“The newspaper industry is suffering.” So says this bit from HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. But, don’t just take John’s word. Time Inc is in trouble as reported by CNN. News Corp is falling short of expectations as reported by AdAge. And that’s just last week! In the fallout, Gawker, which filed for bankruptcy in June, asks “if John Oliver isn’t going to save journalism, what will”? Which brings us here. Journalism is full of problems, but where are the solutions?
Here at Disqus, we’ve been helping online publishers for almost a decade. Along the way, we’ve been trusted by millions of websites with Engage, the industry-leading engagement platform. Or, to speak more plainly, “that awesome comment plugin.” We’re proud to help both publishers that have grown up on the web, as well as those who are making the transformative transition to the Internet.
As a service provider to online publishers, we’ve found ourselves facing some of the same problems that online publishers face. We want to grow our audience. We want to help generate awesome online content and engaging online discussions. And, at the same time, we want to figure out how to earn revenue as a provider of online content.
Enter Reveal, our ad solution for online publishers. We only officially launched Reveal in May, and we’ve already paid millions of dollars to over 20,000 different publishers. And we’re just getting going. We’re pretty excited about some awesome enhancements on the docket (spoiler: read this for a sneak peek of something that might be coming soon, and contact us at publisher-success@disqus.com if you’re interested in early access), and would love to hear more ideas.
Other than Reveal, what creative ways have you seen publishers monetize? Anything we should consider adding to Disqus? Let us know in the comments!