Featured Friday: Dan of Dan-Patterson.com

What do you do for a living?

I am a content manager and correspondent for ABC News. I cover politics and technology - though I cover much less now that it is a non-campaign year. And, I’m learning a lot from the seasoned journalists that I work with - I’m low on the totem pole here, and covered much more in my previous job. I’m sure this will change come 2012 Presidential cycle.

When you were a kid what did you always dream of becoming?

I probably didn’t have the insight to really know what I wanted. As an adolescent - like EVERY adolescent - I played in punk bands and wanted to be Jello Biafra or Henry Rollins.

Where did you first hear about Disqus?

Hrm, no idea - probably a late-night solution patrol for Wordpress features. This, however, is unremarkable - what I enjoyed about the service was the personal attention to detail by the staff.

What’s your one favorite feature in Disqus?

The reduction in barriers to entry for reader/user participation - the easier it is for people to interact on a blog post correlates directly to the number of comments on blog posts. This, in turn, helps build community.

Is there anything that you would change or add to Disqus?

The major issue I have with Disqus and many services is that I have to install a code - I’m very comfortable with code, but abhor widgets, javascript code beyond tracking, and any service that does not integrate as white label or function as a core part of the platform. This is NOT a knock on Disqus at all, but rather a differentiation between the types of sites that I need to run for clients and myself. Disqus is great and I recommend it to friends frequently.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa - my family is from New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Brooklyn - I attended college in Spearfish, South Dakota at Black Hills State University and studied under Ahrar Ahmad and Dave Diamond, I lived in California for two years before returning to complete a second and third degree at BHSU. I moved from South Dakota to Brooklyn in 2007

What influenced you to begin your career in the news? Was there a defining moment?

I’ve always been in to news and politics. My parents always subscribed to the newspaper, and some of my earliest memories are watching the nightly news - followed (maybe aptly) by MASH. I was a paper carrier in junior high. When traveling with family, I was exposed to very poor parts of the country - my parents made a point to show us seedy parts of Brooklyn, the Pine Ridge and Rose Bud Lakota reservations. We would talk about cultural marginalization and taught empathy for those less fortunate. I’m sure I was radicalized at a formative age by punk rock + skate culture, but always valued education (though HS grades sucked and I hate elitism). I was fortunate to have very qualified professors in college who helped me refine my radicalism in to a more articulate form.

I started podcasting in mid-2004 with the Creepy Sleepy Show - prior to that I was involved in radio and geek culture, but Creepy Sleepy let myself a rotating cast to explore topics sans censorship. This lead to doing citizen journalism and covering the South Dakota Abortion Ban in 2006 - I was the only podcaster or Blogger given access, which taught me both the power of new media, AND the importance of good solid journalism - it taught me that not matter how passionately one feels about a given topic, there are others who feel just as passionately about the opposition, and they frequently have valid points. It taught me that it’s not enough to just simple scream “this is MY opinion” - EVERYone has opinions, why is YOUR opinion valid - and if one cannot answer that question in ways that hold of to standard litmus tests of respect, credibility, due diligence - then their opinion is ONLY opinion.

In your career as a correspondent, is there one project that stood out among others?

I was hired after the Abortion Ban by my former employer, Talk Radio News, in New York, to cover the UN and campaign - I also traveled internationally, saw terrible terrible things, and learned that for injustice to be overcome, one MUST be balanced internally and aware of ones own failings - this helps you value objectivity, learining all sides of an issue, and that without the trust of an audience, there is no point to reporting. No, there isn’t one project that stands out as more formative than the others. I try hard to make sure that my life experiences add up to something that I, my family, my teachers/mentors, and colleagues can respect.

The campaign was exhilarating and exhausting, and Darfur left some pretty deep scars. Those things I do remember. The UN as well, but less dramatically. The campaign is an exercise in both the best of American ideas, and the worst of American narcissism. Darfur left both an emotional and literal, visual impact - it’s very hard not to feel conflicted about drinking the last drops of water in front of people who are starving and being shot/raped - knowing that if you do NOT drink the last water, any resource that remains will cause a riot resulting in injury or death. Also, when big dudes point AK47s at you, it’s hard to forget.

In your opinion, has commenting effected the world of online publishing?

We are fortunate in that we live in an age of media transition. We have not figured everything out, but we are lucky in that WE get to help solve these problems. I believe a few things:

  1. Humans are inherently social creatures
  2. Humans desire to communicate for several reasons - primarily to transfer information and for emotional gratification.

Previously, we simply did not have the necessary tools that would facilitate rapid two-way communication, so we made due with what we had. Now, we can easily and cheaply communicate with each other and this has lead to a plethora of opportunities for different types of communication. They key word here is ‘different’ - not better, not worse - just different. Social Media has it’s problems, just like traditional media.

Social Media has it’s problems, just like traditional media. These are not insurmountable problems, but they are problems none the less. Because of this, I try to remember the classic Spiderman line: “with great power comes great responsibility” - just because we’re the new, hot shit does not mean we also do not have responsibility for our actions. Yes, we can comment on blogs, twitter, facebook, et al - but what we say and how we act reflects on both person and our medium. Social media reduces the distance and friction between humans and other humans and information. These are tools, just like newspapers and broadcast towers. They must be used responsibly. Additionally, the Long Tail is powerful - but the Long Tail still needs a Head. Well, it doesn’t NEED a head, but there will ALWAYS be blockbusters - with or without the internet. Some things do NOT have a business model built in, yet are necessary functions of society. We have three branches of government under the current Federal system - often Media is called the Fourth Estate. This is because the media will serve as a check on the other branches of government. This is, undoubtedly, an essential civic service (not to mention the important cultural role media plays). Having said that, business models are changing and the means by which Media has funded itself is changing. Just because media used to make more money, does not make it any less relevant. We still need communication and dialog between people, the People’s government, and the organizations that report on people and government. These things cost money. Are they entitled to make money? No. But do we want to live in a society that can’t afford to do journalism like Bob Woodward did, or that requires travel to under reported areas? I’m willing to bet most people answer ‘no, we don’t want to give up good journalism.

To learn more about Dan visit his website, twitter, or Disqus Profile.

Giannii
DISQUS
Community Manager
giannii@disqus.com

Comments

Giannii on June 26th 2009 in disqus

Comments Driving Clicks in Search

Lijit allows you to easily create your own search engine. One that searches your blog, bookmarks, photos, blogroll, comments, and much more.

few months ago we talked about Lijit and their integration of Disqus comments within their search results. Since then, we’ve learned that Lijit search results which include comments alongside the posts are seeing roughly 3-5% greater click-through rates than those without comments.  This reaffirms what we’ve been hearing for a while — that comments can serve as an effective means of signaling engagement and quality for a given blog post.

To learn more about our integration with Lijit check out their site.

Cheers,

Giannii
DISQUS
Community Manager
giannii@disqus.com

Comments

Giannii on June 24th 2009 in disqus

Featured Friday: Eric of Rezzing.com

Eric Rice is a Silicon Valley-based new media producer and writer.

What do you do for a living?

My time is actually split between business consulting and freelance design. It can run the whole range of disciplines, really. I started in print design about 20 years ago, evolved to multimedia and web. It’s bounced from landscape and interior design to game design, to multimedia and print. How I ended up in such a wide field, I have no idea.

Do you love what you do?

Totally, and it gives me the ability to do whatever I want to do or need to do. I can travel the world, yet I home school one of my kids. It can be difficult at times, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, too.

So what’s the coolest project that you worked on?

That’s like asking who’s my favorite kid. Let’s see… One of my favorite projects wasn’t a job, but a proof-of-concept. It was in a social 3D world, where I was a host destination for a Talib Kweli music installation. I had re-designed the surrounding 3D neighborhood to showcase indie hip-hop, which would complement the Kweli project. An agency called Millions Of Us built Kweli’s place, and I designed podcast-safe music kiosks, making the whole area a kind of Brooklyn-ish ‘music alley’. The traffic was unbelievable– and of course being in a virtual place– people wanted to live there. I was ridiculously proud of that project.

So which one of your kids is your favorite then? j/k

haha.. The one not currently screaming™

How did you find Disqus?

Honestly, I don’t even remember since it’s been that long ago. It was probably through the usual early-technology-adopter blogs, although seeing it in use practically everywhere might have been the bigger influence. Even my town’s 1997-era web newspaper, which is plagued with banner ad overkill and frames, uses Disqus. I think I’m one out of two in the mass of commenters on the paper’s site that is a verified user. For the paper, it’s not a Disqus issue, it’s a web comments issue. Anonymity might have a few benefits, however I think it’s the first thing to be abused, making the conversation useless and without credibility. Newspapers have to learn ‘community’ first, then they can use the tools to foster it.

What’s your favorite Disqus feature?

I think the ‘Like’ feature. It’s a small feature, however it makes it a bit easier to rate a comment, instead of the person.

If you could add one thing to Disqus, what would it be, and why?

The pronunciation of DISQUS, heh. I’ve never thought to pronounce it ‘discuss’ since the logo visually puts the emphasis on DISQ. It’s always been like the Olympic sporting event. As far as features hmmm.. I’m generally happy with it. I don’t have any glaring OMG FIX THIS like I do with other web software. When a new feature shows up, it’s a nice surprise (like ‘Like’). I think that’s why I like Disqus– because it gets out of my way and doesn’t require me to think about it. So surprise me, I have no wishlist.

To learn more about Eric vist his website, twitter, or Disqus Profile.

Cheers,

Giannii
DISQUS
Community Manager
giannii@disqus.com

Comments

Giannii on June 19th 2009 in disqus

Subscribe by email? Yes Please!

We’ve updated the email notifications feature on Disqus to be more powerful and reach more of your visitors.

Why is this awesome?

Previously, only commenters with a Disqus Profile could receive email notifications when new comments were posted in the thread. Now, everyone can receive replies for the entire conversation, even Guest commenters.

There’s a couple of ways to subscribe by email. Let’s say someone was reading your post but was not compelled to comment just yet. However, they may still want to keep up with the conversation. They can click “Subscribe by email” without posting a comment.

If a Guest wants to subscribe while posting a comment, they can simply select “Subscribe to all comments” under the comment box. We like to keep things simple but powerful here at Disqus.

Commenters with a Disqus Profile can manage your notifications here.

Cheers,

Giannii
DISQUS
Community Manager
giannii@disqus.com

Comments

Giannii on June 15th 2009 in disqus

Featured Friday: Annie of banannie.com

Annie is a mom, and a Wordpress theme designer.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a web developer and WordPress customizer/troubleshooter.

What got you into that business?

It began as a hobby, something I could do for fun when my kids were little. Friends began to ask me to help them with their sites, and it grew from there. I do it on a part-time basis. It sure beats other part-time jobs out there!

How did you find Disqus?

I heard about it awhile back, just in the general Twitter chatter.

What feature do you use most?

I’ve been lax with the blogging thing lately I’m afraid, that’s going to change soon. I’ve used twitter comments a few times, very handy.

If you could request one additional feature for Disqus, what would it be and why?

Hmm, not sure…maybe the ability to upload an image within a comment? Sometimes a picture can be the best response.

To learn more about Annie visit her site, twitter, or Disqus Profile.

Cheers,

Giannii
DISQUS
Community Manager
giannii@disqus.com

Comments

Giannii on June 12th 2009 in disqus

Featured Friday: Daynah of PHP-Princess.net

A tech geek who loves programming, designing, and digital photography.

So what do you do for a living?

I’m a Programmer Analyst at the University of California, Riverside, doing mainly LAMP development, help desk, as well as staff training on various software. LAMP development means linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (or another programming language). In my case, it’s PHP.

Outside of programming, what are you passionate about?

I’m very passionate about new technologies, especially in social media, gadgets, apps, and new ways of gaming. Another one of interests is scrap booking! I take a ton of photos, so I need a creative way to display them all.

Have you always been involved with technology?

Not always. Not until I got my first computer in my junior year of high school. But even then, it wasn’t apparent that my life would take the technology route. I went off to college and majored in Computer Science, and that’s when I my love for web design flourished.

How did you find Disqus?

I found Disqus through FriendFeed.

What do you find appealing about Disqus?

It’s familiar and very easy to use!

What was the first computer you owned?

It was a Packard Bell, running Windows 3.1. I later got a Windows 95 upgrade CD about 2 weeks after.

If you could add one feature to Disqus, what would it be?

That’s such a hard question. I like software that keeps it simple, and that’s what Disqus does. The addition of multiple logins is great, as well as the “like” feature. I can’t think of anything else that would make it better. But if I do, I’ll definitely let you know.

If you would like to learn more about Daynah check out her website, twitter, or Disqus Profile.

Cheers,

Giannii
DISQUS
Community Manager
giannii@disqus.com

Comments

Giannii on June 4th 2009 in disqus

Update on Performance Issues

Last Thursday, we posted on this blog explaining any recent service snags in the previous few days.

Since then, we’ve done a number of things to pin down and address the issue. It turns out that the issue was due to our Nginx load balancing server hitting the bandwidth cap as configured. Let me explain briefly:

Our load balancing server is like a traffic cop directing traffic to the right roads. In this example, the roads are the web servers handling Disqus usage. The issue I described earlier is as if the traffic cop just passing out (he has an abnormal heart rhythm). With the traffic cop incapacitated, the traffic doesn’t know where to go even if there is plenty of room on the roads. You’ll have to stretch your imagination to accept such dumb drivers, but I hope that paints a decent picture.

In addition to addressing this, we are constantly adding capacity and rewriting parts of the service to better handle the growth.

On the subject of improving Reactions, which was mentioned in the previous blog post, you will be able to see the improved results of our changes within the next couple days.

Comments

Daniel on June 1st 2009 in disqus

Featured Friday: Robert of Scobleizer.com

An American blogger, technical evangelist, and author.

How did you get involved in tech?

I grew up in silicon valley, I had no choice. My Dad was an engineer and I grew up in Cupertino about a mile from Apple Computers. I had an Apple Computer in 1977, in my junior high I was in the first computer club , and I got a tour of Apple when they were one little building. So yeah, I’ve always been around tech.

What do you do now?

I explore the world for cool things on the internet, that’s really what I’m doing. I’m building distributed community called Building43 for people that are fanatical about the internet. Hope you guys will be there.

What turned you onto Disqus?

It was one of the first things that was shoving data into FriendFeed. I saw people were adding it to their blog and the comments showing up on FriendFeed right away. That federation of data across domains was pretty interesting to me. I pretty much ignored it for a long time but one thing I do I watch thousands of people around the internet and see which things get adopted and which things get talked about. Disqus kept coming up. That’s a good example, there is some pressure on me to change my behavior because people are getting excited about something. That’s how Disqus got onto my radar screen.

What did you always dream of becoming as a kid?

I wanted to be a professional photographer. I was a really hardcore photographer in high school playing with color photography while other kids were doing black and white. I quickly found out that there is very little money in photography. That is unless you get Pulitzer Prize or something. I still do photography and carry around my equipment. Now I go around and study what geeks are up too.

What one feature would you like to see on Disqus?

That’s an interesting question. I’d like to see more data about the people who are commenting. For instance, if Tim (that works for a popular publishing company) comes and leaves a comment, that’s different than Joe that leaves a comment that I don’t know. First of all I know Tim, there should be some sort of link there that says  Tim and Robert have gone back and forth with each other a while. Plus I know a lot about Tim, he runs a publishing company and he should have a built in human authority and credibility that somebody else might not have. If he comes over and writes a comment about the publishing industry. He is going to have more of an impact than other people. I’ve seen it happen over and over again where a lot of the time comments get lost or newbies don’t know who Tim is. So they don’t know that his comment has more importance or weight to it. Not saying that Joe’s comment does not have importance or weight. If Barrack Obama came over and left a comment, we would all know that he is very authoritative and yet he would be mixed in with all the comments. You could go by his comment and not know if he said something interesting.

I hope commenting systems become something that I can really get into your social graph. So I can understand you at a level that I can’t understand by just going to your facebook page.

To learn more about Robert check out his twitter, website, or Disqus Profile.

These are excerpts from a full audio interview that you may listen to here.

Cheers,

Giannii
DISQUS
Community Manager
giannii@disqus.com

Comments

Giannii on May 30th 2009 in disqus

Sorry about the Recent Issues with Performance

If you’ve noticed some shakiness in performance in the last couple days, we’re very sorry. If you didn’t notice, we’re sorry anyway and hope you will never get the chance to experience this.

But this post is more than an apology. I’ll attempt to explain some of the things that have been happening with our performance, as well as address some of the concerns around the consistency of our Reactions feature. Read on.

Performance

A couple mornings this week, Disqus was inexplicably slow and possibly displaying errors for a number of sites and their visitors. Absolutely unacceptable.

Why was this happening?

To be honest, we’re not exactly sure yet, but we know it doesn’t directly relate to our capacity. It’s not a completely mystery and here is what we do know:

  • The webservers were not under especially high load when things got slow
  • High load may be a factor, but not necessarily so
  • This is possibly a configuration issue with Nginx, Apache, or the Linux kernel
  • What are we doing about it?

    We are increasing capacity in the short term to help mitigate some of these issues, and we are running tests to ensure that we are not missing the long term solution. We hope to have this figured out by the weekend. In the meantime, we will be doing everything we can server and code wise to ensure that this does not continue occurring and inconveniencing sites and their visitors.

    Reactions

    Our Reactions feature is a popular one. We integrate with our friends at uberVU in order to provide mentions and comments of your page on other services. Lately, its performance has been inconsistent. Sometimes Reactions are found quickly, sometimes it takes days.

    Why? And what are you going to do?

    We think the bottleneck is our end and the way we request reactions for every new comment thread being created. There is an attack plan, though. We’ve been working on ways to approach this in a smarter manner so that this feature is more consistent and reliable.

    Sorry again and thanks for the support as we get through these issues. If you have any specific questions about this, we’re happy to be answer openly and honestly.

    Comments

    Daniel on May 28th 2009 in disqus

    Use Twitter Comments To Promote Your Products

    137 Clothing bases its fashion sense from the philosophy of quantum electrodynamics. They bring together different groups of people through a constructive and creative ways like “clothing design”.

    Jesse Frye, the dude behind 137 Clothing uses Twitter Comments to spread the word about new products and special promotions.

    How can I do this?

    Assuming that you’ve setup Disqus on your site already, follow the instructions below. If you haven’t yet, start here.

    1. Authorize Twitter in your account settings or sign-in with Twitter.
      (If you don’t have a Twitter account, get one.)
    2. Visit your product page with Disqus comments.
    3. Write your blurb and check Tweet this comment as @twittername

    The tweet will link back to your product post, and you’re set. You can now interact with the vastly growing realm of Twitter.

    Note: If you would like to have your @twittername show up with replies, visit your site settings and enter your twitter name under “Twitter Account”.

    10% off at 137 Clothing?

    If you just happen to purchase some threads at 137 Clothing, enter the code “disqus” for 10% off.

    Cheers,

    Giannii
    DISQUS
    Community Manager
    giannii@disqus.com

    Comments

    Giannii on May 26th 2009 in disqus