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Three reasons to bet on commenting for marketing ROI

“Don’t you think dreams and the internet are similar? They are both areas where the repressed conscious mind vents.” Paprika — 2006

I recently watched a 2006 Japanese anime called Paprika where the quote above comes from. After it was recommended to me, I learned that Christopher Nolan has cited Paprika as an influence on his 2010 feature film, Inception…so to say it was a bit ahead of its time is probably an understatement.

When the character Paprika (who is a sort of repressed personality herself, but I won’t say too much to keep from spoiling the plot) offers this viewpoint it reminded me to revisit a very important area for today’s web marketers to pay attention; that of social commenting.

While online commenting has to date been a very frustrating for all of us, not to mention brand agnostic, for the very reason offered in this quote, times are changing and marketers need to take note.

Social commenting shootout: Livefyre Vs Disqus

Social commenting is hot, to the tune of $15m as evidenced by the latest funding round from LiveFyre, a dominant player in the space. This brings the startup’s total funding to $21m.

What exactly do the platforms LiveFyre and their competitor Disqus bring to your website or blog? Is one better than the other in any given area? Should comments even be “real-time” and “social?”

I did a bit of my own investigating, and these results are by no means scientific or conclusive.

I’d love to hear member thoughts (yes use our web 1.0 commenting system) if anyone out there has been using one or the other on their website for extended time and has feedback to share!