Comments on: So, What COULD Dethrone Digg?

By: Cully Perlman

Cully Perlman — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:08:18 +0000

I just started using Digg, and definitely am not as educated on the subject as everyone commenting here, but would love to know what, specifically, everyone here thinks could be the potential ‘gaming’ of the system?

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 03:51:33 +0000

I doubt that a better product would cause a mass exodus because I’m not sure something dramatically better could be built; while the Digg mechanism is surely flawed, it is not the content that necessarily suffers all the time either, no matter what people have been braying about (including me).

Also, it is not a zero sum game. Perhaps better systems exist already; techmeme and megite are excellent methods of trawling for prominent news in tech topics, for example, and people can use them AND digg.

No, I think that in order for Digg to fail, you could not just find something “better”, but something inside digg would have to catastrophically fail, or there be a seismic shift in how people view news. Since I don’t see either happening, Digg is going to remain around for a long time.

By: Ilya Lichtenstein

Ilya Lichtenstein — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:37:40 +0000

A better social news site that consistently delivers higher quality content could cause a mass exodus of Digg users. Reddit is getting there, but not quite. Netscape tried and failed. But once something that delivers, by whatever mechanism, democratic or not, a consistently higher quality of stories, Digg will deflate just as quickly as it inflated.
If I were Kevin Rose, I would take the $60 million and sell out right now, quit while you’re ahead. Digg isn’t innovating fast enough to stay on top forever.

By: Jordan Mitchell

Jordan Mitchell — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 17:20:22 +0000

Didn’t realize at the time but the “less than” character seemed to have cut out pretty much my whole comment (and trust me — it was important ;-). I meant to say something like this:

Digg is all about 99% of the users reading what less than 1% of the users determine, through active participation. This is the standard “participation inequality” effect. Yes, it can be entertaining to read nonetheless, but those people aren’t like me. They’re aggregating news for the masses based on THEIR personal bias, but not on MY personal bias (interests, behaviors, context, intent, etc.).

I think some new form of personalized news may be a threat to Digg in 2007. It won’t be about “aggregation” but rather about “congregation”, where I can choose my cliques very precisely based on shared interests/behaviors. Evolving further, we will see the congregation model almost reverse participation inequaltiy, where passive activity equals participation.

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 07:52:42 +0000

Yes, I do use a windows machine — the credibility is something I’m trying to earn every day; and to that end, this had better be the last pissing match on my behalf. ;)

have a good one, ben :D

By: Ben Miller

Ben Miller — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 07:27:08 +0000

LOL. Where it the bury button when I clearly need it so badly now? (Just in case, for future reference and possible namecalling, do you use a Windows machine and thereby cede all credibility ex ante? If you use a Linux box, you can ignore this question.) Anyway, keep up the great work.

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 06:51:09 +0000

At the risk of making this sound like a pissing match (which this clearly is, and I am clearly this pisser by writing this vain comment), John Chow noticed it a few weeks before hand, and of course I added my 3.5c at the time. ;)
http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/26/john-chow-confirms-mobs-rule-at-digg/