Disqussing Disqus

My point was simply to say "this type of post is meant to reassure people of the company's stability and, at least in the case of me, it has the opposite effect because it's so often used by companies who are perceived as desperate. So maybe it's a strategy that should be reevaluated."

Finally I don't really consider a $10m investment as validation one way or the other. In my mind, and again this is my opinion, an $80m investment means "we think this company will succeed". A $10m investment is more like "we think these are smart people who could beat the odds but we don't want to commit to many resources to this"

The more I think about this the more I think it's a perception thing. I mean, Apple announces similar unverifiable numbers at almost every event. But it never seems like Apple is trying to defend itself against claims of the company being in danger. Because no one would claim Apple is in danger at this point.

The problem with Disqus is there are those claims floating around. So while Disqus is doing the same thing Apple does it comes across differently. It comes across like a response to the doom claims. Even if it's not.

So upon further thought I just think, from a strategic perspective, these posts aren't wise for companies that might be perceived as in danger. Because they seem to validate the claim.

Though for the record I don't see how those numbers confirm or deny anything in the source post. In fact those numbers seem to invalidate Disqus claims (though measurement of the type Quantcast provides doesn't provide precise numbers so again we're back to "unverifiable but not necessarily untrue")