Posts Tagged ‘Digg’
Digg Vs. Reddit: The Infographic
Theres always been a form of healthy rivalry between Reddit and Digg, and its respective user bases. Im one of those indifferent people who think theres plenty of room for multiple sites of the kind, and that these sites actually make each other stronger and better in their state of co-existence. Rising tide lifting all boats and all that.
Nevertheless, I was keen on sharing an email from reader Harry Maugans, which we received moments ago:
Ill be brief. Weve spent the past two weeks recording every popular story to appear on Digg and Reddit (24 hours a day), and weve now compiled our results into an infographic that shows a pretty interesting comparison of the two sites.
Since Digg and Reddit have been in the news quite a bit recently (Digg 4.0 Alpha and Reddit Gold), I thought this might be interesting to your readers.
Well Harry, we happen to think so too (click the image for a larger version).
Ill let the actual infographic do the rest of the talking:
The New Digg: What It Means For Energy Users & Publishers
Power Users on Digg
Up till now, the definition of a “power user” on Digg has been someone with the ability to make stories popular simply by submitting content or “digging” it up. There was also a lot of back-scratching that happened behind the scenes among both power users and publishers: ‘You digg my content, I’ll digg yours.’ Digg has attracted a lot of criticism in the past for these practices inside its community.
Simply put, Digg’s power users wielded a lot of power because they dictated which publishers got pushed onto the Digg homepage. Digg is a large source of traffic for publishers, particularly tech news publications. In the past, tech sites like Ars Technica and Engadget have received a hugely disproportionate number of Digg frontpages, compared to other tech sites, since they were favored by power users.
With the new Digg, publishers may opt in to having their articles auto-submitted to Digg via RSS feed. But will this stop the gaming?
How The New Digg Affects Power Users
We spoke to Digg power user JD Rucker, a.k.a. oboy on Digg, to discuss the impact of Digg’s changes on his community.
Rucker recently wrote a post entitled The New Digg: A Shift in the Balance of Power, which argued that “the new Digg will make many current ‘power users’ impotent” but also create opportunities for new types of power users.
In an interview with ReadWriteWeb, JD Rucker explained that “rather than submit [articles], current long-time power users will be able to expose content that they like through their Diggs.”
The idea, said Rucker, is that the power users who succeed at attracting followers will become “tastemakers” – which is the term Digg founder Kevin Rose used when he announced the new Digg in May.
What Happens Behind The Scenes
Many people aren’t aware of the amount of “gaming the system” which goes on in the social Web. I consider myself fairly naive about a lot of it. But I know this much: despite the altruistic front of many successful people in the social Web, many of them have gamed their way to the top.
The following is how JD Rucker explained how Digg’s power users will (or won’t) adjust to the new Digg. It also reveals the power games that are played on the site:
“They [power users] can still network via IM and control publisher accounts to keep themselves relevant, but the vast majority will fail miserably because they won’t be able to adjust to the new algo[rithm].
They’ll spam, spam, and spam some more until they either give up and move on to other sites or abort operations altogether.
Others are already planning on leaving.
The “savvy” ones who have built-up networks not reliant on IM, [and] who will also have access to multiple and/or strong publisher accounts, will soar.”
I asked Rucker what he meant by “control publisher accounts.” He replied with this generic example: “Bob Power User, who is getting paid by RandomDiggDependentSite.com, is currently using his and his team’s power user accounts to submit.” Rucker described this as “a small cottage industry.”
That’s right, some power users control publisher Digg accounts. This practice will continue on the new Digg.
A Whole New Ballgame: Let The Games Begin…
We like to write about how wonderful the social Web is and how it has improved society and business. That’s certainly true, but the Web is also big business, and it is ruthlessly gamed by many social media ‘pundits’ and publishers alike. The new Digg is partly an attempt to clean up some of that on its site by preventing its power users from controlling the submission of content.
JD Rucker stated in his post that the new Digg showed “guts” because it is such a big change. I agree. The new Digg cleverly mimics Twitter and Facebook, becoming a place where you can ‘follow’ influencers and publishers to get your daily news fix. What’s more, power users now have the opportunity to attract large followings, which is a chance for some of them to become influential personalities.
However, the new Digg won’t stop the games of power users and the publishers who glom onto them. There’s too much (online) power and money at stake. It’s game on again!
Follow ReadWriteWeb on the new Digg
The New Digg: First Impressions
Ever since the new version of Digg was announced three months ago, it has undergone a lot of revisions and caused a lot of turmoil. In that time, Kevin Rose replaced Jay Adelson as CEO, reportedly unhappy with the direction Adelson was taking the company and the product.
The New Digg is almost here though, and we have access to the preview. Weve been playing around with the new interface and its many features, and weve compared them against both the old DiggDigg
and other platforms such as TwitterTwitter
and FacebookFacebook.
Here are our first impressions of the New Digg:
Digg Has a Suggested Users List
When you first log onto the New Digg (New.Digg.com), youre presented with a couple screens. The first one is Diggs version of the suggested users list a hand-picked list of people and companies to follow on Digg. The list includes everyone from Kevin Rose to The New York Times to MashableMashable, and it categorizes their accounts based on topic area.
Twitter spurred a lot of growth and created a small set of power accounts with its suggested user list (SUL) at least until this years changes. Still, these types of lists help new users get started, and acquiring fresh users is something Digg needs to do.
Even if this hand-picked version of the SUL isnt sustainable, it should give the company a boost in terms of new user engagement and retention.
Adding Content Is Much Easier
One of the first things that struck us when we finally got to the new Digg homepage was the prominence of the Digg It option. It looks and feels like the Facebook Publisher box. Whenever you enter in a link, it imports the title, finds images from the link, and lets gives you write a description and choose a topic. After that, all you have to do is click Digg It, and the link is broadcast to the Digg universe.
There are some other nice features about the new publishing box. For example, if you put in a link for a story thats already been submitted, it will alert you to the fact and display the Digg information for that specific link, complete with sharing tools and a Digg button. Its also a ubiquitous box: you will find it on many of the other pages in the New Digg.
Clearly, Digg is placing an emphasis on getting people to add more content and articles to the social news hub. As weve reported before, there is an option in the New Digg to link your RSS feed to your Digg account and auto-submit your posts for the communitys consideration.
Discovering Content
Content discovery has changed in the new version of Digg. There are two tabs on the top left of the interface: My News and Top News My News is the default homepage for all users. Unlike the current version of Digg, where content bubbles up from the overall community, the new version focuses on content coming from your friends and followers.
The new homepage no longer shows who submitted a story, but instead focuses on which of your friends dugg it. Even the sidebar focuses on how many of the people you follow have dugg a story, rather than whether or not a friend of your submitted it.
We welcome the change. It democratizes the site a bit more by reducing the need for publisher to hit the front page of Digg in order to generate any traffic. We saw content with between 16 and 150 Diggs on our personalized feed of news.
However, long-time Digg users dont have to worry. Top News is just like the current version of Digg, focusing on the top content from the collective Digg community. You can even sort top content by day, week, or month. There seems to be a minimum Digg count to appear on the week or month Top News charts though, as we only saw three news items between the two tabs.
Interface
The overhaul not only focused on the algorithms and content discovery, but also on the interface itself. Its definitely faster, cleaner, and more social. In our tests, we found it incredibly simple to navigate and a pleasure on the eyes. Unlike the last version of Digg, this is something that new users can quickly pick up and understand.
Its not perfect, though. Search still needs some work. For example, we found the exact same content from Mashable when we tried to resort by Most Recent or Best Match. Hopefully this is a small bug that will quickly be resolved.
Overall though, the New Digg is a remarkable improvement over its predecessor. It keeps much of the old look and feel of Digg, while giving it a much-needed refresh and emphasis on the social graph. Expect the new version to launch for all users very soon.