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They've been doing this for months, and it's done revenue-sharing style, so if you're getting a lot of comments, you stand a chance of making a couple of bucks

They've been doing this for months, and it's done revenue-sharing style, so if you're getting a lot of comments, you stand a chance of making a couple of bucks through the ads. (If you go to your admin page and click Analytics, you'll see the discovery tab which tells you how much you've made.) I've gotten multiple emails on it, so it certainly wasn't a bait and switch. A piece from November on the matter: -- The new Promoted Discovery for Disqus was a major release for publishers like you who are seeking ways to drive business around content, community and conversation. We’re very excited about the results so far. There’s strong engagement in discovered content and excellent flow of new high quality traffic for websites using Disqus. This tells us it’s winning for both publishers and their readers. We’re only getting started. As we grow, we'll continue to evaluate new opportunities for you to grow and make money with us. We think you’ll like them because, like Promoted Discovery, they will be complementary to the user experience. If you’d rather not try out these features, you can always turn them off in your settings. The next feature we’re piloting lets you get credit for the traffic you drive to ecommerce sites like Amazon or eBay. If you already do some form of affiliate linking, we do nothing to those existing links. Soon, you may begin to see the impact of these in your reporting dashboard (we’ll be rolling this out slowly over time). Of course, all of this happens seamlessly behind the scenes — the experience for your readers doesn’t change at all. You can learn more by reading this page. At Disqus, our core philosophy is to remain native to the core user experience and provide the best community experience possible. As always, I welcome your questions and feedback.

jacquesm 14y ago
I have not received an email, there is no opt-out switch, and honestly I have not seen this on the comment section of my blog until it showed up just now. Elsewhere in this thread there are people that say they don't have it right now so it appears to switch on/off according to some hidden criterion. Highly annoying. "At Disqus, our core philosophy is to remain native to the core user experience and provide the best community experience possible." I hate language like that. And I'm 100% sure that I have never seen these ads before.
- shortformblog 14y ago
  Whatever the case, you can turn it off: http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/666278#discovery-settings http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/666278#disco...
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    It should have defaulted to 'off'. You can break trust exactly once.
    - shortformblog 14y ago
      It's a free service and they're at the point where monetization is becoming a necessity. I can appreciate that, and it's not a particularly evil way of doing it, if you ask me. I don't know about you, but I can live with a couple of non-obtrusive links that go other places—especially since, like a lot of people, I got emails about it ahead of time. If you can't, you can turn it off. You act as if the ads are putting ugly pictures of fat people are flooding your site or ads for e-Cigarettes or other skeevy things. I've been seeing them for months — their ads, far as I can tell, are of higher quality than the ones you see on Facebook and Google search. (I see links for Exxon, Comedy Central and Citi on a recent comment thread on my site. Certainly not bottom-shelf names.) The reason why you probably didn't notice them is because they're so unobtrusive that they were designed so you wouldn't notice them. Now whatever philosophical issues that raises, I think, from what I've seen in my own experience, Disqus handled this the right way. EDIT: I don't get the downvotes. My point is totally valid here.
      - niggler 14y ago
        No one begrudges a company trying to monetize, but there's an expectation that there will be some communication beforehand. I'm sure if they sent multiple emails and if OP discovered the matter through official communications and not by looking at the page, then he may have been OK with it but more importantly wouldn't feel like a bait-and-switch was pulled.
      - 14y ago
BSousa 14y ago
Whether you warned users of this change or not, to me, that isn't the problem. The issue is that they are stealth ads. As jacques mentioned, and the screenshot shows, the ads look like they are personal recommendations by jacques, and this is what is quite sneaky/crappy about this whole change. If you went the route of using other language like sponsored ads, I think you were in the right, it's your service and you can change it, but this is indeed quite sneaky. It's like me going on tv and saying Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Jordan recommend my app. It's a lie.

jacquesm 14y ago

I have not received an email, there is no opt-out switch, and honestly I have not seen this on the comment section of my blog until it showed up just now. Elsewhere in this thread there are people that say they don't have it right now so it appears to switch on/off according to some hidden criterion. Highly annoying. "At Disqus, our core philosophy is to remain native to the core user experience and provide the best community experience possible." I hate language like that. And I'm 100% sure that I have never seen these ads before.

shortformblog 14y ago
Whatever the case, you can turn it off: http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/666278#discovery-settings http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/666278#disco...
- jacquesm 14y ago
  It should have defaulted to 'off'. You can break trust exactly once.
  - shortformblog 14y ago
    It's a free service and they're at the point where monetization is becoming a necessity. I can appreciate that, and it's not a particularly evil way of doing it, if you ask me. I don't know about you, but I can live with a couple of non-obtrusive links that go other places—especially since, like a lot of people, I got emails about it ahead of time. If you can't, you can turn it off. You act as if the ads are putting ugly pictures of fat people are flooding your site or ads for e-Cigarettes or other skeevy things. I've been seeing them for months — their ads, far as I can tell, are of higher quality than the ones you see on Facebook and Google search. (I see links for Exxon, Comedy Central and Citi on a recent comment thread on my site. Certainly not bottom-shelf names.) The reason why you probably didn't notice them is because they're so unobtrusive that they were designed so you wouldn't notice them. Now whatever philosophical issues that raises, I think, from what I've seen in my own experience, Disqus handled this the right way. EDIT: I don't get the downvotes. My point is totally valid here.
    - niggler 14y ago
      No one begrudges a company trying to monetize, but there's an expectation that there will be some communication beforehand. I'm sure if they sent multiple emails and if OP discovered the matter through official communications and not by looking at the page, then he may have been OK with it but more importantly wouldn't feel like a bait-and-switch was pulled.
    - 14y ago

BSousa 14y ago

Whether you warned users of this change or not, to me, that isn't the problem. The issue is that they are stealth ads. As jacques mentioned, and the screenshot shows, the ads look like they are personal recommendations by jacques, and this is what is quite sneaky/crappy about this whole change. If you went the route of using other language like sponsored ads, I think you were in the right, it's your service and you can change it, but this is indeed quite sneaky. It's like me going on tv and saying Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Jordan recommend my app. It's a lie.