Earlier last week, there was a giant blowout of controversy over how the top / elite Digg users might have been manipulating (intentionally or no) the Digg promotion algorithm to get their stories promoted to the front page. I say “blowout” only because of the sort of blogospheric media coverage it got — as opposed to the “other” times controversies may or may not have happened.

The perception that a small group of diggers might have been involved in this created a backlash, whereby a certain vocal minority of other diggers have now agreed to vote en bloc — but to bury the group of elite diggers submissions. As an aside, its an interesting dynamic has emerged whereby previously it was not uncommon for people to vote in groups (i.e. “friends”), now there is a group of individuals who are burying in groups.

As another consequence of the fallout, top diggers have opted to remove their icons, but also, some have frankly just left. Such as the top digger last week, p9.

Digg reacted fairly quickly; within the first 24h or so Kevin Rose posted on the Digg blog that changes were coming to the algorithm.

And Digg took advantage of a previously scheduled interview at MarketingShift to set the record straight.

Well, I’ve already posted my thoughts of the Interview (Kevin Rose goes on Record; Wastes Everyone’s Time), and I was concerned because it didn’t really answer any new questions, although it did confirm everyone’s suspicions: that high reputation diggers have more voting ‘weight’. In fact, the whole thing smacked of a giant PR move on behalf of Digg.

And this is no surprise since the whole interview was scheduled BY the PR firm at Digg.

Well, what happens now?
Well, its now the beginning of the week, and I have been waiting for … what happens next.

Neothoughts has summarized things fairly well.

Kevin Rose has posted another entry on his blog in response to the events which have happened — basically telling everyone to “chill out”.

Jay Adelson has started posting comments telling people, likewise, to lay off trying to target elite diggers — it wasn’t their fault. Digg will take care of the abuse.

And … well, that’s about it.

So, its been a whole FIVE days since the circle-digg controversy blew up — and this is the kind of response the Digg community gets? What’s furthermore amazing is that they have a professional Public Relations firm attached to them (probably as a result of the VC funding).

I should think that their response to the fallout should be at least proportional to the actual outrage that was going on — but quite frankly the muted and polite response from the two public faces behind Digg has been profoundly disappointing.

There hasn’t been any attempt to publicly (and I mean *REALLY* publicly) apologize to the top diggers or and furthermore publicly make some sort of restitution to them.

With all due respect to MarketingShift — I would have expected interviews with bigger A-list bloggers, media outlets that cater to web2.0 news, or even trying to get a more positive writeup in an offline more ‘established’ news outlet.

I mean, FIVE days? five days is an eternity on the net: Is this the quality of PR that Digg’s VC cash is buying?

The funny thing — the enormous irony of the situation — is that Kevin Rose et al. are approaching this PR disaster from a “big media” point of view: broadcast their opinion to their fanbase without engaging in some kind of meaningful discussion. Kevin Rose, the dark tipper himself, who has promoted intentionally or otherwise, the good ol’ geek image of himself, has opted NOT to use to the very tool that fuels the web2.0 and his own career up to Digg: blogging.

And this is where Jason Calacanis comes in.

You know, you can form all kinds of opinions about the guy for selling weblogs inc to AOL, or his attempts at refining Netscape into a new Digg — but the guy does one thing right:

He’s close to his fans, and the fans of Netscape.

On his blog, which he updates regularly, he engages in a meaningful and passionate debate, and in his timeliness and responsiveness is a model for the very reason why corporate blogging is important. It establishes a human face on an otherwise monolithic organization, and allows the users to try and initiate a diaglogue, good or bad, with that organization. It allows a company to engage its users, clients, fans and customers on their level, and at least, give the impression that either something is being done, or at the very least, that they’re listening.

The gross irony is that Digg gives the impression that there’s something like this going on, but the “blog” that they have is a pale facsimile of what a blog OUGHT to be. There are no comments. Its updated infrequently. And it acts as a corporate mouthpiece for Digg as a company — not the personal voice of one person.

I, for one, would love to know what Kevin Rose, really thinks about the situation.

Is he Angry? Scared? Disappointed? Outraged? How the hell do I know? How COULD I know?
Someone has already made the analogy to Kevin Rose as the boy-king ruling over a fifedom – but I wonder if the analogy wouldn’t be more accurate as a boy-king controlled by a prince-regent, giving the appearance of ruling, but not able to do much, think much, or talk much without the permission of someone else.

Is this accurate? Fair? If anyone has any experience with Venture Capitalists, they might have an idea — and I invite them to share them with us. But from what I’ve heard, it may not be too far off the mark.