Disqus
Careers at Disqus
Mission
Disqus aims to provide digital publishers with an audience to increase interaction between publishers and readers. The service offers its tools free of charge to publishers, allowing for maximum growth potential.
Product Segments
- Disqus Platform: Provides a free to use and simple to download software for publishers, with the aim of providing increased engagement between publishers and content readers. Offers analytics to help deliver custom content to the audience and comment moderation capabilities.
- Reveal Platform: Places native ad units around comments, with the option to customize ads based on the content of your site. Ads easily adapt to the site and provide responsive feedback. Also, analytics are used to determine which ads are most effective for promoting your site.
History
Disqus had its beginnings as a startup lead by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan, and was founded in 2007. Since the company started they have offered their services free of charge for both web sites and those who comment on them. This company structure is driven by their values of curiosity, generosity, speaking our minds, and making an impact. The Disqus platform is supported by revenue generated from the use of Reveal, the advertising platform of the company, which takes a portion of the earnings generated by the use of Reveal on a website.
In 2008, Disqus improved their commenting services by providing new features to make the commenting system function as native software for popular blogs. Before this improvement their commenting system functioned as a widget which posed the problem of not having comments stored on the clients’ website, but instead on Disqus’ own network. They fixed this issue by providing a WordPress plugin with improved API which allowed comments to be synced with the websites’ local database. This allowed for users of the service to use the WordPress admin capabilities to moderate comments, instead of having to log into Disqus every time.
By 2010 TechCrunch implemented the Disqus services and published an article about it as they tried it out. Needless to say the website was pleased with its use of the Disqus services as the first step in revamping their comments section. It solved the important issue of others claiming to be representatives of TechCrunch by offering tools which authenticated those who were actually connected to the website.
Also in 2010 Disqus offered three add-on packages for websites to further improve their readership. The three plans are Plus, Pro, and VIP costing $19 a month; $199 a month and $999 a month respectively. These three plans were then phased out, leaving the service free to use as it is today.
Currently Disqus continues to provide publishers access to the comments which drive readership and improve engagement. The company currently handles 50 million comments a month, 17 billion monthly page views, encompassing 191 different countries. Disqus aims to provide an effective and interactive commenting atmosphere for their customers.
