I'm a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to online video. Given the choice of watching a 10 minute videoblog or consuming a dozen blog posts, I'll almost always opt for the latter. For me, the ability to quickly scan text versus "waiting for a video to get good" offers a superior time investment to reward ratio.
Will People Use Them?
So far, the response to video comments on Mashable has been mixed. Text comments still outnumber video comments by a wide margin, and I think to really get people engaged, we'd need a way to aggregate them in one place, so you can see "all recent video comments" and then perhaps jump into the conversation that way, rather than scouring the comments of each post to see if there are videos (though, we'd love the extra page views ). Of course, this need for blog-by-blog customization you see with installable plugins is why Disqus might have an opportunity to get a better uptake on their commenting system.
A Distributed System Could Drive Adoption
Users Will Own Both Their Comments and Videos
While Viddler and Seesmic will let you login to your account with the respective service so you can "own" your video comments, it will be a bit different with Disqus, presumably. Assuming that video comments work by logging you into your Disqus account, allowing you to directly record via webcam, and then publishing to the blog, it means your video will be immediately available on your Disqus page and RSS feed. Hence, your video is working towards building your brand and reputation, while also distributing it to a wider audience (the Disqus community, FriendFeed, etc.).
Will Publishers Adopt It?
While Disqus has been successful at attracting some popular bloggers to the site, not too many of the "commercial" blogs I follow have adopted it (or, a rival for that matter, such as SezWho or IntenseDebate). The question for us is whether or not we're willing to give up ownership of the comments (from a "the comment is part of our code, we can do different things with it, it's indexable, long-term viability, etc." perspective) in place of something that might be easier to manage and drive more interaction between users. However, as Daniel Ha noted on Twitter today, VentureBeat, one of the most popular blogs in our space, is now using his young service to handle their comments. Does this mark a tipping point for Disqus and other third-party comment systems? Probably not yet, but it's certainly a sign that "for profit" publishers are starting to get comfortable with outsourcing their comments.
Conclusion