Discovery Box back (for now at least)

In a previous post, I announced that I will be turning off the Disqus Discovery box for now. After a week or two (or more), I have decided to give it another chance. I hope Disqus really took my advice on how to make the Discovery box better, because it should have a balance between popular and relevant discussions. They should really take that advice on the promoted discovery content, because if they wish to make a lot of money they especially have to make the sponsored links relevant. I, for one, won't be clicking on links about a review of a washing machine on a post about an Android smartphone.

I also decided to turn the box back on to truely test its purpose, which is to bring traffic to your site. I did notice a slight drop off in traffic, but I expected that. So this is also a sort of "experiment" with how Discovery truely works, and how far this feature can go.

Of course, to be using the Discovery box you also have to be using Disqus 2012. Previously, I did remember Disqus working on the Discovery box and putting it in the Houdini embed at their site, as well as mine, so I took a snap shot of it before it just mysteriously disappeared. I wish they could add the Discovery box to the classic embeds as well, as some users just plainly do not like Disqus 2012 and will not switch to it. Those people who sign up with Disqus now will have promoted discovery turned on, and they do not know anything about it, and think that Disqus is advertising on their site. That should also be addressed by Disqus, perhaps by giving a heads up notice on the admin panel or something. I've seen first hand people yanking Disqus off of their sites because of the promoted links, and with no notice on why they are there. I can only assist users out there on forums so far...

So, how many of you have Disqus 2012 on their sites? With the discovery box? Let me know in the poll and/or comments below.