Mathew Ingram's blog, that they are agreeing to the terms of service from Disqus? Disqus founder Daniel Ha says that they will never sell or rent the email addresses, and I completely believe him today - but what about for data collection purposes later on? Clearly Disqus is sitting on a gold mine of data.
• Comments are not indexed by the search engines - the code Disqus requires prevents Google from indexing the comments on your blog as part of the article.
• Users never need to come back to your blog to be part of the discussion - this is a personal preference in my opinion. Personal bloggers and those not "earning a living" at blogging won't care about this while those that do earn a living will. Maybe not today, but eventually they will.
• Where's the business plan for Disqus? Eventually they will need to generate revenue, right? My guess is that there will be some freemium model with ads/pay for premium services. Or they will take all of the comments and bundle them and sell them as aggregated research.

Conclusion

Disqus has moved the idea of commenting forward which is a good thing. Is the service perfect? No. Is the service the right one for some bloggers? Absolutely. I've enjoyed speaking with Daniel who is a very bright guy and I think he will continue to enhance the Disqus offering over time.

The conversation about where the conversation should take place is only beginning.

At the end of the day, the decision to use Disqus (or any of the other new comment replacements) is a personal preference. In my opinion, the decision rests on whether the blog is commercial or not. I still haven't seen enough reasons to switch the commenting system on CN (or any of my other sites) to Disqus.