Disqus is Big. REALLY BIG. A.K.A. “The Disqus Effect”
And there’s no stopping it.
Before I get into this, we need to understand digg’s explosive growth.
The brilliance of digg was the “digg this” button. When publishers realized that they could traffic from digg, they’d add this button to their website. Essentially, publishers referred their entire user base to digg with the hope that they will vote their story up the page. These referrals built digg’s userbase.
Disqus has a similar model. When a blog installs Disqus, they are referring their user base.
But, there is a bigger effect.
Users have a public profile that allows others to see to all of their comments across Disqus sites. Commenting has always been a great source of traffic, but it’s about to get bigger. If I see an interesting comment, I can click through to that person’s profile and discover new content. If I’m interested, I can leave a comment myself, and the effect multiplies.
The referral is now coming from a credible 3rd party (compared to the link back to my site in comments I leave elsewhere).
Not installing Disqus actually hurts publishers. As the network continues to grow, more traffic will be sent between blogs. If you don’t have it, you’re missing out. Big time. Once publishers realize this, Disqus will explode.
Disqus is going to become a real threat to digg (and I’m sure many other companies as well). I’m willing to bet that conversation discovery is much more valuable than the digg effect.
