Have you seen Twitter's "Sponsored Tweets", Facebook's "Sponsored Stories", Amazon's "Inspired by your browsing history". Ditching the word "advertising" is nothing new and we all use sites like these every day.

"Sponsored" implies an advertising relationship, even if it avoids the dread word - sponsors pay you. "Inspired by your browsing history" is accurate, and is Amazon advertising Amazon - you're on a shopping site, seeing more links to shopping shouldn't surprise you. "Promoted Discovery" is a new and unrecognized flavor of newspeak; it's not just avoiding the word "advertising," it's hard to even recognize as advertising.

I agree that the term "promoted discovery" isn't established and hides the true nature of the feature. I can the logic for choosing it, thought it's not very solid:

- "promotional material" = advertising material (that promotes a product)

- "discovery" = discovery through recommendations from the page owner

- hence, "promot-" + "discovery" communicates "advertising through recommendations"

However, "promoted" isn't quite the same thing as "promotional". What's actually happening is that promotional material is being presented as "recommendations from the page owner". The "discovery" itself isn't "promoted" (what does that even mean?). Most importantly, "promoted" doesn't contain the implication of advertising/sponsoring that "promotional" does.

It would have been more accurate to call this Sponsored Discovery or, to be even more real, Sponsored Recommendations. "Sponsored", however, is a bit of a dirty word too, and they probably made the call to euphemize around it, resulting in the confusing term Promoted Discovery.

"Recommended content" is very different from "Sponsored Stories". Also sponsored means to pay for advertising.

"Inspired by your browsing history" are not ads. It is exactly what it says.

It's _Sponsored_ Tweets and _Sponsored_ Stories. It's not the same word, but "sponsored" means that it's advertising. Even "Promoted Stories" would be fine, still means the same thing. "Reommended content" is something totally different.

The Amazon example doesn't apply at all, as its internal linking to products. External advertising is clearly labeled as such on Amazon, too.

Disqus shows their advertising on a site of a different person. This changes a lot and makes this especially nasty.

Do you mean the name? We refer to it as advertising pretty openly. That's what it is.

It's a euphemism, and it feels strange to have euphemisms for your standard business practices.

Note that the screenshot in Jacques' post shows that he's done a search for "advertising" on his page. None of the text matched. Labeling ads as "Recommended Content" seems quite dishonest.

Edit / Aside: I do generally hold Disqus in high esteem, and I sincerely appreciate your willingness to dive into this discussion. I believe Disqus has faltered, but I don't mean to lay that critique at your personal doorstep.

Got it. If the question is about how clear it is to users, then yes that's important and something that we've adjusted along the way. We're going to continue making changes as we learn from feedback.

Let's break this down.

Got it.

You've learned a lesson, but what lesson did you learn?

If the question is about how clear it is to users, then yes that's important and something that we've adjusted along the way.

You've indicated that how clear it is to users is important, but you haven't indicated whether your preference is that it be clear or unclear to users.

Your actions right now suggest that you think it is important to not be clear. If you want to be clear, you should start using the widely understood and honest word "advertising" instead of a euphemism of your own making.

We're going to continue making changes as we learn from feedback.

Again you don't suggest directionality to your changes.

Will they be changes that we like? For example will you, as responsible marketers should, make this opt-in instead of opt-out? It is fine to make people choose between opting in or paying a modest fee or losing their comment feature. It is fine to have the "you need to make a decision" show up in bold for the admin (and for admin only) when they are on the page. But opt-out with emails that are likely to go to spam informing people of this in opaque language is not fine.

I believe the issue is you say "Recommended Content" rather than "Ads by Disqus" which, obviously, infers that the site is recommending something they are not.

Saying "Ads by Disqus" will probably annihilate your clickthrough, but you have to make a choice between cashing in, or keeping your partners happy.