Disqus Launches New Online Discussion Platform

SAN FRANCISCO, June 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Disqus, the Web's most ubiquitous discussion platform, today announces the introduction of Disqus 2012 — the most significant evolution yet to its category-creating solution that elevates discussions online.  Core to the new platform is the full integration of community curation, personalized content, social discovery and a fully real-time discussion experience.

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Some of the key additions to Disqus 2012 include the following:

• Reimagined user experience. The new Disqus is deliberately designed to drive increased site participation and traffic. It incorporates the best pieces of fast-paced chat combined with the structured depth of topical conversations.
• Community and traffic drivers. Through a new Community view, sites will be able to recirculate readers to other relevant content and discussions on their site. This new view shows off the website's top participants as well as some of the hottest discussions happening at the moment.
• Social sharing. Streamlined sharing features via Facebook and Twitter guide even more people into the conversation while keeping users on the publisher's site.  Natural @mentioning alerts new users and brings them into the discussion.
• True SEO-compatibility. The new Disqus is architected in a way that will allow it to be naturally discoverable by Google — out of the box, without any extra work by publishers.  To date, no other solution provides this level of compatibility with search engines.

"While there are many rich social networks and dynamic content destinations, commenting has for too long been a one-dimensional user experience. Disqus 2012 changes this dramatically and enables publishers, bloggers and brands to tap into the rich content within discussion," said Daniel Ha, Disqus cofounder and CEO.  "We've designed the discussion experience we would want to use. We're most excited about what this will do to improve the quality of social conversation, increase content engagement for publishers and the possibilities it opens up for advertisers and brands."

Since beta-testing began in May, thousands of invited sites have adopted Disqus 2012.  Some of the sites are among the Web's most active communities including Wired, PBS, BarackObama.com, Slashfilm, TreeHugger, IGN, Venturebeat, Droid Life, ReadWriteWeb, Bossip, and PBS. Many sites are already reporting substantial improvements in several key metrics, including user engagement, site traffic, page views, time on site, and bounce rate. Currently, Disqus reaches 750 million unique visitors per month across 1.1 million site installs, and has over 300 million monthly active users.  The Disqus platform generates 4.5 billion monthly pageviews.

In addition to serving as a discussion forum on publisher sites, Disqus works as a connected platform that gives readers and commenters a seamless online discussion experience. The fully integrated application is split into three seamless user experiences:  1) Discussion: at-the-point-of-content discussion and interaction, 2) Community: to explore and discover other relevant discussions and people and 3) My Disqus: a user dashboard to view and navigate all discussions.

Key Features and Functions

Improved Experience

• Full, end-to-end real-time system based on new firehose-like infrastructure. Ideal balance between fast-paced chat and structured discussions.
• Faster to load, more intuitive for all users. Best-in-class platform design is AIGA-recommended.
• Streamlined sharing features via Facebook and Twitter guide even more people into the conversation without having to leave the page.
• Responsive design that extends the full experience across mobile devices.

Quality

• New smart voting system that helps surface the best content and makes it easier for communities to self-police
• Global user reputation signals make it easier to highlight good participants, and spend less time/resources moderating.

Personalization

• My Disqus dashboard puts all users discussions and interactions in one place.
• Integrated into the website itself and designed to reactivate participants.
• Improved user profiles and user controls. Easier to follow or mute other commenters.
• Community view highlights a community's unique set of top participants.

Discovery

• Discovery module displays related discussions that are interesting for the already-engaged audience. This is meant to recirculate traffic throughout a website, and with more loyal users.
• Community view shows other popular discussions and commenters.

Availability
Publishers can get access to the free-to-use Disqus 2012 today by visiting http://disqus.com/admin/register/.

About Disqus
Founded in 2007 by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan, the mission of Disqus is to enhance online discussion for audiences and publishers everywhere. By improving the quality of online discussion and bringing these discussions to mass scale through its connected platform, Disqus has redefined the category of online discussion. Each day, over 1,000 sites sign up to add Disqus to create a more dynamic audience experience and increase advertiser value. Disqus reaches 750 million unique visitors per month across 1.1 million site installs and generates 4.5 billion page views every month. Disqus is the #1 distributed social application on the web according to reports by comScore and Quantcast.

For more information, visit http://www.disqus.com/.

Press Contact
press@disqus.com

SOURCE Disqus