Feature Friday: disqus.com/home/

Comments (Archived):

1. cool feature. Turns Disqus into a discovery tool. That’s great. Would love to see them add a section on finance, with subsets on the different areas. That will drive more blogs to add disqus to their sites, which will drive more discovery.

   1. Collateralized Mortgage Obligations channel? 😉

2. If this is the feature that forces you to follow one or more of several streams before you can go to your dashboard, not a fan so far.

   1. Nope. Just hop on over to http://disqus.com/home/ and play around with stream as is, or view different topical categories.

3. Looks OK, I’ll give it a shot and see what happens. It is discovery so why not

4. At first blush, i don’t find the execution very good. Great idea, not ready for prime time.

   1. What would you like to see changed?

      1. See that’s part of the problem Jim.The disqus team doesn’t know enough to know that design wise and implementation wise this doesn’t work.You are in sales [1] that’s not your job so this isn’t an attack on you.[1] (with a minor in comedy)

         1. You’re hurtin’ my feelins, brah. Harsh words about my comedy skillz, dang.

            1. Here is something to brighten your day:http://popwatch.ew.com/2014…Never saw you perform in person. If I did I might think differently. Post a link to something online that I can see. And if I think it’s funny I will tell you that it is. And if not I will tell you it isn’t. [1] So are you feeling lucky?[1] Of course if you become a customer and pay me money I will try a bit harder to find it funny.

            2. oh, LOL…lit.er.a.leeee! That was great. Thanks.

         2. > The disqus team doesn’t know enough to know that design wise and implementation wise this doesn’t work.Not sure if I’m parsing that sentence correctly. Could you rephrase?

            1. The disqus team is strong in many areas, and has some fantastic ideas here; implementing those ideas in terms of design and navigation appears to be a challenge at this point.

            2. Well I don’t think you have a team that includes people with strong enough design skills.And I don’t think you yourself knows about this so you are not able to see it. And know good from “ok” or even “mediocre”.But rather than just saying that, after thinking it, I just took a look at one of the people on your site labeled “product designer”.I was able to pull up their resume and see where they went to school and what they studied. And it totally doesn’t seem to be inline with what I think someone with strong design skills has as far as background (I see a CS major..).Doesn’t mean they aren’t strong in other areas and not a valuable team member.Doesn’t mean that they don’t know about design. I don’t have a design degree but was able to have enough of a sense to hire good people and know what was good. And I was able to do photography and make money from that w/o a degree because I had enough sense to get to 85% really quickly. I knew how to frame something. Didn’t go to school for it. So it’s not a non starter by any means. And not definitive. But looking at the design and the end product I’ll stand behind what I said. And like I have said design is a matter of taste but I don’t think this is on the mark.

            3. Well I can’t claim that you’re mincing your words. I don’t agree, obviously, but the internet isn’t fun if we always agree. But better for us to show you in the product than argue that here.Thanks for keeping it real, LE

            4. Advice: I’d stay away from LinkedIn when trying to evaluate technical or design talent. Better off checking Github or Dribbble profiles.

            5. do you know how hard it is for career designers to get dribbble inivtes (I know someone looking for one)

      2. Search box instead of / in addition to category pick, so we can drill down; logos/mastheads behind content instead of blurry images; stats.

         1. thanks Emily!

5. I find scanning this very difficult. I think something a bit more like http://digg.com/ would be easier to scan and find content you may be interested in and thus drive engagement. So, cool idea but could be executed a bit better from a design perspective.

   1. It’s our first iteration, but thanks for the feedback. I’m a big fan of the rebuilt Digg.

      1. Awesome, look forward to seeing how you guys iterate. Like you’ve said… releasing is the first hurdle. I wish you many happy iterations.I just followed you on Twitter. I’m happy to discuss changes, test the product, etc… just let me know.Cheers!

         1. Thanks Frank. Will follow back and open to hearing your ideas at any time. I’m not on the product team, on the biz team. But please keep playing with it as it evolves.

   2. I find scanning this very difficult…..but could be executed a bit better from a design perspectiveAnd that’s really important. That’s why the iphone was so successful. It was a better execution.If the disqus team thinks this is good they need to hire and pay for some outside perspective on what is good.

      1. Thanks. Release 1. Patience. It’s software…it iterates. Hardware, as in your example of the iPhone, doesn’t iterate 3 times per week. Gimme something positive you like about it while I digest all of your negative energy from other comment 😉

         1. I’ll tell you a funny story.I had someone that I helped (and that paid me) a few months ago in an area that I help people with. (Which isn’t this btw..)So they sent me a copy of their site now that it’s launching.I took the time to write them back an email pointing out what I felt they should do to improve it. I said it in a nice way as well (because they paid me money I toned it down a bit…took some work but I did it in pursuit of the almighty buck!).So they didn’t even reply with anything. Zip, nothing at all. I guess I hurt-ed their feelings or something. They probably just wanted to hear “great great job good luck”. I did start out the email positive (learned that from super nanny and all). Of course if I was wrong they could have told me why my ideas didn’t make sense, right? If they know so much that is.Otoh I’ve run into other people that have always been really willing and thankful for comments that I have made.This person was on shark tank two times, is making a ton of money. And she used to sit with a notepad and scribble down every word I said about her packaging and presentation. And didn’t care at all if I rained on her parade:http://www.citikitty.comThat's two times. Making money. Not only listens to criticism but invites it. Didn’t follow every criticism and suggestion but always listened. Wanted every negative so she could fix and make better.The point is you get value out of people that rain on the parade if you can take that rain. And they get very little in comparison.Thanks. Release 1. Patience. It’s software…it iterates.As far as that goes it’s your company and Fred’s investment. Not mine. You stand to lose or gain from it not me. It makes practically no difference in my life at all. I am the customer (and a critic!). If I don’t like your restaurant I won’t return and all of that.Now go back to work and make Daddy happy.Besides Fred floats these things specifically to get comments that will improve the product.

            1. For sure…love the rain, and esp love that you take the time to give up the details. I hope you realize that and realize that I like to push buttons, often.BTW, did you get paid by the client that went silent?

            2. Oh yeah I got paid of course.But then they wrote back later to say that they couldn’t figure out which bank account they wired the money from and could I dig into my records and tell them?How fucking discombobulated is that?(Amazingly “discombobulated” is a real word..)

            3. A favorite word of mine. A funny word. Right up there with nincompoop.

         2. Hi Jim, good luck. I find the comment very condescending. Worth taking a trip down memory lane to the pre-disqus world. As Seth Godin says you’ve gotta ship! Keep doing your thang.

            1. Thanks. Not sure if you felt my comment was condescending, or the one I replied to. But either way, @domainregistry:disqus and I are internet friends, so it’s all taken in good stride.I’m guessing you meant the latter given your encouragement. Thanks for that! 🙂

6. Nice, but it’s not clear whether the timestamp on the right hand side of each post refers to the time of the latest comment (not very relevant IMO) or the time when the post originally went up (which I think is relevant).

   1. That’s the time of the comment by the user listed at the top of the entry. Agreed, it’s ambiguous. Thanks for pointing it out.

7. A work in progress, yes. But something long anticipated and that we’re proud of. Discovering interesting and active conversations around your interests is the goal. Also, driving audience to our publisher partners.

   1. Congrats, Jim. A very nice feature.

      1. Thanks Elia. The credit goes to the product team in SF. They really did an incredible job creating this.

   2. how many hours have gone into developing this Jim?

      1. Man hours or woman hours? Actually, I can’t say. We have a gender neutral DADT policy in this regard.

         1. the Earth just spins….

         2. *sigh*

   3. Is the end game to make Disqus.com a destination and drive advertising off your home page? Certainly discovery is a worthy pursuit if it drives commenters to sample new sites/blogs w/in the Disqus network. Commenters can certainly be drawn to topics, with brand affinity and engagement to follow once a commenter feels a kinship or relationship w/ a sampled blog or site. Maybe it’s my own naïveté, but I’m challenged to understand how this all gets monetized? I believe the strongest engagement and ad monetization opps for Disqus are directly w/ in the commenting section of a blog or site, although publishers may be loathe to bastardize that space w/ adv and/or share rev w/ Disqus. (Btw, I often view Outbrain as spam or filler and have a very strong disconnect w/ their recco links.)

      1. Our ad features exist on publishers’ pages and we share in ad revenue with them.Disqus Home is intended to help readers discover interesting conversations and to benefit publishers with increased reader engagement (PVs, comments, etc). So, to the degree there’s more engagement from this at pub sites, pubs are happier and earnings there go up (to answer your Q about monetization, altho first priority is making this something users like and use).

         1. Thx, Jim. Hope you’ll be able to demonstrate that discovery through Disqus helps drive blog/site traffic. Would be a strong sales strat for publisher acquisition. Btw, you’re far too serious today. Must be painful?

            1. Hahaha.Some in this thread have implied that my humor today is too flippant; that I don’t take user feedback well….But I do.And as the day wanes on, I become less funny…to the point that my delivery over dinner at home is met with a collection of blank stares. 😉

            2. 7 am :D10 am :)1 pm :|5 pm -__-10 pm ಠ_ಠ ??

            3. Time lapse emoticonography. Nice.

         2. well I like it. it has given me hours of entertainment its like text messages in the early days of cell phoneskeep it up!

      2. Nope, I think it is meant to drive more traffic…

   4. Like that the topics are clustered in QS-style action “do’s”: taste, game, etc.I can understand food&drink being in the Taste category along with travel since it’s a contextual data point of where the food&drink is distributed.However, am wondering if the ordering of the food&drink updates intercutting with travel updates like “Shocker: Conservatives Republicans Hate the Amtrak Writer Residency” works.It reads disjointed rather than serendipitous; the latter being the Holy Grail for every discovery platform.What’s the algorithm weighting behind where in the sequence the food&drink and travel items are placed? Is it time-based? Based on how many comments or favorites it’s gotten?

      1. If you’re on a specific category, I believe the entries are chronological.

8. i discovered this story so it has some merit;http://thenextweb.com/insid…finds $115 mm – absent minded gox.

9. How are the articles within in each vertical chosen?

   1. Secret Sauce. ;-)Lots of signals, like recency, content vertical, active conversations, etc.

      1. Nice.Also, it’s not plainly obvious how to subscribe to/follow a vertical.I want to follow the sports vertical under categories.I like this idea.

10. 1) Navigation isn’t working.I choose tech and saw different posts. Noticed AVC down on the list with todays topic.2) But no way to get back to the page where you choose any other things (that is working). I am seeing that you can choose “trending” and get some other choices.But “trending” is different than going home where you should be able to start over.3) And if I go to another browser that doesn’t contain my disqus login credentials I don’t see anything and it wants me to login or signup.4) Also it seems graphically this is optimized for mobile, the type and graphics are way to large and the white type reversed on black isn’t appealing.5) Might be an idea to integrate comments into the snapshot to draw people in. Otherwise why choose to click?6) Anyway I think the presentation is flawed. When I first went to HN I didn’t have that issue it immediately drew me in to clicking (partly because there is more product per square inch of screen space so there was more chance that I’d see something that I was interested in.) And it was easy to read as well.7) The obvious revenue idea is allowing paid placement at the top for any blog that wants to be featured.I’d say “nice start” but I think it actually needs a good amount of work to make it compelling to use on a daily basis.

    1. Imma just gonna point this out to our product team, k?nb: ya gotta be logged in for it to work because some of it’s specific to you.

       1. ya gotta be logged inWhat are you quora?Why not deliver something [1] at that page if someone is not logged in? Someone is at your store. Kill the friction.Why put a barrier to them deciding if there is something of interest?Even people who come to AVC today and just click from there?[1] How about a video which says “you are not logged in so listen to Jim tell jokes about why you should create a disqus account and use disqus” (I’m serious..)

          1. What’s Quora?Don’t answer that. I just posted that question on a site I found called Quora.

             1. Oh, Jim.

11. i used to enjoy seeing the upvotes on my disqus comments around the web, worked to get my average up .. that has disappeared .. i love something about disqus, always happy to encounter it on websites, though often it won’t load …hope they can continue to grow

    1. Showing you your upvotes – that might come back.3M sites and growing.

12. I don’t understand why I’m clicking boxes to tell you my interests. You should know more about my interests than I do.

    1. Agreed.

       1. hi, do you know how can i leave i community i joined clicking on that?i click on a community icon in the communities tab, now i wanna leave that.

          1. Uncheck the checked box

    2. Maybe 3 of the “Follow a few channels” are things I’d explore.

13. Just saw Citi-Bike article in WSJ and came back here to see if anything had been said or discussed recently about it. Would think AVC is perfect place to brainstorm and help them save their business. Did a search on AVC and it hasn’t been discussed in a while.As to this post, the home page doesn’t say what happens if I “follow”. Once I “continue” then it’s just a linear stream with no indexing or sorting. So not sure there’s much appeal…unless…I could apply my reason for coming here today and put Citi-Bike in a search button on the home page. Then I could see ALL references to Citi-Bike in Disqus discussion posts and threads. Add the “channel” the item is in and you might find people signing up for various channels to keep informed on Citi-Bike and related topics.As of now, the missing piece for this new feature is relevance.

14. Hey avc crew, we are having network wide issues right now (unrelated to this topic here) so sorry if you’re having trouble with anything Disqus this morning.

    1. working for me

15. Suggestion: Whatever an instance of ‘it’ is in Disqus related ‘content’, give it a ‘permanent’ URL. Make the URLs obvious, say, from a published schema and/or easy to find via software, say, parsing HTML. Then other services can ‘integrate’ the Disqus URLs to instances of Disqus content into their search, discovery, recommendation, curation, notification, subscription services. Just a little thought.

    1. Not sure I follow 100% ’cause I got a D in economics. (OK, that was just comedy absurdia).Each comment is individually addressable. To see the unique URL for any given comment, mouse-over the “Share” below the comment and click on the Link icon (chain link). Then note the URL in the address bar with the anchor added.And before anyone freaks about this not being intuitive: yeah, I know.

       1. Okay, okay, okay, as all of AVC knows very, very well, I can write long, detailed comments. But, wonder of wonders, I wrote a medium length comment. Bummer: What I wrote is too short.Yes, yes, yes, we know that each commenthas a ‘permalink’ that is available from the comment date. Of course this is an instance of the usual brain-dead, GUI, ‘direct manipulation’, ‘discovery’ paradigm instead of being clear and documenting such secret UI elements, e.g., have text that says ‘permalink’, but enough of that — can’t change the spots on that leopard, all of end user computing, now.Here’s more on what the heck I was trying to say: Consider the Disqus ‘data’, at least the parts that are visible to users. As in ‘object oriented’ programming, each chunk of data has a ‘data type’, that is, a ‘class’ and, thus, is an ‘instance’ of that class and/or data type.Right, this is new bottles for old wine, basically just a little of G. Cantor’s set theory, but computer science has long believed that there is little or nothing new under the sun. Or computer science has much that is new and good, however, the new is not good and the good is not new. Most of computer science fills much needed gaps in the literature and would be illuminating if ignited. I write about computer science occasionally and for two reasons, first to remind myself of how much I should appreciate mathematics and, second, to embarrass, humiliate, and insult them from doing any more. And computer science not only deserves the abuse but also can take it since the field is as tough as cast iron and nearly as dumb. Etc.So, the visible Disqus data consists of instances of classes. Such instances? Sure: Users, e.g., just for a random user, sigmaalgebra. Posts — we’ve already discussed that. Threads, e.g., the one here a Feature Friday. The blog, AVC.com. In some cases, also “publishers’.So, now an engine for search, discovery, recommendation, curation, notification, or subscription will most easily report to its users just URLs. URLs are, uh, ‘universal’, a biggie we should not neglect, a gift descended from the clouds (I hate puns).So, let’s not neglect URLs! So, for each Disqus Web site, blog, thread, bartender, user, post, etc., have a Disqus URL easy to find via software — some of these URLs we have now although some of them could be easier to find. Further, for each instance, have with it in easy to find metadata what other classes are relevant, i.e., for this post of mine here now, make it easy also to discover from metadata from the post the user sigmaalgebra, the thread Feature Friday, the blog AVC.com, the bartender Fred, likes, replies, etc.Then via engines for search, discovery, recommendation, etc., now or in the future, the Disqus content will be much more easily ‘discovered’ bringing more traffic to Disqus and its “publishers”. E.g., some lonely, socially awkward, computer nerd, alone in some third world country could learn from some recommendation engine that they might like posts of sigmaalgebra — I doubt it, but maybe, maybe stranger things have happened, but maybe not.But for JLM, right, we’re looking at one of the mother lodes! I.e., an obvious curation would be all the JLM Disqus posts. Right, those are available in one form now, but just give JLM a Disqus URL so that a curation engine that reports URLs can report one for JLM, a URL that points to the relevant Disqus data. And with the metadata with a JLM post, make it easy to find the Disqus URL for Disqus user JLM.For just how such a search, discovery, etc. “engine” might work, better for now just f’get about that (would be asking a bit too much) and, instead, just make available, as should be quite easy to do, the metadata I suggested. Then in the future, whatever that holds for recommendation engines, Disqus data will be readily available. So, Disqus will be ‘SEO future proof’. How ’bout that!Net, URLs are biggies; slap one on every instance of Disqus content, e.g., Disqus user JLM, in sight. To generate the URLs, have a simple schema, hopefully published. Also have metadata that connects the relevant instances as I illustrated. Think of a URL as a UPC or inventory number, a ‘universal handle’ that is easy even for computers. and even computer scientists, to work with, i.e., a real world ‘pointer’ in the sense of C (horrible language).Right, for a ‘revised architecture’, for software to find much of what I mentioned as in metadata, have a server with a simple SOAP or some such API. Set up the ‘entity, attribute, relation’ and/or relational schema as you wish but from, say, a post permalink the API should be able to return all the values of all the relevant ‘properties’ of the ‘class’. We’re basically talking a simple SOAP or some such front end to some simple SQL or even no-SQL here. Heck, send the data as just ASCII key-value pairs or some such.Just a thought.

          1. Thanks for the thoughts; worthy of further consideration by the product team.

       2. Anyone who got a grade higher than D in economics should, in the immortal words of Inspector Clouseau “be under the suspecions”.Once a faculty advisor suggested that I take an econ course. Bummer. I had to get up too early. But I did. I was a good little student, sat in the front row, took good notes, said nothing. After the class, I asked the prof what he was assuming about his free hand curves — continuous, differentiable, the derivative Riemann integrable, continuously differentiable, convex, concave, pseudo-convex, quasi-convex, etc. Later that day I got a message from my advisor — I was out of the econ course. So, I didn’t make even a D!My only contact with econ was in a paper I published on optimization, on a fine point, long unresolved, about the famous Kuhn-Tucker conditions. Well, some of the mathematical econ guys had for a while thought that, of course, optimization via the Kuhn-Tucker conditions was the key to the future of econ. There was a famous such paper by Arrow, Hurwicz, and Uzawa that mentioned a problem but didn’t solve it. Well my paper solved that problem, also.Heck, I did the work in two weeks as part of a ‘reading course’ as the last I needed for an MS. Fast course — just two weeks! I lost a lot of respect for econ given that some of the most honored people in the field had not solved the problem they saw. Right, poor Uzawa, apparently he is still waiting for his Nobel prize. Some faint praise about computer science is that it’s not as bad as econ!

          1. A+ / Thanks.

16. @JimHirshfield:disqus, just giving opinion so take it for what it is worth.a) The photo on the front makes it impossible to see the two options regarding (I guess) dinner and something else. Two things, the placement of your type and remember the photo has two depths (the campfire and the bowl up close).b) Second page. I strongly suggest you diminish the size of the banners that link to the story/discussion. Some of the banners look a little fuzzy. This might be a bite, but I’d go smaller with bigger cookie going to comments and give the option of increasing the size you have it at. Also, the white font does not work on a lot of the headlines.c) Remember, you guys are putting something out for the customer to understand/enjoy/use. That way you can monetize. So you may want to look at some of the comments you’ve made today and remember your simply getting customer feed back. If the position of Disqus is the majority are just too stupid to use Disqus, you’ve limited your base/$.

    1. Hey @davewbaldwin:disqus, thanks for the notes. I think Jim sometimes answers a bit tongue-in-cheek since he’s part of this community and considers you guys friends, as well as users giving feedback (Jim can tell me if I’m right!).As for those of us at Disqus who aren’t necessarily part of this community, we do read all feedback, and take it seriously. And while Disqus may serve some types of users better than others, we are trying to solve problems for the majority. Thanks again for your thoughts, keep ’em coming!

    2. For sure Dave. I see all the feedback as golden input. I don’t intend for my oft light-hearted tone to indicate otherwise.

       1. That’s cool. I think I’d go with doing a box with each link on cover (it doesn’t have to be oversized) which would allow the photo and or any future photos do their thing.

          1. did you mean “on hover?”

             1. Was photo from drone?

             2. hahaha.

17. A suggestion for disqus and team “Hirschfield CK”.You should have channels about timely topics that are being discussed that are discoverable by topic.. (see nypost example attached..)For example let’s say I am obsessed with [1] the missing MH370, the Grammys, or a fire I just heard about at the Jersey shore motel.What communities are people discussing this on?[1] I’m not it’s just for illustration purposes.

    1. Agree 100%. Generic topics are, well, generic. If the content touted on the Disqus home page can be flagged w/ a bit more specificity it will likely drive more traffic and engagement. Make the reader/commenter work as little as possible, with timely and attention getting headlines. Perhaps the NYP takes this to an extreme: The classic “Headless Women Found in Topless Bar.”

18. Interesting – nice to see the strategy intimated several years ago coming to fruition. It is the beginning of an interesting product evolution. However, this is exactly the sort of product I thought was against the interests of the large content producer when I first understood it. Don’t get me wrong – this is great for the avid Disqus user and even the small-to-medium sized content producer, but it shows the power of owning the community data versus merely participating in its creation. Direct, unimpeded access to community data enables this sort of innovation. Content producers that choose to participate in this sort of community give away some ability to innovate. Again, good for some, but certainly not for all.

    1. Hey Brandon. I understand what you’re getting at, but I think what you’re saying has mostly been a false tradeoff, often perpetuated by FUD from press or vendors with an agenda. Or at least in our case, we still allow content producers the data ownership, user relationship, API access, etc. they’d need to be able to build and innovate on top of the platform. Aside from white labeling, which we no longer do for UX, technical and privacy reasons, I’ve never really heard an unaddressed concern related to ‘owning the community’, because of Disqus’ more publisher-centric approach vs. say a Facebook or LinkedIn plugin.

       1. using the disqus API severely limits how we can integrate comment data with the rest of the backend. this is largely the nature of APIs in general, though it illustrates a big way in which disqus extracts value at the expense of cutting of ways the source can cut off value. not to mention publishers at the mercy of disqus and how it would like to change its API.in many instances disqus may still be appropriate, but there is a trade off.

          1. Can’t make out all of what you said, but FYI you can request more flexible rate limiting if it helps.

       2. Agreed that Disqus is better than others, but access to the data is only part of the story. The large content producer has to build the infrastructure internally to know and manage the data, to then be able to innovate with it. Disqus is a means to outsource community, something that IMHO needs to be a core competency of the large content producer in the new digital age.

          1. The large content producer has to build the infrastructure internally to know and manage the data, to then be able to innovate with it.” Right — what I’m saying is you could do a lot or all of this while still using Disqus. Although, in practice, it’s been relatively rare to see even large, well-resourced organizations innovating much here. Other things like video, paywalls, mobile, etc. inevitably end up taking priority. But I agree that for those who can create a truly distinct community and are willing to invest in it continually, keeping in-house can make a lot of sense.

    2. absolutely. i’m always stunned when i see larger publishers, or even those who aspire to be large publishers, embrace disqus, and disqus’ blatantly consumer-centric strategy unfold. in my opinion, disqus really should have focused on B2B (meaning serving publishers) rather than going for the end user.

       1. publishers are not typical businesses

       2. i’m always stunned when i see larger publishers, or even those who aspire to be large publishers, embrace disqus, and disqus’ blatantly consumer-centric strategyWell, kid, it looks like that consumer-centric strategy of Disqus is headed for the wastebin now.

19. I am a big fan of Disqus and am almost more tempted to comment when I see it as the commenting platform employed. However, my sources of discovery are limited by time and I have focused on Twitter and LinkedIn. I find it difficult to go to another site for discovery! I am not sure how you resolve this problem but the competition for people’s time is fierce. One great place to start would probably be a mobile application. Is that in the works or did I miss something?

    1. Very valid point, thx.Disqus Home renders on Mobile now. Granted, it’s not a mobile app as some have requested.

20. It’s definitely a big step in the right direction. And congrats for moving it that way.Will there be Search eventually?

21. Very cool feature :)I agree with the other comments about it not being easy to scan. Not exactly sure why just yet…Many of the titles on the second page are difficult to read because of the background image. That can be very easily solved by putting a semi-transparent dark background behind the white text with a little padding around it. Easy fix.One brainstorm thought: since Disqus is all about the comments, maybe it makes sense to pull the current most-active comment and display the first 100 or so characters of it, and bring down the post title font size a little to make room for that. I think that might (a) make this more inline with expectations and (b) compel more click-thrus. Seems like the post title has a little too much importance right now (maybe). Just a thought 🙂

22. Hey friends… glad to see people poking around on our new project. It’s available online because we’re building this new thing out in the open. Today lots of people are using Disqus in so many different ways, and we’re going to actively learn from this.What you’re looking at is something many steps away from prime time. It began as an internal test and we’re exposing it to more people to get a sense for what does and doesn’t work.We came into this with mobile on the mind, you can bet on that. But we aren’t ready to show that yet. What you see now is for desktop web users — we started there because it builds upon some of the most natural dynamics on Disqus.Digging the thoughts so far, the good and bad. The positive thoughts are nice, but the critiques are going to result in a better Disqus.

    1. I’m not sure. it has a unique problem to it – how do you drive traffic to disqus.com, and it is valuable iff (if and only if) it drives traffic back to publishers.I mean it is interesting, but beyond one visit engagement interesting, I’m not sure

       1. For sure. That’s a real challenge we are having a lot of fun trying to build to

    2. Is Disqus being a few steps away from primetime the AVC world’s version of a Friedman Unit?

       1. At least not for this project since it’s quite new. Are you referring to something else?

    3. I have grown to really like Disqus. As the container for my comments, I value my Disqus posts more so than tweets, FB posts, or any other random post on the web. To this end, I should be able to embed my comment stream, and share my comments (as dedicated cards) on other social platforms. My two cents…

       1. Thanks Bruce. I really appreciate that.

23. i joined a community then i wanna leave that, i don’t know how to do

    1. Well, Dario, if–like most of us–you joined a community at gunpoint, what makes you think you’ll ever be allowed to leave?

       1. after last upgrade of disqus’ dashboard there are different tabs such as communities, people, me, replies. clicking on community i saw a lot of icon suggestions. there were tech, drink and food and others.i clicked on tech, so now, when i open communities tab i can’t chooce anymore other communities (i would have add drink&food as well) and maybe i would have give a try to other ones and if i won’t like them i would know how to leave that. you got what i mean?thank you for the support 😉

24. Could be interesting, but the big question is will it drive new people (here, there, anywhere) onto sites?

    1. We’ll see. In the meantime, is it driving you to anything new?

       1. somewhat,, but it basically is finding things I would check out often anyway (atlantic cities, eg)

          1. Oh, OK. Thanks for sharing.

25. Well, it looks like all the tech people agree–The New Disqus is great!The only problem is, the current users hate the changes. Of course, you’re probably not worried about that. Where else will we go? Soon enough, we’ll forget about it, or at least get used to it, right?But the problem is, this new Disqus is ignoring what it was that people came to Disqus for, in the first place: A commonly held commenting forum that connected websites that we chose to visit. The near-universal loathing among Disqusians this week is because this new content is being forced upon us. It’s the first thing in our face, every time we sign on.So go ahead and congratulate yourselves. Yay, groupthink.

26. Nice start! I’ve been searching for an iGoogle replacement, and this is a great tile – I’m using the iChrome extension for Chrome…

    1. Great tip. I’m giving this a try.