Digg

[Datheus]

I just wanted to have an open-ended discussion about Digg.com

 

For those of you who don't know, Digg is a "community" news site. Users submit stories, and then "digg" them. Stories that meet requirements of Digg's algorithms hit the front page.

 

I've been poking around Digg a lot these last few days, but here's a problem, I think. I've noticed that a user by the name of MrBabyMan has his submissions on the front page often within 15 minutes, and often with only 30 - 40 diggs. Others need well over a hundred and hours.

 

I get the impression that their algorithm puts heavy weight on a user's history, usage, and popularity. I think that is a problem. Why should a useless/slanted submission be viewed in a more favorable light just because of someone's credible history?

 

Beyond my little issue, does anyone else have anything to say about Digg?

[Dagobahn Eagle]

The Wikipedia article on Digg.

 

Beyond that, I don't know enough about the subject to contribute anything.

[Samuel Dravis]

I think it's because it's more likely to be good than the dozens of submissions that unpopular people submit. If he continues this, he just won't be favored anymore. I think it's self-correcting.

[Spider AL]

Such a model is fatally flawed... but it's arguable that it's not that much more inherently flawed than the mainstream media is.

[Jae Onasi]

Beyond my little issue, does anyone else have anything to say about Digg?

 

Take it with a grain (pound) of salt.

It'll have as much accuracy/merit as a group of people standing around the water cooler and chatting about any given event.

[RoxStar]

I've been following Digg for about six months now. I visit it a few times per day and view their technology section for interesting articles and / or blog posts. I rarely submit articles to Digg because when I stumble across something interesting it has already been dugg (sometimes dugg multiple times in different places).

 

Digg's user group is very political, the articles that appear on the technology "front page" are always associated with Ubuntu Linux, Apple, or Windows Vista. There are occasionally other operating system articles but because the user base at Digg tends to favor articles based on these operating systems (this may be because of personal views?) and other, smaller linux distros rarely make the front page.

 

There was a concern that a few "political heavyweights" were being paid by mainstream news outlets to Digg their articles and this resulting in temporary suspension of accounts and honest apologies or denials from said users. The Digg community will never allow any user not employed by Kevin Rose to make money, essentially, from their efforts.

 

One of the nice things about Digg is that it is a great way to quickly get "in the know" concerning several fields such as Linux, Apple, politics, video games, or video cultural websites such as youtube with relative ease. All articles are archived so one could quicly spot the top news articles of 2006 concerning Windows Vista with a few clicks and be up to speed with those that have been following the news on a daily basis.

 

I commend Digg and it's founders for limiting their advertisements to a modest google ads text ad near the top of the page when a few more ad spaces could be making them a ridiculous amount of money based on their traffic.

 

So, all in all, I would say that Digg is a beneficial site on the internet and, like MySpace, has really taken off in the last year as the new generation of "Web 2.0" web sites.