Disqus introduces new profiles and a slightly modified Disqus 2012 theme

Putting together about a week's worth of developments, Disqus has released two different updates concerning Disqus 2012, which is now used on just about every website.

A few days ago Disqus announced the new way profiles will be displaying to users when users click on a person's avatar or username. Instead of the old approach, which displayed their profile in the comment embed itself, where no popup was involved, the new profile display does use a popup above the embed. This change allows users to check out a person's profile, without disturbing the comment embed itself.

As an example, here's my popup of my profile.

From the popup of a user's profile, you can look at their comment history, and their followers as well as who are you following. For those concerned with privacy Disqus is working on possible options for blocking users, etc. Their team has responded to people's requests.

However, one feature that is not present in the new popup profiles is the ability to edit your profile directly from the popup. Since the profile shown above is mine, I can see an edit button. Clicking the button currently will take you to the Disqus Dashboard to edit your profile.

Above is a picture of a Disqus 2012 comment embed with the old theme, with gray-silver buttons. Borders around menus are very thin. This has been the norm for Disqus 2012 for a few months now, besides minor changes such as the voting (star) button at the top right.

With the latest update from Disqus, a slightly modified version of Disqus 2012 will roll out, featuring a slightly different border width, and darker button and border colors. The borders of the comment box also get slightly darker when the cursor is inside of the comment box.

As you can see, the embed UI is slightly modified. However, the same core experience in Disqus 2012 is still the same.

In both of the embeds, the discovery box remains relatively unchanged. When the post and append more comments buttons are clicked, they changed colors.

The update for the new profile has already rolled out. Both styles of the embed have been updated to reflect the profile popup. As for the slightly updated UI D2012 embed, it will be slowly rolled out. This website's comment embed is already updated to the new design.

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Personally, I like the updated profiles change but I'm not a fan of the newly designed embed. I don't like the overall "darker" feel, and the buttons of the embed don't appeal to me. I'll use it anyways, but I'll definitely ask Disqus about an ability to switch back the colors of the embed.