January 15, 2012 |
Jennifer Van Grove
Fact or fiction? Online commenters who use their real names
will leave higher quality comments.
Before you respond with a “well duh, that’s a fact” retort, you
might want to take a look at new data from online conversation
startup Disqus.
The company analyzed nearly 500,000 comments made via its
platform and found that the digital denizens using fictitious
names, or pseudonyms, are actually responsible for the highest
quantity and quality of comments on the web.
Disqus determined that 61 percent of its commenters use pseudonyms,
35 percent remain anonymous and just 4 percent log in with
Facebook to comment with their real identity.
“The average commenter using a pseudonym contributed 6.5 times
more than anonymous commenters and 4.7 times more than
commenters identifying with Facebook,” Disqus said.