Growing pains at Digg?

  If you're unaware of the social news site digg.com, it's definitely worth checking out.  It's a site where people submit stories that interest them, and other users can "digg" the story, voting it up and possibly becoming more popular and hitting the front page, or "bury" the story, which will lead to less popularity and fewer reads.  It's a great way to access a wide variety of news, videos and pictures from around the web by just visiting one site.  This social news submission site has become quite popular, but with popularity comes some issues.

Historically, Digg is a tech news site (that may not be entirely true, but that's how I first ran into it, and this is my blog, so...).  It is a great resource for finding stories for your inner (and even outer) geek.  The tech area is filled with stories about iPhones, HDTV's, software, gaming, PC's, etc.  I used to have a nerdgasm pretty much any time I logged on, as there were always interesting stories about rumors and new tech that I might not have run across on my own.  Digg's popularity has attracted all kinds of new users, and the site in general has become more mainstream.

The new users on Digg have brought about some issues for the hardcore users. The first issue is content submission.  If you read comments on submitted stories, you'll see people asking how in the hell that particular story ever was submitted, much less dugg up to the front page.  The hardcore crowd doesn't seem to much care for the casual content, and their comments reflect this.

The second aspect of content submission was recently addressed with a large ban of certain user accounts that were using automated processes to submit and dig stories.  I don't really understand the point of being a top contributer on a social news submission site like Digg, and it truly boggles my mind as to why anyone would "cheat" to get there.  I guess it's to prove how little of a life you have, or how great your web surfing prowess really is. If someone wants to explain that to me, I swear I'll be a good listener.  Don't get me wrong, I play World of Warcraft, so I understand how people can throw their lives away online.

Lastly, in regards to content, is the issue of duplicate submissions.  It seems like many of the people submitting content to the site don't actually read the site, and you can see the same story (or a blog about the story) referred to two or three times on the same page.  While I don't mind redundancy, it's a little bit of a drag to click a link and find that you're viewing a page that  you just read a few minutes prior.  Often times, two or three submissions of the same article even make it to the front page, which could be edging out something that could be more of an interest to the reader.

Regarding computers: from a glance at Digg, Linux is the new Mac.  Like Windows and Macintosh, Linux is an operating system for computers.  It has a very strong following, but the following is very small and vocal.  Before Apple introduced the first iPod, the future was looking pretty bleak for them.  Mac users have been, and probably always will be, somewhat fanatical and proud and loud.  On Digg, there are constantly stories about how to switch to Linux, what tools and commands Linux users should use, which version of Linux is best, etc.  There are still regular stories about Windows and Macintosh, but Linux seems to be the new underdog that the techies are trying to push.  Outside of the more technically minded user, Linux has a long road to be in as many homes as the Mac, which is still struggling work a chunk of Microsoft's desktop dominance.

Lastly, when it comes to politics, Digg can be easily dominated by essentially three groups: Democrats, Republicans and Ron Paul fans.  A lot of the stories and videos submitted are great to read, regardless of party preference.  However, Digg stories can all be Pro-Obama/Anit-McCain at one glance, then completely the opposite later in the day.  It's generally fair to say that there will always be a Ron Paul "I told you so" story of some sort in the mix.

The point of this last observation is that it is possible to manipulate Digg.  For instance, a group of Pro-Obama folks and digg up a story about McCain's failings, and then a Barak is a Muslim story could be the next most popular story.  And a lot of it isn't even news, it's opinion or blogs like this one.  And since anyone can make an account, there's no real way to prevent an organization from digging submissions to promote itself.  A fine example of this is the Huffington Post, which has dozens of articles submitted every day.  Legitimate or not, there doesn't appear to be a system of checks and balances.

While Digg's growth has brought some challenges, it also brings a lot of perks.  Stories that the mainstream media may not cover can get to more people to read.  Mainstream media has even started to embrace Digg, with articles asking Diggers to submit questions for interviews, etc.  The pros outweigh the cons, and I'm confident that as the site will continue to be one of my favorite homes on the web.