With digital media becoming increasingly difficult to monetize, innovation strives to keep an economic equilibrium. There are creative ways to monetize content without ruining the user experience and monetizing comments may be the next big thing. One of the reasons why comments are great for making money is simply because users are interacting with comments, and that is what advertisers want users to do-interact. As of now, there are not many ways to generate revenue from comments but I will mention the methods I know of.
Solve Media: CAPTCHA
CAPTCHA security is notoriously annoying, particularly the ones that are difficult to read, even for a human. Solve Media have simplified the CAPTCHA technology, and made it a monetization tool for publishers. You can add a CAPTCHA security code for commenting, which will help you generate income for each comment, you may receive less comments but in turn you will have less spam and more engaging comments. You can see it as work on adage.com, the website generates income from its commenting system. Also by adding this element to the commenting system, it makes moderating comments much easier which also helps save money because comment moderators cost money for big websites.
Disqus Discovery
It’s still early days for the Disqus Discovery, but the product team have noted some fantastic results that will swoon publishers onto their commenting system. With the screenshot above and it’s self-explanatory name, the product allows you to discover new content within your site; therefore increasing page views and engagement. The way this could work as a monetization tool, is the same way Outbrain works. publishers will pay to have their content syndicated though the Discovery tool. When users click to other sites, or within your sites–it will increase your revenue through CPC and additional ad revenue from increased pageviews.
