Article published in January 2009, on THE Novedge blog.
Disqus allowed me to quickly implement a high-quality, single-login commenting system. The San Francisco-based startup has deployed its commenting system on over 38,000 blogs and hosts comments from more than 70,000 users. Almost immediately, I’ve seen visitors utilize this space to ask us technical questions or to inquire about prices. For our e-commerce, this is a remarkable result!
Franco Folini
While looking for ways to improve the Novedge website, I recently added a section at the bottom of each page to allow visitors and customers to leave comments and share their opinions and experiences. The tools that enabled us to implement this service are provided by Disqus, a new San Francisco-based startup just a few blocks from Novedge’s headquarters. Disqus has been deployed on over 38,000 blogs and hosts comments from over 70,000 users. Only a week after introducing this feature on our website, we started seeing the first comments on our pages. While many visitors post comments about products, some use this space simply to ask Novedge technical questions or to find out more information about prices. I’m getting very excited about this technology, and its future developments and implications. To satisfy my growing interest, I went directly to the founder and CEO of Disqus to get a first-hand opinion on this topic. Daniel Ha, who is still in his early twenties, promptly accepted my invitation to interview and answered all my questions almost in real time. Here is the text of the interview.
The interview with Daniel Ha
Franco Folini: Hi, Daniel! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company, DisqUs?
Daniel Ha: I founded Disqus with my friend Jason Yan toward the beginning of 2007. At the end of 2006, we decided to work on a web project together while we were in school (studying computer science). Discussion was the area most familiar to us, and we began developing tools for forums, group discussions, and community building. Today’s Disqus evolved from this as the blog feature of our project became popular amongst our earliest testers. We both participated in Y Combinator, which gave us some money, a lot of guidance, and connections. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough for us to leave school and work on our project (which became our company) full-time.
After launching publicly at the end of 2007, we raised additional funding and began expanding the service as quickly as we could. We benefited heavily from enthusiastic bloggers and commenters, who are naturally vocal with their opinions. Today, Disqus is the leading comment system and management tool for all sorts of sites.
We benefitted heavily from enthusiastic bloggers.
Daniel Ha
Franco Folini: Disqus is quietly introducing a Copernican revolution for the net. While in the past users had to bring content to their social network websites, with Disqus, the social network goes where the content is. What are the implications of this paradigm shift?
Daniel Ha: I think most implications are yet to be seen. What we’ve witnessed thus far is that people are more willing to contribute to websites when they feel they are rewarded or have control over their comments. If I know that my comments are mine and not just attached to a single site, I’m more willing to contribute and develop my online persona.
One issue that is often raised is the fragmentation and overall messiness of the discussion. People tend to use their preferred content aggregator or discussion tool, and the discussion may stray far from the original content. I think Disqus will play a pivotal role in bridging all of this together moving forward. We certainly think this is one of the most interesting things about what we do.
People are more willing to contribute to websites when they feel they are rewarded or have control over their comments.
Franco Folini: Disqus is starting to face competition from some big names. How will users react to a proliferation of commenting systems?
Daniel Ha: We’ve always had a smattering of competition here and there. We will be the best by continually innovating to provide a great commenting experience. If we can deliver on this promise better than our competitors, then I think we’ll do well.
For users, I think it’s great that they have a choice. On the flip side, it may be confusing to have so many different channels for discussion — our job is to make sure their choice doesn’t negatively affect them. We want to be compatible; our network of commenters and publishers shouldn’t be closed, and we’re working to be more open.
If we can deliver on this promise better than our competitors, then I think we’ll do well.
Daniel Ha
Franco Folini: Another major challenge Disqus is facing is the recent emergence of login systems independent of content providers (Facebook Connect, OpenID, etc.). Disqus promptly embraced this trend by implementing Facebook Connect. What is your strategy in this specific area?
Daniel Ha: Our strategy is to play nice. We’re not going to be a login service. We do the discussion part well because we focus solely on it. Our own login system is necessary for how things work, but we’ll openly embrace the best technologies that will benefit the most people on the web.
Facebook Connect has been working well for us so far, and we’re going to add more functionality to help people take advantage of what Facebook offers.
Our strategy is to play nice.
Daniel Ha
Franco Folini: How much interaction with Disqus is happening on the Disqus website and how much on the content hosting websites (blogs, newspapers, etc.)? How do you plan to promote the social features of your system?
Daniel Ha: The majority of interactions are with the publisher partners. That’s how we want it — we provide a service, and I don’t think we really need to see much traffic on our sites. Most of the interactions on our site are from the administration and profiles.
Franco Folini: Novedge, among the first of e-commerce websites, just implemented Disqus across its entire main website. What can we expect in terms of user reactions and benefits?
Daniel: The first benefit I hope you’ll see is increased user engagement. Novedge is exposed to a greater community of commenters, with social features that ideally encourage contributions.
Users should find it easier to leave comments and derive more value from doing so. The overall experience should also be more enjoyable.
I would like to thank Daniel Ha for taking the time to answer my questions. A special thanks also to Giannii, the Disqus Community Manager, for his generous contributions to the Disqus user community and for connecting Daniel and me.
