Disqus: Difference between revisions
→Tracking and analytics: ref typo |
→Business model: Discuss XSD of exportable data, easily hot-linked with email identifier and profile links ... and important privacy policy snippets related to user tracking |
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The exportable data format<ref name="dexport">{{cite web |
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|url = http://docs.disqus.com/developers/export/ |
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|title = DISCUS Docs | Comments Export |
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|work = DISCUS Developers Docs |
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|publisher = [[Disqus]] |
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|date = 2012-04-14 |
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|accessdate = 2012-04-14 |
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}}</ref> for Disqus comments includes the user nickname, profile link, email, full name and flag for whether the user opted to be anonymous in the discussion.<ref name="dxsd">{{cite web |
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|url = http://disqus.com/api/schemas/1.0/disqus.xsd |
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|title = Discus data export [[XSD]] schema definition |
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|work = DISCUS Developers Docs |
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|publisher = [[Disqus]] |
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|date = 2012-04-14 |
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}}</ref> |
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The Discus [[privacy policy]] April 2012 vaguely states that |
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{{Cquote|'''''Information Collection on Partner Sites''''' |
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''Disqus.com may collect information from Partner Sites about you and your usage of the Disqus service on their sites. Such information will not specifically identify you as an individual, but may be used to report anonymous information about your usage of the Partner Site and the Disqus service on that site.'' |
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'''''How We Use Personal Information''''' |
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... |
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''We may permit our vendors to access your Personal Information, but only in connection with services that they perform for us and not to use for their own purposes.'' ... |
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'''''Information posted in Public Forums''''' |
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''You should be aware that Personal Information which you voluntarily include and transmit online in a publicly assessable blog or otherwise online may be viewed and used by others. We are unable to control such uses of your Personal Information, and by using such services you assume the risk that the Personal Information provided by you may be viewed and used by third parties.'' ...|author=[[Disqus|Disqus website]]|source=Privacy Policy<ref name="dxsd">{{cite web |
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|url = http://docs.disqus.com/help/30/ |
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|title = DISCUS Docs | Knowledge Base - Privacy Policy |
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|work = Disqus Docs | Knowledge Base |
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|publisher = [[Disqus]] |
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|date = 2012-04-14 |
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|accessdate = 2012-04-14 |
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== Functionality == |
== Functionality == |
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Revision as of 17:55, 14 April 2012
| Disqus-logo | |
| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Founded | San Francisco, California, United States (October 30, 2007) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Founder(s) | Daniel Ha Jason Yan |
| Key people | Daniel Ha (CEO) Jason Yan (CTO) |
| Industry | Internet |
| Employees | 25 (2011) |
| URL | disqus.com |
| Registration | Optional |
| Users | 50 million |
| Launched | October 2007 |
| Current status | Active |
Disqus (dis·cuss • dï-sküs') is an online discussion and commenting service for websites and online communities that uses a networked platform. The company’s platform includes various features, such as social integration, social networking, user profiles, spam and moderation tools, analytics, email notifications, and mobile commenting. It was founded in 2007 by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan as a Y Combinator startup.
Disqus ranks #1 in Quantcast's U.S. networks with 144 million monthly unique U.S. visits.[2] Disqus is featured on many major publications, such as Engadget, CNN, Fox News, Daily Telegraph and IGN and about 750,000 blogs and websites.[3] It competes with IntenseDebate, Livefyre and Echo.
History
Disqus was first developed in the summer of 2007 as a Y Combinator startup headed by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan, both of whom were undergraduates at University of California, Davis. Disqus was first incorporated and launched on October 30, 2007.
Financing
In early 2011, Disqus raised $10 million in funding from North Bridge Venture Partners and Union Square Venture Partners.[4]
Growth
In November 2010, shortly after celebrating its third anniversary, Disqus announced hitting 200 million unique visitors/month. Seven months later in May 2011, Disqus announced approaching 500 million unique visitors/month, in addition to consistent 500% traffic, user, and community growth for the previous year, bringing its total counts to about 750,000 websites and 50 million registered users[3][5]
According to a March 2011 study by Lijit, Disqus is used by 75% of websites who use a third party commenting or discussion system.[6]
Technology
The Disqus comment widget is written in JavaScript and is powered by a back end primarily written in Django.
Business model
Disqus operates on the freemium financial model, similar to Dropbox and Evernote. The service is free to use for both commenters and websites.
Starting in November 2010 Disqus began officially offering three add-on packages for websites: Plus for $19/month, Pro for $199/month, and VIP starting at $999/month.[7] In mid-2011, the Plus package was removed and Pro was increased to $299/month.
Aggregate information about registered users (sites visited, etc.) is sold to other corporations.[citation needed]
Tracking and analytics
Disqus offers unique insight into your community and its growth via the Analytics add-on. Disqus Analytics is a dashboard located within your Admin as an additional tab, which allows you to both monitor trends at-a-glance and dig more deeply into detailed data. Features include a snapshot view, activity stats, people metrics, network behaviors, exportable data, trending graphs, and more.
— Disqus website, Disqus Knowledge Base - "How can I best track my commenting and community analytics?"[8]
The premium add-ons for Disqus includes an Analytics Dashboard.[9] The premium packages also allows integration with Facebook and Twitter profiles among other social networks.[10] The functionality of the dashboard allows for tracking the comments and community.[8] The Disqus Job Openings page gives some insight into how they plan to further monetize their services. Disqus is as of April 2012 announcing open positions where they are looking for:
* Business Development Intern
- Disqus is looking for a Business Development intern to help us research the SaaS, social network, and advertising landscapes. ... This is a high visibility project with deliverables that will be critical to the entire organization as Disqus shapes business strategy for its next-generation products and go-to-market planning.
- Key Responsibilities: "Sourcing business intellegence (sic) and industry insights", "Developing analytical models to capture external research as well as internal data" ...
- Audience Development Manager
- Disqus is looking for an Audience Development Manager to work with advertisers and publishers to execute advertising campaigns with Disqus. ...
- "Facilitate priming the pump to get publishers buying traffic through Disqus (demand)" , "Work with Disqus' current publishers to get them onboard with Disqus' monetization solutions (supply)" , "Work to fill demand via partnerships with large content marketing companies to syndicate their ad feeds into Disqus", ... , "Work to fill demand via partnerships with large content marketing companies to syndicate their ad feeds into Disqus"
- Audience Program Manager
- Disqus is looking for an Audience Program Manager to work with advertisers and publishers to execute advertising campaigns with Disqus.
- Key Responsibilities: "Manage traffic acquisition campaigns for premium publisher and brand sites", "Manage all aspects of the advertising campaign post sale including: kick off calls, campaign implementation, optimization and launch, providing insight and strategic direction to the client, report, up-selling for future campaigns", ...
— Disqus website, Job Openings[11]
The above citations from the Disqus website makes it very clear that advertising and tracking of activity and people metrics is integral to their monetizing plans. Disqus already integrates with Twitter and Facebook profiles among others to provide single sign-on for their premium services, which allows integration of further aggregated information about users for advertisers and websites using Disqus by linking users to their social profiles and networks of friends.[10]
The exportable data format[12] for Disqus comments includes the user nickname, profile link, email, full name and flag for whether the user opted to be anonymous in the discussion.[13]
The Discus privacy policy April 2012 vaguely states that
Information Collection on Partner Sites
Disqus.com may collect information from Partner Sites about you and your usage of the Disqus service on their sites. Such information will not specifically identify you as an individual, but may be used to report anonymous information about your usage of the Partner Site and the Disqus service on that site.
How We Use Personal Information
... We may permit our vendors to access your Personal Information, but only in connection with services that they perform for us and not to use for their own purposes. ...
Information posted in Public Forums
You should be aware that Personal Information which you voluntarily include and transmit online in a publicly assessable blog or otherwise online may be viewed and used by others. We are unable to control such uses of your Personal Information, and by using such services you assume the risk that the Personal Information provided by you may be viewed and used by third parties. ...
— Disqus website, Privacy Policy[13]
Functionality
Language support
Both the Disqus website and comment system are translated in over 60 languages.[14]
Browser support
Disqus works in all major web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. On mobile devices, Disqus currently only supports browsers using the WebKit layout engine.[15]
References
- ^ "disqus.com – Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
- ^ "Disqus Network Traffic and Demographic Statistics by Quantcast". Retrieved October 18, 2011.
- ^ a b "The Numbers of Disqus". May 4, 2011. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
- ^ "Commenting startups Disqus celebrates its birthday with $10M more". May 4, 2011. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
- ^ "PyCon 2011 Scaling Disqus". March 13, 2011. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
- ^ "Lijit Study Shows Publisher Adoption of Social Media Tools Grows 80%". March 2, 2011. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
- ^ "The new DISQUS: Add-ons, Analytics, APIs, and more". Disqus Product Blog. November 17, 2010. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
- ^ a b "DISQUS Docs". Disqus Docs. Disqus. 2012-04-14. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
{{cite web}}: Text "KB - How can I best track my commenting and community analytics?" ignored (help); Text "Knowledge Base" ignored (help) - ^ "Add-ons Package - DISQUS". Premium Add-ons. Disqus. 2012-04-14. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
- ^ a b "DISCUS Docs". DISCUS Developers Docs. Disqus. 2012-04-14. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
{{cite web}}: Text "Single Sign-on" ignored (help) - ^ "Jobs - DISQUS". Disqus Job Openings. Disqus. 2012-04-14. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
- ^ "DISCUS Docs". DISCUS Developers Docs. Disqus. 2012-04-14. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
{{cite web}}: Text "Comments Export" ignored (help) - ^ a b "Discus data export [[XSD]] schema definition". DISCUS Developers Docs. Disqus. 2012-04-14. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
{{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help) Cite error: The named reference "dxsd" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ "Disqus Comments: Translated in over 40 languages". November 2, 2009. Retrieved October 18, 2011.
- ^ "Which mobile devices does Disqus work with?". Retrieved October 18, 2011.
