[ctbk]

Can someone please explain to me why is this product worth creating a company (and its subsequent fundings)? I mean... every major blogging platform has the features Disqus offers. Even if this was not the case, creating a company to fill a void that could be filled with a minor software release, why? What's the big deal? What's the advantage in using it? I feel like I'm missing something.

[metajack]

All the comments for posts are aggregated in one place across a number of blogs. IF comments are interesting, then this aggregation may also be interesting.

For people running home brew blog software or people running their own wordpress installs, etc, it may offer a nice decentralized way to avoid spam as well.

I'm not saying it's worth millions, but it doesn't seem entirely useless.

[snewe]

I run a small website that hosts wire feeds (AP, Reuters, etc.). When a reader asked for comments, I originally said no b/c building my own infrastructure + spam protection would take way too much time. I heard about Disqus and I literally had comments on every single news article in 5 minutes. This in turn created a forum. Now, I saw little usage of comments and took them down, however, the ease of use was incredible. Basically, if you have a website with content that isn't built on blogging software, Disqus (or InstantDebate) is a quick and easy way to implement comments.

[thorax]

Okay, here's some of the reasons that occur to me:

It's not just blogs. It's also new web apps, aggregators, wikis, mashups, and documentation.

Users also get to reuse their avatar/username across multiple sites which might encourage commenting.

It has good nested threading support which most blog software doesn't include for some psychotic reason.

It has good anti-spam which prevents you from needing akismet or defensio integration.

They support video comments now that most blogs won't support.

...

Currently, I'm debating adding it to bug.gd rather than adding new features to our own commenting system. Why reinvent the wheel if we have a tool that does it for us?

The only cons I see right away:

Loss of serch engine benefits of having the comment content hosted on someone else's site.

Risk to your site if it goes down.

I also wonder how it handles incredible traffic.

[bootload]

"... every major blogging platform has the features Disqus offers ..."

You have answered your own question. If you don't use "every major blogging platform" that is where Discus comes into it's own. Users want the ability to have commenting but maybe not hosting them. You still get access & own you own data sans the problems & limitations of homegrown or open source blogging software.

[bgolub]

"I feel like I'm missing something" - You're missing the fact that comments don't have to exist only on blogs. I as able to add Disqus comments to RSSmeme (http://www.rssmeme.com/) and not have to write a single bit of extra code. Very convenient.

[maryrosecook]

I see them as a sort of FriendFeed that is focused purely on blog comments. I, for one, would be interested in following some people's commenting activity around the web.

How could they make money besides advertising? The WordPress guys or the Six Apart guys might pay for spam-free comments.