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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

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?

DenisM 18y ago
They know who you are and they know what interests you have. This is fertile ground for targeted (i.e. profitable) advertising. Similarly google knows what you are looking for, so they can advertise effectively.
- ctbk 18y ago
  Yes, you have a point, but apparently they're discarding that option. From the article: "They've definitely had talks about how to monetize and start bringing in money, but if you thought they were about to start with advertising, you'd be wrong. Disqus will not always be a zero-revenue company, but Daniel says advertising's not in the plans."
  - DenisM 18y ago
    The information is still valuable. They could expose you to other applications which will interest you and in turn generate profit.
louismg 18y ago
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 18y ago
  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 18y ago
    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 18y ago
      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.

DenisM 18y ago

They know who you are and they know what interests you have. This is fertile ground for targeted (i.e. profitable) advertising. Similarly google knows what you are looking for, so they can advertise effectively.

ctbk 18y ago
Yes, you have a point, but apparently they're discarding that option. From the article: "They've definitely had talks about how to monetize and start bringing in money, but if you thought they were about to start with advertising, you'd be wrong. Disqus will not always be a zero-revenue company, but Daniel says advertising's not in the plans."
- DenisM 18y ago
  The information is still valuable. They could expose you to other applications which will interest you and in turn generate profit.

louismg 18y ago

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 18y ago
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 18y ago
  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 18y ago
    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.