Week 6 :: Social Media

Social media is a tool I use multiple times daily not only for communication, but for news and knowledge. Out of the list supplied in this week's blog assignment, there was only one social media site I did not know: Digg. Since I already had memberships or knew about the other sites, I chose Digg to join and research from both the inside and outside of the site.

First, and overview is in order, since that was the initial step I took before digging in (hah..) Digg is a user-submitted content based site that allows for users to vote to rank importance or interest in posts that are submitted. Top posts become featured on the main page so more Digg users see them. The name Digg came from the slang "dig" which is 'to like,' and when users vote on posts they either Digg it or Bury it. The only way you can create a Digg account is through having a Facebook or Twitter account, which limits the amount of people who can use it, but encourages interchangeable content between those social media sites.

There's much comparison between Digg and Reddit, which is another user-submitted content based site with a voting system. I, myself, am a regular Redditor, so I was surprised I hadn't heard of Digg before especially as it is a competitor to one of my favorite websites. Criticism and praise about Digg comes from a variety of sources, but Rachel Metz from MIT Technology Review had the most thorough and well stated comparison of the two sites. Between January 2010 and May 2010 Reddit gained over 7 millions unique users, whereas Digg's number of users dropped significantly. A main complaint about Digg is the interaction interface - there is a limited amount of interaction you can have with other Digg users, despite the site being driven by user-submitted content. Commenting on stories, according to Digg's site, is not yet an option because they "are a hard problem to solve." For being a dedicated Redditor and not having the comment option on Digg, I feel restricted to the community Digg could potentially have if they allowed users to interact more readily. Also, while browsing through Digg, I noticed there are only a few main monitors for ALL content. These are not monitors from the Digg user community, but rather hire-ons working for Digg. Much of the time they are the one's deciding what content ends up on the home page, which almost defeats the purpose of a voting system all together.

My overall impression of Digg was that it's a fantastic idea that didn't quite develop in the most enjoyable way from a user standpoint. The concept of democratically run content is fantastic, but when the site limits their user interaction with the content they post it puts a barrier between where Digg is and the potential it could have as a user-based community, like Reddit. Besides the function of the site, I did enjoy the layout of the content. It's far more image based in comparison to Reddit, which for someone who tends to favor visuals versus reading text, I was diggin' that aspect.

Sources:

"Frequently Asked Questions." Digg. Web. 03 Nov. 2012. http://digg.com/faq. 

Metz, Rachel."Why Did Reddit Succeed Where Digg Failed?" MIT Technology Review. Web. 03 Nov. 2012. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428520/why-did-reddit-succeed-where-digg-failed/

Nations, Daniel. "A Review of Digg." About.com. Web. 03 Nov. 2012. http://webtrends.about.com/od/digg/gr/digg_review.htm