I was chatting with oneof the top50 diggers, Derek at Neothoughts (aka BloodJunkie) the other day, and I noticed that his blog was rather new. In fact, many of the top50 diggers which have blogs have new blogs. I decided to look a little further at all of the top50 diggers just for fun.
Of the top50
- 29 (58%) have websites
- 24 (48%) have websites that are blogs
- 9 (18%) of those blogs have been created in the last 6 months
Interestingly enough an analysis of the top 50 Diggers (as of the date of this posting) shows that only a handful have blogs, and of that handful, only a few are really worthy of mention — that is, regular posts featuring original content. In particular:
- BloodJunkie — http://www.neothoughts.com/ … covering the social content scene at large.
- schestowitz — http://www.schestowitz.com … personal thoughts, linux, windows, netscape, digg (since 2002)
- tysonhy — http://www.tysonhy.com … tech, popculture, and medical updates
- slowspin — http://spaces.msn.com/members/slowspinrematch/ … tech, digg, but a whole ot of miscellaneous stuff
- chad78 — http://www.chadwsmith.com/ … a quirky blog on tech, gaming and blogging (not necessarily in that order)
- digidave — http://www.digidave.org/ … technology, science, culture (its just cool and well written).
- tiabin — http://www.neurointerests.com/ … as the title says, about the brain and all things related.
- jefflundberg — http://www.jefflundberg.dyndns.org/blog/ … tech, pop culture and science (since 2005)
- jsavitt — http://ubergeek316.blogspot.com/ … tech, science, culture (since 2003)
Some have said that these top diggers seem to control what heads up to the front page — either through the ‘friends’ network they have, or that perhaps the algorithm that dictates what heads to the front page places influence on those stories dugg by influential diggers.
What’s odd is that so few of them actually have their own blogs, and of those blogs, how few of them are either updated regularly or feature original content (18%). According to the Federated Media’s own analysis of traffic that flows through digg, up to 39% of folks that read digg actually have their own blog.
I’m not sure what this all means — perhaps that good Diggers don’t make good bloggers. Or perhaps that the skill set to be a Digger isn’t necessarily ones that will be a good blogger. Or that good Diggers don’t have time to blog (perhaps because they’re contributing to comments to other posts).
And of course, it (perhaps) raises some philosophical issues: SHOULD the most powerful group of diggers participate in the blogosphere which is so influenced by Digg — both in terms of ‘thought leadership’ and in directing traffic? COULD it raise a conflict of interest? or should MORE of them participate in an environment that it influences so much?
Food for thought, I suppose. ;)
Resources: Top 50 Diggers and their blogs (or absence thereof)
(* indicates started within the last 6 months)
- p9s50W5k4GUD2c6
- Digital Gopher — http://lifeamit.blogspot.com/ — smorgasbord of tech stuff.
- *BloodJunkie — http://www.neothoughts.com/ … covering the social content scene at large.
- DirtyFratBoy — http://dirtyfratboy.blogspot.com/ … reserving the blogger name in case he wants to use it later (has two entries, both somewhat lame)
- * GWJC — http://gwjc.wordpress.com/ … covering his popular links and stories
- DarkHack
- CLIFFOsakaJAPAN
- capn_caveman
- tommy_trc
- BonleBon — http://bonlebon.blogspot.com/ … covering his popular links
- *msaleem — http://www.myspace.com/theflyingfishes/ … the blog for his band “The Flying Fishes”.
- wayjer
- supernova17 — http://www.drudgereport.com ?! (not sure about this one)
- *theattacks — http://parix.wordpress.com/ … personal and tech-inspired blog
- snipeattack
- aidenag
- lew
- johndi
- zepequeno
- jibberjabber
- schestowitz — http://www.schestowitz.com … personal thoughts, linux, windows, netscape, digg (since 2002)
- * tysonhy — http://www.tysonhy.com … tech, popculture, and medical updates
- kevinrose — http://www.kevinrose.com (nuff said) … rarely blogs.
- *Ostermayer — http://www.thebookshelfblog.blogspot.com/ … a blog for whatsonmybookshelf, a book trading community site.
- parislemon — http://www.cinematthew.com/ / http://parislemon.blogspot.com/ … former a movie review site in haiku (nice!) and the other a more personal blog
- * hemphill81 — http://hemphill81.blogspot.com/ … tech and digg related news
- * curtisthompson — http://curtissthompson.blogspot.com/ … tech, digg, science related stuff.
- Gregd — http://treelimb.wordpress.com/ … tech / geek news (and digg related thoughts as well) (since 2003)
- fudgebrown — http://www.mcclungdesign.com/ … a design house with samples and contact, no blog.
- sahaskatta — http://www.skattertech.com/ … lives up to is billing, with excellent, but “scattered tech news” (since 2004)
- OBKenobi
- searchengines — http://search-engines-web.com/ … a catchall website that offers tips, and lots of ads, regarding search engine placement and more.
- ndm007 — http://www.nathanmakan.com/ … placeholder for something in the future “coming soon”
- ncaa76
- slowspin — http://spaces.msn.com/members/slowspinrematch/ … tech, digg, but a whole ot of miscellaneous stuff
- scotwills — http://www.scottwills.co.uk/ … online portfolio for photography he’s taken (no blog)
- chad78 — http://www.chadwsmith.com/ … a quirky blog on tech, gaming and blogging (not necessarily in that order)
- digidave — http://www.digidave.org/ … technology, science, culture (its just cool and well written).
- aaaz
- mbeck145 — http://section3.net/moblog/page.php … a camera phone weblog. More of a personal site.
- mrcalifornia — http://dietler.net/… a link to some movies about Notre Dame and nothing else.
- 3monkeys — http://3monkeyweb.com/wiki .. not sure what its all about. Blog? Software company? It seems popular though.
- digger_twit
- jobeats
- *tiabin — http://www.neurointerests.com/ … as the title says, about the brain and all things related.
- jefflundberg — http://www.jefflundberg.dyndns.org/blog/ … tech, pop culture and science (since 2005)
- webtech
- mynickel
- thedove
- jsavitt — http://ubergeek316.blogspot.com/ … tech, science, culture (since 2003)
August 28th, 2006 at 3:43 pm | Permalink
I think as time goes on more people are going to ask the question, “why Digg when it really doesn’t matter.” While at the same time people may say, “why submit a story when it really doesn’t matter.” I may Digg or submit a good story but unless it passes the test from the digger elite, it’s gone.
Unless you have a blog that sells something or benefits from random traffic I don’t understand how a blogger you can benefit from Digg. Most blogs rely on people interested in a certain subject or how well a writer writes. The “hunter” who is reading through Digg is not going to come back unless it’s something that just happens to really interest him. The typical digger is not going to take the time to read and decide this is a great writer I want to hear what he says. So while you may get a one day boost I don’t think you will get many long time readers.
August 28th, 2006 at 5:24 pm | Permalink
I hear you Roy, I hear you.
Submission to social content sites bring a temporary trickle of traffic, if that; however, in a bit to boost readership a blogger ought to have many weapons in his arsenal … and submission to a site like Digg or Reddit is only one of them ;)
Cheers
t
August 28th, 2006 at 7:25 pm | Permalink
[…] UPDATE: Great Diggers Don’t (Necessarily) Make Great Bloggers […]
August 29th, 2006 at 1:59 am | Permalink
Thanks for the nice comment on my blog.
As for the Digging/Blogging relationship: I find that there is some overlap, in that both involve scouring the web.
But being able to find interesting stories doesn’t guarantee that a digger will be able to write about it, or even want to for that matter. While my blog tends to dance around the same subject matter as my diggs, I usually find different things to blog about. Also, I often digg sports stories because I like reading about sports, but I hardly ever blog about it — just a preference, but I bet there are others who have similar feelings towards their diggs.
I particularly like your end question: “SHOULD the most powerful group of diggers participate in the blogosphere which is so influenced by Digg…” I guess we just have to be responsible. In the end our reputations are on the line so it’s a bit of a self-policing system.
Although it’s Geeky to say, I think Digg has a lot of philosophical questions like this. Citizen journalism is taking a new route. Not only are average joes providing content, now we are deciding what is newsworthy and ends up on the front page of a website that rivals the NYT in pageviews.
August 29th, 2006 at 6:55 pm | Permalink
Thanks for popping by Dave.
I think your post brings another perspective into the fray — the issue of time.
WaPo profiled Diggers who have made the Jump to be Netscape Navigators, and it sounds like they (and you?) can spend quite a bit of time doing their thing as the drivers of these Social Content sites.
Perhaps there just isn’t enough time to effectively do both … ?
August 29th, 2006 at 7:07 pm | Permalink
Digging does take up A LOT of time. My digging has gone down rapidly with a job transition.
The amount of time it takes to digg makes me wonder how other profiles I’ve been keeping an eye on seem to rise to ‘top digger’ status in a manner of weeks. It makes me think that some people go days at a time without seeing the sun.
August 29th, 2006 at 7:19 pm | Permalink
Ha ha ha — dude, you’re working too hard!
Maybe time is the X-factor when it comes to both Digging and Blogging … perhaps they’re exclusive only because no one has time to do both excellently (at least those with full time jobs!).
I also wonder how often the top50 diggers turn over.
What with life getting in the way, being poached by netscape :) and so on … is the most influential group which wags the Digg evolving over time?
Perhaps evolving is the wrong word — but changing perhaps?
I’ll take another snapshot in another few weeks and we’ll see. ;)
August 31st, 2006 at 4:24 pm | Permalink
[…] If you want to reat full article just go and visit Great Diggers Don’t (Necessarily) Make Great Bloggers. […]
September 3rd, 2006 at 11:57 am | Permalink
Haha, yeah, my blog isn’t anything to look at. I usually just write about personal things, it’s more of a way to look at what is going on in my life. What do you expect though? I’m a 17 year old kid. :P
September 26th, 2006 at 11:58 pm | Permalink
[…] I stumbled on this post by Tony over at Deep Jive Interests. He makes the statement, “perhaps that good Diggers don’t make good bloggers.” and it’s true. At least in my case. The one thing that I don’t like about blogging is feeling obligated to do so. Frankly I’ve been extremely busy with my job, my 9 month old, my 13 year old, my 8 year old, my wife, and a slew of other things that insist on occupying my time more than my blog - YES! I’m talking to you digg! […]
November 14th, 2006 at 8:59 am | Permalink
[…] In fact, I notice that you are one of only a handful of individuals who is highly active in both social bookmarking and blogging. I did my own back-of-the-envelope analysis and, at Digg anyway, there are very few “elite” diggers that bother to blog regularly. Why do you suppose this is? And do you think doing one makes you better at the other? You know, in my lifetime I have had upwards of 11 blogs. I would blog on a topic for a little while, then get bored with it and shut the blog down. Not until “socially driven news-bookmarking” came along did I really find a topic that I can see myself enjoy writing about at length. […]
January 11th, 2007 at 3:32 am | Permalink
[…] Publish original research: If you’ve got the time, start with a question, try and figure it out with the data available, and “publish it”. For fun, I asked myself “How many of the Top 30 Diggers actually blog?” And I just went through their profiles and created a table of how many blogged. I then talked about what it meant, and tried to answer the question “why?” [answer: not many do blog, its because being a top 30 digger requires a huge time investment] […]
January 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm | Permalink
“Some have said that these top diggers seem to control what heads up to the front page — either through the ‘friends’ network they have, or that perhaps the algorithm that dictates what heads to the front page places influence on those stories dugg by influential diggers”
I don’t really think this is as much of a problem as most people think it is. If an article really has no content or is boring..it will not make it to the front page, even with many friends digging it.
If it does have some decent content and makes it, I don’t really see a problem with it.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:43 pm | Permalink
While that would be the ideal there have been a number of examples over the past few weeks/months that would refute it. Really awful content, fake content, and irresponsible content have all reached the front page.
Cheers
Tony.
January 13th, 2007 at 12:39 am | Permalink
[…] Publish original research: If you’ve got the time, start with a question, try and figure it out with the data available, and “publish it”. For fun, I asked myself “How many of the Top 30 Diggers actually blog?” And I just went through their profiles and created a table of how many blogged. I then talked about what it meant, and tried to answer the question “why?” [answer: not many do blog, its because being a top 30 digger requires a huge time investment] […]
January 15th, 2007 at 5:00 pm | Permalink
[…] Publish original research: If you’ve got the time, start with a question, try and figure it out with the data available, and “publish it”. For fun, I asked myself “How many of the Top 30 Diggers actually blog?” And I just went through their profiles and created a table of how many blogged. I then talked about what it meant, and tried to answer the question “why?” [answer: not many do blog, its because being a top 30 digger requires a huge time investment] […]
January 18th, 2007 at 8:20 am | Permalink
[…] Publique pesquisas originais: Se você tiver tempo, comece com uma pergunta, tente e publique os dados disponíveis. Darren Rowse fez uma pesquisa sobre quantos dos 30 membros do Digg que mais votam possuem blog. O resultado foi que poucos deles possuem blogs, pois, pra ser um dos melhores no Digg, gasta-se muito tempo. […]
February 12th, 2007 at 4:21 pm | Permalink
[…] Publish original research: If you’ve got the time, start with a question, try and figure it out with the data available, and “publish it”. For fun, I asked myself “How many of the Top 30 Diggers actually blog?” And I just went through their profiles and created a table of how many blogged. I then talked about what it meant, and tried to answer the question “why?” [answer: not many do blog, its because being a top 30 digger requires a huge time investment] […]
July 5th, 2007 at 2:35 am | Permalink
[…] study done on the top 50 diggers, shows that most of them either don’t have a blog or just recently opened one. So if I was to […]
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:08 pm | Permalink
[…] 9、发表原创的研究成果 如果你有时间，开始一个研究课题，用可找到的数据找出结论，并且发布它。为了好玩，我问自己 “Digger前30名写博客吗?” 我只是看了他们的profiles，并列了一个拥有博客的Digger表格。说出结论，并尝试回答原因。[答案：他们中写博客的不多，因为成为前30名的需要很多时间。] […]
February 5th, 2008 at 4:14 am | Permalink
[…] 9、发表原创的研究成果 如果你有时间，开始一个研究课题，用可找到的数据找出结论，并且发布它。为了好玩，我问自己 “Digger前30名写博客吗?” 我只是看了他们的profiles，并列了一个拥有博客的Digger表格。说出结论，并尝试回答原因。[答案：他们中写博客的不多，因为成为前30名的需要很多时间。] […]
February 26th, 2008 at 7:24 pm | Permalink
[…] with a question, try and figure it out with the data available, and “publish it”. For fun, I asked myself “How many of the Top 30 Diggers actually blog?” And I just went through their profiles and […]