Social media is a fairly new medium, sparked by the increasing usage of the web, to build relationships between people. To a casual observer, social media has been called information overload or self-hype (and no doubt, you'll come across both). But spend a few minutes within the social media circles and you'll also find sincere friendships, support systems, and pools of wisdom waiting to be shared. Just like with other relationships, you get out what you put in.
This series profiles today's most popular social media hubs. For a look at past featured sites, check out series-opener LinkedIn and ever popular Facebook.
Digg is featured this week because of it's status as the most used social bookmarking site, with an average of 21 million unique visitors each month. Social bookmarking began forming on the web in the mid-90's and reformulated itself many times before sites like del.icio.us and Digg found a lasting presence online (and by lasting, I mean they've made it past the 3-year mark). Mostly male usership and mostly tech-related content demonstrates that Digg has a niche in the social media community
A bit of history: Part social bookmarking site, part news aggregator, this site began as an experiment between friends in late 2004. Why the two g's in Digg? Because "dig.com" was taken at the time, of course.
Main objective: "Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users." (see Digg.com/about for more)
What you won't find here:
Digg is spammer-intolerant. Which means that if you have decided to sell widgets, sign on to Digg as WidgetSeller234, and promote only your own widget-fabulous work, you may be the only person listening to...you. To be successful on Digg, you need a mix of 2 things: good content, and the ability to influence others to "digg" your content. As a non-spammer, it's a refreshing change to know I don't have to wade through the get-rich-quick schemes to get to the good stuff.Vital stats:
Launched: December, 2004
Founder: Kevin Rose, Owen Byrne, Ron Gorodetzky, Jay Adelson
Revenues: The web is surprisingly mum on the topic of Digg's revenue. However, it sounds like while their ad revenues have tripled in the last year, Digg is not yet "in the green" for profits. Not that unusual in this business.
Typically here I'd tell you how I use Digg:
But I can't. In truth, Digg is new to me. I am a StumbleUpon fan, but am exploring the uncharted territories of Digg as we speak. Digg is known to be male dominated and tech-centric, neither of which I'd identify on my top 10 list of attributes. So I'm not their audience. We'll see if Digg applies to me, or if once I've been there done that I mosey on back to my under-dog favorite StumbleUpon. I'll keep you posted.
Why it's better than *the other* social bookmarking sites:
For the lucky articles and websites that make it to the front page, visitor numbers will spike (sometimes to the point of site overload/shutdown), driving traffic, reputation and potentially ad revenues to the site owners. While social media etiquette discourages you from promoting your own site on Digg (although that doesn't stop many), Digg.com is so popular that you can say "Can I get a Digg?" and someone will typically get what you're talking about.What I wish they'd do next:
One of the main criticisms of Digg is that the power to get articles to the homepage, where they are seen by millions and launched into the unique-visitor stratosphere, is arbitrary and often in the hands of a few key "super users." Chris Wilson of Slate cites that in 2007 the top 100 Digg users made up 44% of the site's top stories. Yet with this system comes human nature, and with human nature comes agenda.
I'd love to see Digg work on how and what gets published on the sensational homepage. The democratization of Digg would make for a stronger, more likable service in the end.
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Related Posts:
Series: Giants of Social Media: LinkedIn
Series: Giants of Social Media: Facebook
Around the Web:
Webloggin: Social Networking Benefits, Newsvine, Digg etc...
TechCrunch: Digg is pushing more traffic to traditional news sites