Disqus2012 Launches

Today is launch day for Disqus2012. The speedy new commenting system built from the ground up by our portfolio company Disqus is generally available today.

There's a slick new website, a comprehensive new feature list, and a showcase featuring all the big blogs and online publications that are using D2012.

And Disqus has made a 60 second spot showing off it's new baby and all the tricks it can do.

Disqus 2012 – The Web's Favorite Discussion Platform from Disqus on Vimeo.

This is a big moment for Disqus. We've been watching this new product grow and develop in front of our own eyes here at AVC. We were the first community to get it and the first to try most of the new features as they rolled out. It has been rocky at times but I know that Daniel and the team appreciate all of us being beta testers and a source of continuous feedback.

There probably isn't a service on the web that has more of me invested in it than Disqus. AVC was the first blog to run Disqus when it launched at YC in mid 2007, I have contributed numerous feature requests over the years, and this community has provided so much insight and direction to me and the team. I believe unconditionally in the vision of a web scale commenting community. That is Disqus and Disqus2012 is a big step in realizing that vision.

#VC & Technology#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. Cam MacRae

    Congratulations guys!Btw, that video is fantastic.

  2. William Mougayar

    Rock on Disqus! I’m taking @danielha for drinks this evening in SF to celebrate!Conversations are the new social capital currency.If you’re in SF, join me and @danielha to discuss the future of online commenting & communities http://www.meetup.com/That-

    1. baba12

      when are you in NYC or Brooklyn next?

      1. William Mougayar

        In early July.

        1. baba12

          We shall have a drink then possibly in Brooklyn ( if it wasnt part of NYC it would be the 4th largest city in the U.S. as per the leader strip on “Welcome back Kotter” http://goo.gl/ysbE

          1. ShanaC

            can I join?

          2. baba12

            Sure can. But William has to agree else it will be just me.

          3. William Mougayar

            I’ll email you both prior and we’ll figure something out cc: @shanacarp

          4. William Mougayar

            I need to visit Brooklyn again. I haven’t been in years 🙂

    2. Pete Griffiths

      I work out of Rocketspace. I’ll see you thursday night. 🙂

      1. William Mougayar

        Great. Looking forward to meeting you

    3. obscurelyfamous

      Looking forward to that meetup, @wmoug:disqus

  3. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

    I really lol’ed for the comment made by “Elvis Presley” in reply to “Marilyn Monroe”.Congratulations to the team.

    1. Shawn Cohen

      The only thing better than that would have been a comment from @fakegrimlock

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        EVERY DEMO NEED MORE GRIMLOCK!

        1. Ro Gupta

          truth

    2. fredwilson

      That was a nice touch

  4. RichardF

    slick presentation.I have two gripes with Disqus at the moment:I want to see who likes/upvotes commentsIn FF sometime when I post a comment it doesn’t appear to have posted it so then I post it again and it turns out I’ve posted it twice when I refresh the page.Completely off topic, a request for a Fun Friday Topic in the near future is book recommendations. I need some for the upcoming holiday period from the avc community, both fiction and non.

    1. William Mougayar

      This is not a day for gripes 🙂

      1. RichardF

        ok good point, feature requests.

      2. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

        Not for AVCers/Fredlanders

        1. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

          now … who the hell down-voted my comment here…:-)

      3. leigh

        oh william — every day is a day for gripes (and kudos)

        1. Dale Allyn

          Constructive criticism requires thought and effort to present, and is a sign of caring. It’s a tremendously valuable gesture. That’s why companies pay huge amounts for surveys to get user/customer feedback. To get it for free is wonderful and a sign you’re doing enough right that people give a damn to help you improve. 🙂

          1. panterosa,

            I gave prototypes of my game to people and got amazing comments for the second edition. If you’re on engagio then we can swap emails.

      4. Donna Brewington White

        Tough love?

        1. William Mougayar

          It seems that way….Good !

    2. Tom Labus

      I’m with you on knowing who votes.

      1. Matt A. Myers

        This is crucial to forming bonds between people, and for incentivizing constructive discussion and respectful conversation.

        1. Tom Labus

          Yes, yes, yes!!!

        2. ShanaC

          is it? I wonder if having the conversation about being respectful is what takes you further.

          1. Matt A. Myers

            How do you mean?

          2. ShanaC

            if you don’t start with a respectful conversation, how does the voting matter?

          3. Matt A. Myers

            Right, the idea is that downvoting, depending on how it affects the system, is disrespectful to begin with. It’s like saying you’re not worth my time replying, but I don’t think this is worth other people seeing; If you read through my other comments then not all cases would a ‘downvote’ be bad, such in the case as using it as a ‘disagree’ – like @daleallyn:disqus suggests they should be instead (agree/disagree arrows).

          4. ShanaC

            why is that true of downvoting and not upvoting? I can just disagree and sit there with my thoughts.

          5. Matt A. Myers

            If it’s an agree/disagree system, ranking shouldn’t necessarily be based on number of agreements.

        3. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

          Don’t you think that will form gangs within this community … I thought that is reason they have removed….edit: As i wrote earlier… God ( @danielha )only knows !!!!

          1. Robert Holtz

            No… we used to have this feature and it was great. It created more bonds than anything.Some of how I came to form closer friendships with certain participants came about by our noticing the way we were often up-voting each other. It is a dimension of community that generally fortifies the sense of connection.IMO, DISQUS should make that a standard feature of the base product and allow the moderator/webmaster to turn it off if the particular community they want to build would be harmed by that.Having said it, though, here on AVC, knowing who up-voted you was always a complete plus. Even knowing who down-voted you drove discussion (or should I say, DISQUSion?) and friendly debate.It was more like being in the same room together. When you look around, you can tell who is nodding their head in agreement, who is on the fence, and who just isn’t won over. The whole purpose of a commenting system is to encourage this kind of engagement.Having had it before, it definitely feels missing now.DISQUSion <— TM Fred Wilson. 🙂

          2. RichardF

            +1 Robert

          3. Matt A. Myers

            I agree. By attaching the wording ‘Like’ to a gesture, if you click that, it’s integrating with you in that way. It’s not just a one-way action. It creates a bond between the user and the function, and with the content and author of content.

          4. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

            @robert_holtz:disqus @RichardForster:disqus @domainregistry:disqus @mattamyers:disqus @VictusFate:disqusYes … I also miss the ‘like’ button and would like to know who upvoted or down voted me … and having said that … I was the first to upvote Richard’s comment and explicitly said that.I was thinking loud on why @disqus @danielha:disqus decided to remove that. When i make a comment and i get liked by some of the great guys here ‘ i feel’ … ha today i made a good comment and contribution through my ‘words’.People go too much into up and down voting thingy. When someone down vote my comment … i take it as “That comment was stupid” … many people take that as “He is saying I am stupid” and it would create a enimety not because ‘i don’t like you’ … but because ‘ i don’t like your comment on this topic and the way you said it’.As someone says and as fred beleives this tribe is the ‘THE tribe of the internet’ … DISQUS can turn-ON ‘up-down-who’ and see how it evolves. Then may enable in other places OR leave it to the ‘bartender’ to decide when they configure their page.Have a good night.P.S. I am almost 12-hour off of most of the guys here and so I may not reply immediately to your comments and it is the first-hour at the office …

          5. LE

            “form gangs within this community”Agree. It’s like “keep your friends close and enemies closer” situation.

          6. Matt A. Myers

            Ahh.. Just saw this comment. I said the exact same thing, though ‘gangs’ or tribes forming is a neutral thing. It’s how those groups act and behave together which is important – could be dangerous of course, though could be a learning opportunity.

          7. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

            @domainregistry:disqus IMHO then the essence of discussion goes off … it becomes i scratch your shoulder and you scratch my ass between friends 🙂 … Let us shoot that guy down between enemies.That never brings a intellectual discussion table.

          8. Matt A. Myers

            Isn’t it better to know who are in those gangs though, so you can know biases?”Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.”

          9. RichardF

            ooh tribes, leading to subnets now you are talking…

          10. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

            always … and now you are listening :-).

          11. Mark Essel

            new service, disqus vote tracker who’s tagline is “where mobs are born”. I don’t mind knowing, perhaps make it an optional public/anonymous voting thing.

        4. Brandon Marker

          I’ll play devil’s advocate. How many people are likely to down-vote a bad comment if it shows? I feel the anonymity REALLY controls the grading of each comment. I love it. And it is the point of differentiation from all of my social networks. If you show the names, then they become trolls with faces. No one likes a Troll.

          1. RichardF

            why does down-voting make you a troll?I don’t have a problem with up and down voting being anonymous if up and down voting is the method of grading a comment within a community but what I would actually like to be able to do is up vote a comment and to like a comment. For me they are two different things.I think a visible “like” helps to engender community and sparks social interaction a vote is just that, a count and it might as well be anonymous as far as I’m concerned.

          2. Brandon Marker

            I don’t think it makes you a troll, I think showing all the names would lead to a troll-type persecution for the down-voters. Not thinking about AVC, I am thinking about a ton of other forums. The anonymity is a way to avoid direct conflict.The IGN forums can get dirty. People get their feelings hurt on there… a LOT. That way it is just a bunch of silent down-votes to tell someone to STFU, but in a polite way.

          3. RichardF

            ah ok I understand. That reinforces for me why a like and up/down vote are two different things.

          4. leigh

            just made the same point above — totally agree

          5. Donna Brewington White

            After upvoting you several times already today it was time to come out in the open. Appreciate the insights, Richard.And you were one of my most consistent “likers.” I miss that!

          6. Matt A. Myers

            Wow. Such a risk-taker!

          7. Donna Brewington White

            You’re funny.

          8. RichardF

            liked and ditto

          9. thinkdisruptive

            The problem with this sentiment is that it seems logical. It’s the “if you have nothing to hide…” argument, which is really about applying social pressure to people who would prefer to remain private, but still express an opinion. If I’m in a hurry, and I think something is important, I might up vote it even if I don’t like or agree with it. If I vehemently don’t agree with something, and want to be identified, I’ll post a comment (just like this) because I want people to know why I disagree. But if I don’t have time to justify it, I’m more likely not to do a dislike, disagree, downvote or whatever the flag is if I can’t remain anonymous.Moreover, if I don’t actively participate as much as @ShanaC:disqus , who according to the table below has commented 7125 times, does that make my vote less valuable? As soon as you attach identity to a vote, you have all kinds of unintended consequences which make the vote less meaningful and which alter the result, and I think that alone is reason not to do it.When I have something meaningful to say, and wish to express a strong opinion, defend it, stand behind it, and engage in conversation, I’ll identify myself. It’s far more meaningful to get known through what you have to say, whether your arguments are thoughtful (whether I agree or disagree), and how you comport yourself than to have a bunch of misinterpreted votes creating prejudices that inhibit community formation. (Remember that neighbor that everyone talked about, but no one knew? Didn’t they seem a lot nicer when you met, and spoke to them and got to know them?)The fact is, most of us will never get to meet each other. Without real human community and face time, it’s difficult to interpret and infer meaning from comments or votes, but at least with a full comment there’s some context. I am not so insecure that I need to know who voted for me, and I’d rather not know if it has potential to influence what I think of someone.Disqus has this done right the way it is.

          10. RichardF

            I don’t disagree with what you have said relating to votes, I’m not that interested in votes per se. It’s just become a HN/reddit type of system. I personally don’t down vote because to me that’s just an easy way to be negative without providing any justification.What I am interested in is the social interaction that the old Disqus system of liking engendered and that is currently lost.Actually there are plenty of people here who have met because of their interactions through AVC. It’s probably the case that AVC is the exception rather than the rule in the way that this community operates, however I’d be pretty sure that the old system of putting a face to a like was one of the factors that helped to create the relationships that have been established in this community.It will be interesting to see how Disqus deal with this (if they do) because giving the ability to vote and to like is probably too complicated. It may be that the way forward is to give the blog owner the option to display no names at all, just upvotes or upvotes and downvotes.I’d probably go with showing the upvoters and leaving downvoters anonymous.

          11. thinkdisruptive

            Agree that people connect via these sorts of places, but I found that in the old blogging days too, before Twitter, before Facebook, before independent commenting systems. I’ve met some amazing people where we sought each other out if we had plans to be in the same city or at a conference at the same time, and a few times that even began with a fairly negative comment.I just don’t think attaching names to votes, even split between identifying yeas and not neas, has positives that outweigh the negatives. If you do anything at all that discourages a vote, you’re discouraging useful input.And, aren’t you far more likely to reach out and chat with someone who’s taken the time to comment and explain their position? The only thing we learn from votes is weighting (which is valuable, but limited). You gain real insights and learnings from comments.AVC attracts a certain type of person. I’ve read and seen enough interactions here that I could tell you there’s a pretty strong mono-culture, and you could predict a distribution curve for everything from income levels, values, life outlook, age, political leanings, etc. without much trouble. And, it’s very different from the people that frequent Time magazine or CNN or another independent blogger site. I suspect making decisions based on feedback from this group alone would not be good for Disqus long term. These are lead users, not the mainstream.

          12. ShanaC

            I always found it hilarious at times that I am here. I don’t always agree with a lot of people, I’m younger, I can have much more liberal leanings, and I definitely feel poorer (though that may be age related). And this is before gender – but whatever. It doesn’t seem to matter.

          13. thinkdisruptive

            Yes, I can tell some of that about you. We had an exchange a couple of months ago where I formed a bit of an impression. That’s why I said “distribution curve” — there’s obviously a range of people here, and my guess is the thing that we share most is values and level of intelligence. And, it looks to me like this group leans more left generally than others, but there’s obviously some way off on the other side.re: poorer. Maybe for now. You have an attitude that’s different from a homeless person, or uneducated troll, so that’s something. Perhaps you aspire to wealth?

          14. ShanaC

            long term yes. I’m terrified of marrying + having kids without the money to support them, if needed to be, alone.Other than that – I aspire to disrupt a few industries, and maintain a “crown of a good name” (cf: this link ( http://jhom.com/topics/crow… ). Crown of a good name comes first though.

          15. thinkdisruptive

            An admirable goal. I think we non-Jewish folk call that integrity and reputation. And, disrupting one industry would be an accomplishment — it’s still pretty rare (despite all the media hype). Do you have some in mind, or are you just a disruptive person?

          16. ShanaC

            I think a lot of the issues you are discussing have largely to do with how to run a community at large. Just because you can say something doesn’t mean that it will be heard. You have to create context beyond just your behavior – you need other people with similar behavior in order to get yourself heard.it is extremely difficult to run a web community at scale. Voting is just one element of what is going on. Modeling the behavior you describe, including the voting, whether blind or not, is not so simple, especially with a blind voting system (we had a non blind one previously, which may have helped creating positive usage)

          17. thinkdisruptive

            I don’t understand what you’re getting at with blind v non-blind usage. What effect did you perceive?I agree with the “community at scale” part. That too is context dependent. A site that has far fewer active and regular participants doesn’t have many of these issues. There’s also the trust factor — there is way more trust here for example, than people using Disqus on Time magazine.

          18. ShanaC

            the commenting system today is blind – we don’t know who upvoted/downvoted for what. Previously, the voting system was non-blind – likes had names attached to them if you were logged in.I do think if time wanted to invest the time/money/energy – they could have have active commenting community with trust. I also personally think it would become a huge referral source for them. It would require totally rethinking the idea of the public editor though.

          19. thinkdisruptive

            Right. So, blind is just way better. If the goal is to have more engagement and more “votes”, whatever votes mean, that is facilitated by being blind, regardless of the benefits a tight-knit community like this one perceives for itself. It would be bad for Disqus, I think. And the ones you really care about are those that take the time to comment, and they are identified. But frankly, I just can’t imagine myself being so obsessed with votes to check who did them.

          20. Tom Labus

            Liking someone’s comment with them knowing about it is a positive form of communication. It works well as a substitute for making an actual comment when it’s not required.

          21. Brandon Marker

            I agree, 100%. I think my resistance to it here is to avoid it being a social network, and keep it a forum board.

          22. Robert Holtz

            Forum boards are like help desks. They are one-dimensional by design.The reason social networks have overtaken the space that used to only be occupied by message boards and forums is precisely because of the additional vertices enabled by identity, reputation, friending/following, and all the other many-to-many connections associated with modern online communities.

          23. Donna Brewington White

            At this rate I am going to have to start auto-upvoting you Robert. You are on a roll.

          24. Matt A. Myers

            Ya, give me a copy of that auto-upvoting script.. Mmmkay thanks

          25. Donna Brewington White

            My first thought was “too late” but what probably caused that reaction is the thought of AVC as a “community” (as it has often been described) — probably not a full-fledged social network but definitely more than a forum board.Although, I probably spend more time here than I do on Facebook — as evidenced by my Chrome opening page. And Disqus is still in first place. 🙂

          26. Matt A. Myers

            It is a social network, micro in scale mind you.

          27. Brandon Marker

            agreed. I like the micro feel.

          28. Robert Holtz

            Yes! The key benefit of the up-vote and the down-vote is to eliminate those old comments people used to post that ONLY said, “I agree” or “I disagree” without adding any additional value or content.If you’ve got more to add to the thread, reply. But for a simple “Amen”, just vote it up.Personally, I tend to ignore comments from anonymous people. One of the things I always loved about DISQUS is that, if you’re going to contribute a comment, you MUST identify yourself.@TomLabus:disqus is exactly right in his observation… A vote is, for all intents and purposes, an extremely succinct comment.

          29. LE

            Could have two kinds of like. Attributed and anonymous.

          30. K_Berger

            In this forum I think people would definitely own up to down-votes. I definitely miss seeing names.

          31. Brandon Marker

            That is my up-vote^^ haha… This forum would. I just thought it through further, and perhaps it makes for more comments. You can vote up, but I also want you to know I liked it. So now I will comment to tell you.

          32. Matt A. Myers

            Yup. It’s a sign you’re an adult if you can engage in a discussion even when you are in disagreement – assuming you stay civilized – however you can learn a lot about character either way.

          33. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

            Yep…. it becomes a troll.

          34. LE

            “I feel the anonymity REALLY controls the grading of each comment.”Agree. And by any theory of psychology that I’ve ever had (as opposed to something that I’ve read) people will start or be one way and then become consistent with themselves.So if I start out as a SOB who always downvotes a particular person or a nice guy who always upvotes then my brain will make me want to remain consistent with that behavior lest I look like someone who isn’t consistent to the world. This is a subconscious thing I’m not saying people do this consciously all the time (although of course they can and will deviate).Same happens with children (and we are all children). The bad child behaves consistently at that level and the good child the same. In general and over a large group this behavior doesn’t vary that much. Let me stress that this is my own idea it’s not something that I can backup with any research.

        5. LE

          (As of my comment) you have 2 upvotes and 1 downvote. How does knowing who made those votes “incentivize constructive discussion and respectful conversation”.Say I don’t agree with you and decide to downvote. Why should I fear making a potential minor enemy of you and encouraging you to then potentially downvote me?As an analogy not always do you want to know what people think. I don’t want to read the mind of the waiter or waitress and find out what they really think about me. My aunt doesn’t want to hear that I think she is fat.In the end I’ve decided that it is as much value and possibly more value to have people disagree with you as to agree with you.Right now on HN there are a bunch of people discussing domains and I’m getting predictably downvoted for some of the things that I say. I think that’s great. If everybody thought like I did it would be much harder for me to make money. Growing up all sorts of people thought the things that I said and did were screwy and made no sense. To me it’s simply easier to deal with if it’s anonymous.

          1. leigh

            maybe we just need a like button as well — upvote should mean — i think this is a worthwhile debate let’s make this more visible — or even interesting point (whether i agree or not)Liking a comment is separate and I would like to know who likes something.

          2. Donna Brewington White

            That’s an interesting thought, Leigh. It would clean up the fuzziness around what it means to upvote or to like. A cleaner gesture/signal.

          3. Matt A. Myers

            I agree. It means something different than an upvote ever can. Language is so important. Being indifferent to the use of language is dangerous and fosters carelessness and overall indifference.

          4. Matt A. Myers

            Because the downvoter might not have downvoted then, and if they felt strongly enough about disliking it or disagreeing – they would then post a comment, or they’d still downvote, and then OP could ask them directly what their issue / thoughts were. If they didn’t respond, then it’d be a sign of disrespect and my respect would go down for them.Re: Someone calling you fat – If someone brings that up in conversation then you learn a lot about their character.There’s tons of value with people disagreeing with you, however a downvote doesn’t give or show you that value.Maybe if you knew who downvoted or upvoted you would be more likely to further engage with them too.

          5. LE

            Politics is the art of compromise.So I propose that while we we don’t show who downvotes or upvotes but instead we place them in groups that qualify the “importance” of the downvote.A top 5% quadrant and then 4 evenly spaced quadrants.A third value then computes and weighs the votes according to an algorithm.So 5 upvotes from top commentors in the top quadrant would be worth much more than 20 downvotes from people in the bottom quadrant. (You can play with the numbers obviously.)I started off writing this as a joke but maybe it’s not a bad idea.In a sense this is already being done by computing a total score. But I don’t believe it takes into effect the importance of the person giving the vote, reply etc.A more important discussion might be why votes matter at all to anyone and why some people never comment at all and just lurk.

          6. Mark Essel

            It feels as if each user should have the authority to customize their filters on sorting order.Some folks ignore anonymous posters, I like posters of all types and try and treat them equally. But I’m biased towards reading familiar posters.

          7. Matt A. Myers

            Ya. Another example: Ignore downvotes when sorting and hiding, etc.

          8. Matt A. Myers

            I understand what you mean and the potential value of differently weighted votes, however shouldn’t the ‘top commentors’ be respectable communicators, people who value communication? I mean, that depends what your intent is – what you want to foster.The other side of the coin that isn’t mentioned is what downvotes actually do. If they did nothing, but were just a signal for distaste – then fine and perhaps they in a way act like that. But from what I see, they do affect things and with relatively little influence applied.And what if those top commentors downvote everything you post, just because you have a different opinion? Their higher weight will downvote it into oblivion with little effort – just a few clicks of a down-arrow.

          9. Dale Allyn

            Matthew, I agree with your comment here. As I’ve stated elsewhere, I’m not a fan of “upvote/downvote”, but feel that “agree/disagree” is a more meaningful gesture. The minimalist UI choice can have a certain versatility, but it comes at too great a cost with regard to genuine community interaction IMO. And I’d even go further and _consider_ having the “likes” return yet remain separate from the “agree/disagree” mechanism as an additional gesture of granularity. That may get a bit confusing to some, hence why I say “consider”. There are nuances which are forfeited by simply following a HN approach (which I really dislike in high-quality online communities).

          10. Matt A. Myers

            Agree/Disagree would certainly dictate the intent more specifically. I agree that it is too high of a cost, and there is still room for a [Like] button.The main purpose I imagine of upvotes/downvotes is to bump comments to the top that you think more people should see. This could equally be done, and in a more nuanced way – and in fact creating a better funnel / filtering system – simply through one ‘Liking’ comments and then people exploring the comments you Liked. And then Agree/Disagree can be sorted per person, where if you want, you can filter and see / follow people based on how often or how much they agree or disagree with you. I don’t think disagreeing should be a form of altering the sort-order in a main index though of discussion, and in reality nor should then the Agreeing. Perhaps a better signal is the amount of activity on a comment thread + the amount of Likes it has. Leaving the upvote/downvote completely disconnected from main index listings.People being taught to understand the gestures would allow them to engage in a more thoughtful way, knowing the result and placing their intent behind what they mean to place it behind.Edit: To add further,That new Disqus2012 video could easily include:”Agree or disagree with someone? Cool. *Click*””Like something someone said a lot? Cool! *Click*”What does this create? Really it’s a mechanism to let people keep track of what they want to keep track of, what’s valuable to them – and then that’ll allow the platform to know better what the person likes or dislikes.And you want to let people explore the people who are in disagreement with them – what creates engagement in a lot of life is conflict, and conflict – through civil and respectful means – is how you learn or at minimum have an opportunity to open dialogue.

          11. Dale Allyn

            We agree on a lot of these attributes, Matthew. There is real opportunity here and I think that Disqus will continue to tap that. I have to remind myself that Disqus has different community environments to which they must cater, so some features which would work in the type of online community I frequent (well-moderated, respectful, etc.) might not work elsewhere. Although with really careful design I believe that can be resolved. I’d also suggest that some features may be best as “switchable” so that site owners can choose to exclude them if wished.The features and changes which are rolling out are a great sign that they’ll continue to improve and get it right.

          12. Matt A. Myers

            Indeed, there is tons of potential with the platform, and there are different contexts where different pieces can function. However, if we don’t talk about these issues though they will not be heard – and it’ll sit badly in me if I don’t express the issues I notice arising.

      2. Kirsten Lambertsen

        Add another “yes” to that feature request.

      3. LE

        “on knowing who votes”Don’t think this is a good idea. I think it would alter the behavior of how someone votes (in either direction).

        1. Matt A. Myers

          What do they have to hide?

      4. obscurelyfamous

        This is coming.

        1. Donna Brewington White

          Yay!

        2. Matt A. Myers

          Up and down?

          1. daryn

            good point @mattamyers:disqus.@danielha:disqus I think you want to be careful about showing down voters, or at least let the site owner control that.

          2. Matt A. Myers

            I think both up and down should both be shown who voted. I was hoping for confirmation.

          3. daryn

            I think so too, but I’ve seen the negative on community when you’re too transparent. It’s a fine line.

        3. Dale Allyn

          Great to hear (err, read), Daniel.

      5. Mark Essel

        @RichardForster:disqus i agree with you and Tom as a chronic upvoter.

        1. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

          @VictusFate:disqus I vouch for that and i could even say ‘chronic addictive upvoter’ :-).

    3. John@PGISelfDirected

      “I want to see who likes/upvotes comments.” This is also an issue I’d like to be fixed.

    4. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

      Up voted and Yes.I wonder if there is any business logic to disable that feature?ORIs it being removed to avoid gang-war within the tribe… I think so. God (danielha ) only knows 🙂

      1. RichardF

        Thanks Brandon, Brad is a great source of book recommendations for me both fiction and non fiction.

    5. K_Berger

      I was about to click to ‘post’ button a second time on another comment and, thanks to you, thought of refreshing first. Thanks.

    6. fredwilson

      We will do books again. Great idea.

    7. Otto

      Of course Disqus could just do without comment voting. My biggest gripe about voting is that it gives lurkers a lazy way to censor people who actually take the time to comment and who may have the stones to be critical or play devil’s advocate. That said, vote for me!

  5. baba12

    I have not really enjoyed any other commenting system out there, congratulations to the team, USV and Mr.Wilson (Fred). Are there any other products or services that have benefited from Fred’s personal interest besides the USV investment, if so what are they and why specifically the interest?By the way it is very hard to call you “Fred” without having had a beer with you.

    1. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

      Dash into his office at 11:30 a.m with a glass of whiskey on the rocks 🙂

      1. baba12

        No he may think I’m a groupie and have security to throw me out.

        1. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

          I think you mis-understood my 11:30 am on the rocks joke … which was popular for the last 3-days…

  6. Richard

    Its where communication turns into a conversation

  7. awaldstein

    Huge congrats to daniel and the team.Well done!

  8. Tom Labus

    Hey, congrats to Disqus on their great product and to the entire AVC community for always pushing for a better commenting experience.

  9. RacerRick

    I love how they continue to focus on perfecting something that seems so simple (but is not). Facebook introduced a similar service and forced many to dump Disqus, but Daniel and co keep iterating.I wish a big exit for them but it makes me worry that someone will wreck their beautiful product.

    1. fredwilson

      Big exit may come but it doesnt seem to be the thing the disqus founders are focused on. Which is why it may come.

    2. William Mougayar

      Can you elaborate on the wreck part ? Thanks.

      1. RacerRick

        Meebo? Feedburner?

    3. Donna Brewington White

      Really good point about perfecting something that seems so simple but is not.Combining simplicity with feature-rich and high functionality is no small feat. I think we got a taste of the complexity during the beta testing.

  10. andyswan

    Lotta win here, lotta win.

  11. Abdallah Al-Hakim

    terrific video (and tune) and the product looks great. Congratulations on the launch

  12. Emily Merkle

    Big DISQUS fan here.

  13. mikenolan99

    What company did they use to produce the video? It looks great, and has just the right feel. Also, I wonder what they invested in the video, and your views on if it is effective marketing.

  14. James Ferguson @kWIQly

    Stunning – Enabled and tweeted D2012 at http://blog.kwiqly.com/ – may not see an avalanche of comments – but each one will look good and be well connected !

  15. Dave W Baldwin

    Good job Daniel! The video was great too.

  16. Eric Friedman

    Great video. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

  17. Wells Baum

    The new ‘Discovery Feature’ just replaced Outbrain’s content discovery feature on my blog.All hail content.

  18. markslater

    great service congrats to daniel, fred and team.

  19. Matt A. Myers

    That orange action button on the new Disqus website is making my eyeballs go crazy!

  20. Matt A. Myers

    Congrats to everyone at @Disqus. 🙂

    1. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

      @mattamyers:disqus ha… now i understand why you want to know who up and down votes.that is SO stupid to down vote that comment… you have few enemies in this tribe and they are going to hunt you down :-).

      1. Matt A. Myers

        I didn’t even notice / know this was downvoted or upvoted. I agree, pretty ridiculous. :)But yeah, you’re right – I must have a few people who dislike me here.However people can easily view only what I post if they want, and no real hunting is needed – just wasting time on a grudge, built up anger that they are displacing instead of having voiced whatever they needed to voice so there would be no buildup of such anger and pathetic childish behaviour.

  21. MartinEdic

    Congrats- this is a gamechanger. One more piece of the reputation puzzle falls into place.

  22. Joe Yevoli

    What an amazing video presentation. Congrats to Daniel and the team on a job well done.

  23. Brian Manning

    Awesome, Fred — looks like some great improvements. I’m always stunned whenever I come to AVC and see the number of comments you have under each post.You’ve built an amazing community here.I frequent other blogs — many that I would guess have comparable traffic — that get a fraction of the comments that you get here on AVC. I’d be curious to know where the comments are coming from. Is it that there are a lot of comments from a very small community or is it a small number of comments from a wider community.Not sure if Disqus tracks that kind of data, but it would be interesting to see on a graph (with names hidden of course). Curious if most comments are driven by the loyal, tight knit community, or the long tail. Could be interesting data for other bloggers.

    1. fredwilson

      We have that data. Its a smallish group of highly engaged users. Roughly 1,000 out of the 250,000 who come here every month.

      1. leigh

        250K….monthly….does that ever blow your mind? you have become a media brand.

        1. kidmercury

          i’ve long maintained the view that USV is ultimately a conspiracy to turn fred into an internationally renowned blog star.

          1. Matt A. Myers

            The Selfish Gene

          2. Donna Brewington White

            whether he wants to be or not ;)been waiting for you to find a way to introduce the word conspiracy to this thread

          3. Donna Brewington White

            That last reply to you was supposed to have a smiley face.

      2. JLM

        .Are those total visits or unique visitors on a monthly basis?.

        1. fredwilson

          total visits is more like 400k

      3. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        AVC HAVE MONKEYSPHERE OF 50 OR SO MAIN COMMENTERS.

        1. William Mougayar

          True. We’re part of the monkey show.

        2. fredwilson

          that group is larger than 100. and there are roughly 1000 who are active enough to be considered “regulars”

          1. William Mougayar

            And a political post like The Center Party probably draws out a lot of new commenters beyond these 1000.

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            IT MAYBE OBSERVATIONAL BIAS. TINY ROBOT BRAIN NOT PERFECT.BUT SEEM LIKE PRIMARY DRIVERS OF CONVERSATION IS GROUP LOTS SMALLER THAN 1000.

          3. fredwilson

            The core is less than 50

      4. JamesHRH

        1,10, 100 turns into 0.4, 100?

      5. falicon

        The quick and rough numbers are about 193,731 comments have been posted to avc content by about 12,103 unique users since you started using Disqus to power your comments…Note: This includes some of your tumblr as well because you use the same Disqus forum for both sites…also these numbers are constantly growing 😉

        1. falicon

          Also just for fun, here’s a quick breakdown for who I have as historically the most active commenters around AVC:1. @fredwilson:disqus: 29,6592. Anonymous: 19,2413. @ShanaC:disqus: 7,1254. @JLM:disqus: 4,5025. @wmoug:disqus: 3,9526. @VictusFate:disqus: 3,5167. @donnawhite:disqus: 3,0818. @kidmercury:disqus: 2,9709. @daveinhackensack: 2,68310. @Tereza: 2,67611. @awaldstein:disqus: 2,64712. @ccrystle: 2,59013. @FakeGrimlock:disqus: 2,56014. @mattamyers:disqus: 1,89215. @andyswan:disqus: 1,87716. @RichardForster:disqus: 1,56117. @aaronklein: 1,52418. @domainregistry:disqus: 1,48419. @paramendra: 1,41320. @jameshrh:disqus: 1,380…34. @falicon: 710Note: These are approximate numbers…ie. it’s just what I’ve indexed for search, so they *could* be completely wrong — why not search gawk.it for your username and see what these thousands of comments were all about? (pro-tip: sort by oldest first to make it really fun!) 😉

          1. awaldstein

            Percent of offline true connections between myself and other’s on this list. Very high.Percent of friendships, both on an offline between myself and others on this list. Very high.Conversations as connectors is a fact.

          2. falicon

            yep – awesome! I wonder at what volume of comments those true connections start to occur?The more data I collect, and the more analysis I do…the more questions I have!I also should point out, as you bring up, that many of these connections go deeper than just this one blog…they go across many other gathering spots (and offline)…which are all numbers I don’t have (yet)btw – I ran the same stuff against arnoldwaldstein.com and I placed #11 on your leader board…and I’m #34 on the cdixon leader board 😉

          3. fredwilson

            yup. same here.

          4. Mark Essel

            I’m a top ten spammer!

          5. Matt A. Myers

            Agreed. And these are all people I want to connect with on a more regular basis.

          6. LE

            A list actually appears under the “community” tab if you click on it at the top. I think it’s either the same or similar to what you have above.Strictly for community engagement @disqus could probably come up with other metrics to make commenters feel special. They could do a ranking based on # of words. They could do a ranking based on number of replies. A ranking based on acceleration (comments in a time frame). Just off the top there are others.Why?For the same reason US News puts out so many granular lists of top colleges. That way many colleges can feel special and they end up liking US News. Same concept.Keep in mind that I am not a fan of “everybody is special” type of thinking or anything. I just think this is a good business idea for @disqus and for any blog that uses disqus.

        2. Mark Essel

          It’s awesome that you can rattle off #s like this.more juicy analytics- repeat commenters- regular commenters- periodic commenters- highest liked, disliked, average liked comments- which comments drew the largest crowd (links back to it/landing)- which comments turned into meetups/personal contacts (email, phone #)- commenting gradients (my own frequency has dropped since 2010). Who’s gone but not forgotten?- greatest threads (with the most likes/upvotes)

          1. falicon

            With the data I’m playing with I could answer many of these things, but not all…Disqus itself could answer more/better at the moment I think 😉

          2. Donna Brewington White

            I also like to keep an eye on ratio of comments to likes. When my ratio falls below a certain point that might be my signal to quiet down. And then there are those like @JLM:disqus @andyswan:disqus and @FakeGrimlock:disqus who have more likes than comments. I’d love to have that sort of commenting efficiency (and popularity)…but then I’d be someone else. Oh well.

          3. James Ferguson @kWIQly

            Ahh but would you ?I suspect that in a sense @FAKEGRIMLOCK though anonymouse is exactly “himself” – at least as an alter-egoThe same is also true of the very direct engagement of @JLM @andyswan – They are very much themselves – they put their hearts on their sleeve.Whether it is the wisdom in their observations (to an extent certainly) or the “voyeur” in us that likes to get in someone else mind (surely that’s where we are at AVC – @fredwilson:disqus seems to have an open door policy to his eclectic mind)So Donna I suspect you get likes and comments and engagement as a reward for being yourself openly and bravely – for doing your metal washing in public.Finally, surely it must be admitted that we only “like” or “upvote ” @FakeGrimlock:disqus because we live in perpetual fear of his general awesomeness and maybe want there to be a related non-consumption-pact

          4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            ME, GRIMLOCK, IS 3000% GRIMLOCK.THAT SECRET TO SUCCESS.

        3. fredwilson

          that is bigger than i thought. i think only about 1,000 are regularly active.

          1. falicon

            I think 1,000 active commenters across a given month or so is probably about right…

    2. JamesHRH

      Power curve for sure.

  24. ShanaC

    I’m Kvelling!

    1. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

      thanx … i learnt a new word today.

    2. awaldstein

      A fave word of mine.I took my mother on a shopping spree at Eileen Fisher yesterday for her Bday.Kvelling there was a plenty.

  25. David Friedman

    Disqus does not load on my machine when I am using Firefox. It loads fine when I am using Chrome. Using Firefox 13.0, OSX 10.7.4. FYI.

    1. fredwilson

      Hmm. They will see this comment and look into it

    2. Tyler Hayes

      Does it load when using Firefox Safe Mode? If not would you kindly send a screenshot to [email protected] of what you see where Disqus should be loading? We’d be happy to take a closer look then.

  26. Kirsten Lambertsen

    Congrats to Disqus! A truly useful product. And I learned all about its awesomeness here at AVC.Glad to see D on the upcoming Klout partners. My score will get so much better 😉

  27. Brandon Marker

    what a service. I love Disqus and get frustrated when I hit a forum board that hasn’t started using it. Facebook Connect is for blogs trying to really force participation, I feel. It is the easy, sure thing to do.Disqus is a sophisticated commenting system that allows the community to interact with one another. It is a verbal conversation organized visually.

    1. Sean Saulsbury

      Regarding Facebook’s commenting system, I think it serves a different (and legitimate) purpose. Disqus seems better suited to actually facility conversation among a unique group of people (e.g., people reading this forum). It is a more self-contained conversation, which makes it a more unique experience for visitors and I think the better choice for most blog-related situations.Facebook’s commenting system lends itself more to starting a discussion within the one’s Facebook universe of friends. You’re much more prone to short comments rather than a fully engaged discussion. It makes the conversation less unique and special, IMHO, but it also potentially engages more unique users.In a way, it’s kind of a quality vs. quantity choice, and in some instances one may be more desirable than the other.

      1. kidmercury

        good insight, i agree.

      2. Brandon Marker

        agreed

  28. Robert Holtz

    Congratulations DISQUS team on this latest milestone.I must say AVC raised my awareness of DISQUS and made me much more “brand-conscious” about commenting systems in general. DISQUS has clearly become the flagship of the category and I hope that role continues.Still think the ” # ^ | v ” interface of up-voting and down-voting comments is functionally correct but visually too minimalist to be intuitive. Just adding the word “Votes” next to the number and using a thumbs-up and thumbs-down instead of the arrows would make all the difference in the world in terms of intuitiveness and encouragement. I know these things are probably adjustable in skinning but I still think the base product offering should be this way.That all being said, I love DISQUS and am so pleased to have been one of the users you let participate in the industry preview. Congratulations on all you’ve accomplished and the continued innovations and triumphs yet ahead.Give a big thanks to Fred as well, on behalf of all us AVCers, because he has clearly been your champion every single step of the way!

  29. reece

    congrats to the Disqus team!

  30. Guest

    Disqus2012 is a cool tool that helps people enjoy their favorite communities.

  31. Stefan Constantinescu

    As someone who uses Disqus on a daily basis to moderate the comments on a highly trafficked technology website, I have to admit it’s 80% fantastic, but the spam issues are miserable. Your portfolio company uses the world’s crappiest spam filter. I’ve emailed Disqus multiple times, and they apologize and say improvements are coming, but they never do.Please get on this.

    1. fredwilson

      The reputation system in the new version should help with this. But I understand your concerns. Would it help you to know how much spam they are successfuly filtering out on your behalf?

      1. Stefan Constantinescu

        None. Zero. Most of the spam is “My Mom makes $5,750 a month doing X, Y, Z” type comments. Oh and there’s the ever awesome “Nice Post!” comments where the commenter sticks their website in the URL field of the web form just so they can get Google juice.I say I delete between 20 and 30 comments a day, and that’s just me, we have several guys who also have admin privileges. They’re reporting double digit deletions as well.

        1. LE

          “My Mom makes $5,750 a month doing X, Y, Z” type comments”That’s (just) one of the problems with comment spam. You remember what the Supreme Court said about porn. You know it when you see it. I can tell your comment is legit in context. A computer algorithm has a much harder time.That said one of my suggestions was to change the flagging level. So a commenter with a certain level of karma could quote spam (as you have) and not get flagged. A person who created a profile recently would get flagged.As an aside I’ve noticed that the spam has gotten really creative in how they operate managing to put context into the reply before telling you how you can make money.

          1. kidmercury

            your point about creative spam is spot on. as i mentioned in the previous discussion on foursquare most marketers attack on a niche, contextual basis and platforms that do not seek to create a niche context of their own will struggle against creative spammers. although i think we are headed towards a world where marketers focus on creating quality spam (i.e. good content with a marketing purpose).

          2. panterosa,

            @domainregistry:disqus “You remember what the Supreme Court said about porn. You know it when you see it. I can tell your comment is legit in context. A computer algorithm has a much harder time.”When will algorithms know porn when they see it, that’s the question.

      2. LE

        “Would it help you to know how much spam they are successfuly filtering out on your behalf?”I don’t moderate a blog but from a marketing point of view this is a great idea and would be a positive for disqus no doubt.

  32. Roham

    Very cool. I’m going to slap the new Disqus into our intranet as part of an internal team discussion tool, will see how it works out!

  33. Alejandro Burato

    Loved the new release. It is way faster, and better UI/UX. Especially recommended to those with Tumblr blogs…

  34. K_Berger

    Congratulations to the entire Disqus team! May you have continued success in the future.Looking at the improvement suggestions in the comments really speaks to what a great platform it is. We can focus on the small improvements because all the big stuff works so well.

  35. Ganda Suthivarakom

    Cool. @jtdewitt?

    1. Lauren Rae Bertolini

      @twitter-7172882:disqus Thanks for sending this to me!

  36. obscurelyfamous

    Thanks avc community — especially for putting up with being part of our guinea pig test group. ;)Feedback and gripes, you know our team is always watching. I can promise that the new Disqus is going to evolve faster than with the classic Disqus… that’s what we’re looking forward to the most with the new architecture.

    1. Gordon Bowman

      Congrats on the launch Daniel. The new Disqus is killer.

    2. Mark Essel

      I feel like the mobile interface could be snappier, but I’m a text editor snob. I like fast. A native environment for mobile commenting would be ideal…Gratz to Disqus, you and your team’s work is much appreciated!

      1. obscurelyfamous

        We’re on a mobile path right now and there will be strong improvements.

        1. John Revay

          Good luck, #AllThingsMobile

        2. Mark Essel

          That’s encouraging.

    3. Luke Chamberlin

      Very cool to see the progression from beta to release, including the influence of feedback from AVC. Thanks for the front row seats.

    4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      WILL GRIMLOCK’S “REPLIES” TAB ON DASHBOARD START SHOWING REPLIES INSTEAD OF NOT REPLIES FROM OTHER PEOPLE?

      1. obscurelyfamous

        My Disqus is the coolest thing that we haven’t truly paid off yet.

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          IT TECHNICAL OR RESOURCES BASED PROBLEM?

          1. obscurelyfamous

            Time. It’ll get there… we’re on it now.

    5. andyidsinga

      Disqus rocks – congrats on the release to you and your team!

    6. Donna Brewington White

      Major congrats, Daniel and team. I see in the thread that mobile enhancements are coming. I guess you still won’t get much sleep.

    7. fredwilson

      my favorite thing about this thread is @danielha:disqus at the top with the most upvoted comment!

      1. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

        guinea pigs like their master 🙂

        1. Matt A. Myers

          I know you have a distaste from the community here – due to a group of people here going on a childish barrage against you – however it’s really giving you a bias in your responses.. Maybe it would be best to let go ofMy understanding is that it is common courtesy online now to upvote the ‘author’ or creator of something talked about, so then everyone has a chance to see it – which they are more likely to if it’s at the top. There’s nothing more to it. We aren’t ‘guinea pigs’ in a derogatory sense like your addition of ‘master’ implies.We are gladly here, trying to form community and have discussions. Everyone is welcome here – however people that are kind and respectful are more welcome here.If you react childishly, like you were treated – unfairly and it shouldn’t have happened – then you’ll more likely be treated with resentment in return.You do have good comments to say, and I enjoy reading what you say – however only when it’s done in a respectful manner.Edit: To add, many people would just click downvote – though I don’t think you’d learn anything from that; Why I am against having downvotes.

          1. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

            I think you forgot to notice the 🙂 there in the comment … that means it was meant to be a joke. I do believe many on AVC are more -serious guys/gals … let there be some jokes along the discussion….common please.

  37. Donna Brewington White

    Disqus guys must have stayed up all night. Very smooth launch it seems. And I landed on the new site today and wanted to stick around. Nice.I <3 Disqus.(Using “guys” generically here.)

  38. David Averbach

    disqus looks neat

  39. Dale Allyn

    Congrats to the whole Disqus team for the rollout. And the video is really well done!

  40. JamesHRH

    I regularly do not comment on blogs that do not use Disqus.That is as strong a review as you need, IMO.I disagree with voting. Crowd sourcing & discourse do not mix.Threading should have visual cues.Likes – sure, whatever, meh.Ipad usability up 10 fold in last 12 months -well done.Congrats all around.

    1. Matt A. Myers

      Good review. I really do love the new navigation, though still some odd little bugs that pop-up. I’m sure they’ll get worked through.

  41. Carl Rahn Griffith

    Surely this (et al) is the enabler for people/companies to (as you say, Fred) ‘Be Your Own Bitch’? Facebook activity such as it is now seems focused on hosting conversation streams about a brand, a band, a company, etc – otherwise, Facebook seems increasingly lame (I stopped using it several weeks ago – a liberating experience, detaching from the Pavlovian cycle of feeling one has to check timelines and endorse activities/news with a ‘Like’).Reason more than ever to BYOB – host your customers/contacts yourself and with tools such as this facilitate a dialogue and community – and be in true control of it.Don’t rely on Facebook to do it for you…

  42. DanielBrujis

    What’s the name of the song in the video?

  43. Steve

    Well done and Disqus all the way!

  44. Brian

    I hope the new disqus wouldn’t be too confusing.

  45. Venture Capital

    Awesome thing . Keep going . 🙂

  46. Adam Feldman

    Their splash page with the interactive demo comments should be a lesson to all other companies out there… it’s awesome! You can see exactly what the product is capable of in an interactive and engaging way.

  47. Venture Capital

    Sounds good . Hopefully , a good outcome . 😀

  48. Venture Capital

    Disqus is always awesome ! 🙂

  49. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    BIGGEST ENEMY OF SIMPLE, ELEGANT THING IS GET BORED AND MAKE IT COMPLICATED AND CLUMSY.