Marketing Shift blog predicts the downfall of Digg
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
The Downfall of Digg is Forthcoming and Here is why
It's only a matter of time. Another site will rise up from nowhere and Digg will slowly fade into oblivion. It is hard to imagine right now with the size and coverage of Digg.com but it is coming.
Everyone has heard the stories about Digg being run by a select few users and the corruption that coincides with it. Anti-Digg stories being removed, accounts being deleted and large scale cover-ups all around that would make Whitewater proud.
I'll preface this by saying I like Digg. It is useful and usually full of interesting stories, but what I have experienced is the true reason why someone else will come and take over the Digg empire.
Digg's fundamental principle is social-generated content, the new media where the users are the reporters and that only stories that the users aka "Digg-nation" finds interesting. But this principle is in jeopardy as the blogosphere has buzzed many times about "Digg-Gangs" and how certain users who digg something carry more weight then other digg users which allows stories to get to more prominent positions such as the home page and category home pages.
Now I can understand why this is in place. To help prevent spammers and such from getting their stories in a prominent position but the negative effect of this is you are isolating new users who are submitting quality content.
Let me give you an example. I listen to sports radio about 20hrs a day and have a multitude of RSS feeds that are sports only, so I am pretty on top of the news in the sports world. I highly doubt there are many more people that are on top of sports news more then myself and being that the Digg/sports section is pretty poor, I thought I would help contribute by submitting new and breaking stories in hopes that the sports section of Digg would pick up and it would be a bit more interesting.
2 days ago I submitted a story to Digg regarding the Arizona Cardinals name of their new football stadium, and it ended up with 17 diggs. Well, yesterday while going through my RSS feed, I saw that the same story had made the digg/sports home page. One of them with 11 Diggs which is less then my submission and another with 470 Diggs and counting. Both stories were submitted well after mine, and the one currently on the sports home a whole day after.
After contacting a few of the prominent "Diggers" in the sports section (who asked to remain nameless), I asked them all the same question on how their stories always get "dugg" and I was taken aback by the answers. These "diggers" all have some sort of advanced notification system, from email list servs, message board, and even IM bots to notify their digging network.
This has become a major problem with Digg where a select few groups are controlling the contents of various sections. There is no motivation for the millions of other users who aren't a part of a digg-army and just want to submit good content in order to make a section better but can't make any contributions because people aren't using the digg system like it was designed.
If Digg plans to expand into other areas such as they have sports, entertainment, and others the system needs to be revisited and tweaked or else the other sections will face the same mediocrity that plagues the newer categories.
I'm sure this story will get buried or deleted from Digg like the others, but Digg it here
The Downfall of Digg is Forthcoming and Here is why
It's only a matter of time. Another site will rise up from nowhere and Digg will slowly fade into oblivion. It is hard to imagine right now with the size and coverage of Digg.com but it is coming.
Everyone has heard the stories about Digg being run by a select few users and the corruption that coincides with it. Anti-Digg stories being removed, accounts being deleted and large scale cover-ups all around that would make Whitewater proud.
I'll preface this by saying I like Digg. It is useful and usually full of interesting stories, but what I have experienced is the true reason why someone else will come and take over the Digg empire.
Digg's fundamental principle is social-generated content, the new media where the users are the reporters and that only stories that the users aka "Digg-nation" finds interesting. But this principle is in jeopardy as the blogosphere has buzzed many times about "Digg-Gangs" and how certain users who digg something carry more weight then other digg users which allows stories to get to more prominent positions such as the home page and category home pages.
Now I can understand why this is in place. To help prevent spammers and such from getting their stories in a prominent position but the negative effect of this is you are isolating new users who are submitting quality content.
Let me give you an example. I listen to sports radio about 20hrs a day and have a multitude of RSS feeds that are sports only, so I am pretty on top of the news in the sports world. I highly doubt there are many more people that are on top of sports news more then myself and being that the Digg/sports section is pretty poor, I thought I would help contribute by submitting new and breaking stories in hopes that the sports section of Digg would pick up and it would be a bit more interesting.
2 days ago I submitted a story to Digg regarding the Arizona Cardinals name of their new football stadium, and it ended up with 17 diggs. Well, yesterday while going through my RSS feed, I saw that the same story had made the digg/sports home page. One of them with 11 Diggs which is less then my submission and another with 470 Diggs and counting. Both stories were submitted well after mine, and the one currently on the sports home a whole day after.
After contacting a few of the prominent "Diggers" in the sports section (who asked to remain nameless), I asked them all the same question on how their stories always get "dugg" and I was taken aback by the answers. These "diggers" all have some sort of advanced notification system, from email list servs, message board, and even IM bots to notify their digging network.
This has become a major problem with Digg where a select few groups are controlling the contents of various sections. There is no motivation for the millions of other users who aren't a part of a digg-army and just want to submit good content in order to make a section better but can't make any contributions because people aren't using the digg system like it was designed.
If Digg plans to expand into other areas such as they have sports, entertainment, and others the system needs to be revisited and tweaked or else the other sections will face the same mediocrity that plagues the newer categories.
I'm sure this story will get buried or deleted from Digg like the others, but Digg it here
Posted By Evan Roberts at 11:19 AM
Permanent Link: The Downfall of Digg is Forthcoming and Here is Why | Comments (36)
posted by Margaret Gold at
6:33 PM
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