Startup Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Well-known to be funded by Fred Wilson with Union Square Ventures and Paul Graham with Y Combinator, among others, and while some VCs may try to demand immediate revenues or even profits from even the smallest of ventures, Disqus is not yet under such pressure. They’ve definitely had talks about how to monetize and start bringing in money, but if you thought they were about to start with advertising, you’d be wrong. Disqus will not always be a zero-revenue company, but Daniel says advertising’s not in the plans.

WHAT ARE THE “PLANS“ THOUGH???

While Gray applauds Disqus because he says “we need a lot more people like Daniel focused on delivering a great customer experience with real benefits, who are less focused on the day to day fights between competitors,” Disqus’ financial players are indeed waging competitive warfare, for the (hoped for) advantage of their own investment, Disqus.

Just as Gray’s “personal” blog serves as an ideal PR platform for Disqus promotion, so does the Wilson “personal” virtual printing press, a hand-crafted vehicle for enthusiastically spurring along “viral loop” traction of Union Square Venture portfolio properties: Disqus, Twitter, Etsy, Wesabe…

SEE:  Thumbplay vs. Twitter: Why VCs DO Seek Revenues in Startups and Plaxo, Disqus, Seesmic: Who Needs Billion Dollar VC Bets and NO Deals: Etsy, Twitter, Disqus Lose Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Sales

Union Square Ventures, however, is not so enthusiastic about “commenting” on what people really want out of a VC “blog“: Real data on the real objectives of Venture Capitalists.

Despite Fred Wilson’s public pleas for public sharing, he remains consistently, disingenuously mum regarding meaningful insights about achieving what really matters to the investors in all of his portfolio companies: A BIG PROFIT ON THEIR INVESTMENTS.

Just ask Wilson pal Paul Kedrosky, as cited by The New York Times:

Talking about their returns is a longstanding no-no among these very coy investors. That taboo and a general predisposition toward mystery is colliding headlong with a new interest in self-expression, said Paul Kedrosky. The upshot, Mr. Kedrosky said, is that venture capitalist blogs are self-censored for the gossip that everyone in the business really wants to know — like how much money people make and the investments they are making — and filled with the blogging equivalent of white noise.

“It’s a notoriously closed-mouth business and there’s suddenly this furious outbreak of blogs,” Mr. Kedrosky said. “There’s a great tension between what they are willing to write, and what people want to see. Nobody wants to talk about returns, or deals. So what can they write about?”

Paul Kedrosky said most venture capitalist blogs were “insincere” because “there’s zero incentive to tell the truth.”

WHAT, THEN, IS THE INCENTIVE TO READ THEM???

UPPDATE: NYT’s Saul Hansell Calls Bloggers’ ‘Conversation’ Bluff, So Do I

ALSO: DO YOU HAVE AN ONLINE STARTUP, OR AN IDEA FOR ONE? PITCH YOUR VENTURE HERE FREE AT THE STARTUPAPLPHA.COM FREE PITCH NETWORK!