Hard as it is to believe, 2018 is now coming to an end, and it was a rollercoaster year for digital publishers. From dealing with the fallout of Facebook's dramatic Newsfeed changes, which resulted in significantly reduced reach for most, to navigating the complex path to GDPR compliance and the ensuing changes--  publishers faced several new challenges in 2018. And while a constantly shifting digital landscape can be hard to navigate, it also opens the door for new opportunities to evolve and grow. Throughout 2018 we saw publishers give alternative platforms a fresh look, leverage new technologies, and adapt their strategies in order to grow their audiences and businesses.

Our What We’re Reading blog series is back with a fresh batch of insightful articles for you! In case you need a reminder, this series highlights our favorite articles, topics, and reports relevant to digital publishing to help our readers, publishers, and blog subscribers stay up to date with the latest information and news. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3 for some great additional reads. We’d love to hear your feedback about the articles and how the topics may be impacting your business.  Now... let’s get right into it, shall we?

Audience engagement brings content to life and is the foundation of an active online community. We know that an active community can be a publisher's greatest asset. Disqus helps publishers of all shapes and sizes build, grow, and keep their communities engaged. Today we want to highlight one of our favorite online communities-- Grok Nation!

Maintaining life inside our homes is no easy endeavor. We have pets to take care of, repairs to get done, laundry to clean, meals to cook… the list goes on. As much as we’d like to enjoy these tasks (and maybe we do sometimes), they often feel tedious, tiring, and at times, overwhelming. Cue, The Spruce.

Today we have a big update to share and want to know what you think. Reactions are now available for all publishers on Disqus. Reactions are a fun, low-effort, means for readers to engage on their favorite sites and for publishers to better understand their audiences.

After talking to several top publishers and researching they handle sign-ups today, we saw an opportunity to make generating sign-ups easier and more effective. To do this, we’re sharing a new feature in collaboration with our parent company, Zeta Global, with Disqus publishers. The Lightbox tool helps publishers easily create and activate custom opt-in forms and more contextual messaging to readers based on what content they read, where they came from, total visits, and more. With more engaging and relevant sign-up prompts, publishers that work with us see 2-3x more conversions on average.

If you’ve ever needed help building your audience or increasing engagement with Disqus, we have some support announcements below that may interest you. We’ve been hard at work improving our tools for both paid and free customers but our goal remains the same: to help you succeed in a volatile and uncertain publishing landscape.

We recently polled readers and commenters about whether or not they pay for online news and why. By examining the current sentiment around paying for news, we hope to provide publishers with insights that will help them build successful businesses supported by loyal, engaged readers. Today, we’re sharing the results of our research and summarizing the feedback readers provided.

Volume 3 of our What We’re Reading blog series coming at you hot🔥 To refresh your memory, this series highlights our favorite news, posts, and reports relevant to digital publishing to help our publishers, readers, and blog subscribers stay up to date with the latest info. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Volume 1 and Volume 2 for additional reads. And, as always, we love hearing your thoughts, so don’t hesitate to share your opinions about these articles and any others you’ve found of value. Now... let’s dive in!

Disqus commenters have a lot to say about, well, just about anything really. Discussions on topics ranging from Avengers: Infinity War to Pokémon Go are happening every day across the Disqus network. While recaps of popular discussions are fun to revisit, those discussions have come and gone. What about the discussions that are happening right now or in the near future?

Starting today, we’re introducing a new series on the Disqus Blog that will highlight upcoming topics and events where we expect interesting discussions to happen. From major blockbuster movies, popular sporting events, to new tech gadget announcements, we’ve got you covered. At the end, let us know what interesting things on the horizon that looking forward to discussing.