Marketingshift, in an effort to create a greater level of transparency — which I love – has posted their notes about their interview with Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson of Digg.
Well, I appreciate Marketingshift (in particular, Jason Dowdell’s) attempt at clarifying things. What would be ideal is a transcript of that interview, or even perhaps a podcast (if it were taped). But since we’ve got what we’ve got, it does at substance to the interview since it does give more details — a better look at The Algorithm.
Now, with respect to the Circle-digging phenomena that was was the source of the indiggnation, and I’m assuming, was the reason for the interview (I’m sorry — I just had to!), I expect that this is how they plan to do it:
Agreeing with a friend is not a behaviour they want to penalize but if the same 20 people digg the same stories together as if they are one mind they must be treated as one mind. Definitely a clever one-liner Jay has had to use many times in the past for sure.
Again: it depends what this means.
Yes, we now know Digg gives a higher weight to experienced, or more elite diggers. Will ‘circle-digging’ essentially invalidate their ‘reputation’? How much will it do it? As with their way of dealing with “buries”, the interview mentions they don’t do it in a boolean manner.
That’s smart.
How do they plan to deal with “hive-mind” thinking? Will a circle-digg, regardless of their group reputation strength, only result in “one” digg? Or just take the sting out of such a giant promotional effect by these diggers? And how does one decide how much an effect your algorithm should have in blunting the circle-digg effects?
I’ve said it before — and a few Diggers have mention the same: it might just be better to eliminate the structures which facilitate circle-digging altogether. Yup — Mike Arrington hit it right on the head with this one.
I think the main culprit is the function where you’re able to see what ALL of your friends are digging. Either de-weight those votes (which seems like a complicated solution), or eliminate that function altogether.
Sort of like the facebook-newsfeed debacle in reverse.
Sure, you’ll be able to see what your friends are digging if you go to their profiles individually; but without that “feed” of their news, you won’t be able to easily see what they’re doing … and thus blunt that effect as well.
All bombastic headlines aside, it seems like the intention is to keep Digg honest and that everyone is still learning. And I think Jason Calacanis echoed memorable sentiments when he said:
This shows yet another Achilles heal to social media as a business: you’re really not in control. Of course, control in business is really an illusion in my mind unless you own some distribution channel, spectrum, or monopoly. So, perhaps it’s better to say that in social media you are really, really, *really* not in control. You are the host of the party, but if the party people leave so might the party.
Having said that, before we all wrap ourselves in the warm and fuzzies, Digg has still yet to answer the question of moderation and disappearing and obliterated accounts. I suppose they do mention it under the rubric of “spam” in the interview, but that is an undercurrent for another day.
And when it hits the fan, as it no doubt will in the future, we’ll be there too.
History, after all, has a way of repeating itself. Just ask ForeverGeek.
