With predictions of Digg's fall this year rampant in 2006 roundup posts, I figured I'd jump in and give my $0.02.
#1 - Digg will remain popular with their demographic
Digg's popularity is in the appeal to a particular web community. Yes, the idea of voting up stories and having a user-generated news site is unique, but Digg's site is nearly overrun with a particular niche. However, those same Wii and Ubuntu fanboys that post immature comments and ban anything in the SEO world are the base of Digg's users. They own the site, and while it may turn off the ordinary, non-tech-obsessed reader, they're on Digg to stay. Does it limit Digg's appeal and potential reach? Absolutely. But, it also ensures loyalty, something that MySpace must be sweating bullets over.
#2 - The Quality of Content at Reddit & Netscape is Considerably Higher
From almost any objective perspective, the stories you find atop Reddit and even Netscape (though their UI makes the site nearly untenable for many) far outweigh the value and interest level of Digg. Lower traffic levels and far lower user participation aside, the collected stories at these sites are far more representative of what a more mainstream web news audience would want to find in a "submit and vote for stories" website.
#3 - Fragmentation of Vote-Style Sites is Inevitable
If you're in the real estate field, you should be putting together a kickass real estate Digg clone. Same goes for finance and cooking and travel and photography. If you're an enthusiast for any of those, neither Digg nor Reddit nor any other site right now serves your needs. It only takes a community of 2-300 active participants; the same number that many popular forums and blogs have. And no, I don't think Digg can serve all these markets - they're hard to reach audiences that will not enjoy the comments and down-diggs of Wii/iPod-worshippers. Speaking of which - Danny - didn't you promise us one of these for the search marketing industry? We've been holding off building one here because we heard you were going to do it... John Battelle's feeble attempt needs to die and be replaced by something usable.
#4 - Digg Stil Rules for Viral Marketing and SEO
Why? Because bloggers still live on Digg. Those hundreds or thousands of links that are possible from a Digging are not yet of the same veracity or quantity at Reddit or Netscape or Shoutwire. I suspect this will be true for another 12-18 months at least. Thus, getting a story from your dental client's website onto the Digg frontpage will remain a driving force for many in our profession.
Your opinions?
Forgot to mention, very willing to look at revenue sharing if someone with a reputation/traffic wants to take an active part in helping this along.
Drop me a line at [email protected] if interested.
Thanks
Mike
Thanks, iamdcf for pointing out Pligg. Interesting program. Also thanks to Toivo Lainevool and SeanW for sharing your projects.
Adam (above) is right about the Ubuntu related posts. My Ubuntu Tutorials based blog hits digg twice a week. Personally I'm sick of Digg and am considering removing the 'Digg This' button, but it brings the traffic... and lamer Digg-type comments :(
Awkward names.
In this thread we mention digg-clones, user generated news sites, and social media sites but I don't think anyone has come up with a good name for the digg-like sites. Is user generated news site the best we can do? Ideas?
I've been using the term "social news site"
Hey guys. I've had an SEO/Internet Marketing Digg style site up since September 1st and have been working diligently to get traffic and new members. We have about 200 members and we're ranked in around 35,000 on Alexa. Our traffic has more than doubled every month since it launched. Guillaume just mentioned us the other day in his recent Pligg post. We we're also reviewed by Wired.com and mentioned by both Steve Rubel and Seth Godin. No need to reinvent the wheel 100 times over, just come and join in at https://www.PlugIM.com
Many thanks for the social media focus Rand.
I'm close to sorting out some social media profile and interaction, but have found some difficultly in deciding some good areas to work on.
I will zero in on Reddit and Netscape. Because of my topic, Digg may provide difficult, though it would be a huge boost to have a profile and some comments on there as well.
Thanks again Rand.
Your comments on viral marketing are accurate and I compleetly agree with you, but in my opinion you have left out a few important details on the subject. The best source of information that I have have come across, on the topic of viral marketing, is an article that was writen by someone named Jason Ryan Isaksen and it has proven to be a very helpfull resource to myself and others who are useing this type of marketing strategy. If it would be ok, I would like to provide your visitors with a copy of his article on your site, I have a copy of it and I would like to hear any of your experiences or opinions on Jason Ryan Isaksen or on any his strategies and techniques. Has anyone ever heard of Jason Ryan Isaksen or read any of his informational articles? Or if there is anyone who is familiar at all with his services, I would be very happy to hear of your opinion on them. I have read quite a few reviews on Jason Isaksen on many other web sites and this guy seems to me to be extreemly knowledgable in the area of viral marketing, and when it comes to any sort internet marketing in general he is influencing the way people go about their online business, in a positive way. Any legitimate opinions on Jason Isaksens techniques or any of the articles he has published on viral marketing and internet marketing strategies would be much appreciated.
Barbara Q
Rand, In my opinion I think having a digg like feature on the niche sites will work better. I don't think it will work as a standalone for most niches. It doesn't seem like there's enough interest around time based (e.g. news) content. For some niches it will work great though. There's already a plethora of digg clones out there and just about all of them are flops.
What do you think?
I agree, most the digg clones out there are flops. franticindustries left a link on Guillaume's Pligg post from December 20th:
https://3spots.blogspot.com/2006/04/all-digg-s...
That's a list of nearly 400 digg niche sites or clones. I certainly haven't gone through all of them but about the only digg clone that I think is successful right now is ShoutWire. Can anyone name some others that have the critical mass needed?
Real estate does have a digg clone - Real Estate Voices - but they have the same problem as every other Digg cone - critical mass. I'm not sure I agree you only need 2-300 active participants.
Comparatively speaking Netscape is still pretty bare bones, even with all their backing & muscle. And while they do have a wider coverage than Digg, I'm not sure I'd say it's higher quality (in anything other than comment etiquette).
With an average of 2-4 votes per article, they clearly don't have 200 active participants. Active to me means going there a few times per day and voting on pretty much every piece that pops up. If they had that, they'd be in a very pretty position.
I do agree that getting the critical mass is incredibly hard. It's one reason I think that transitioning an active audience from a forum or blog might be the best shot for many of these.
OK here goes.
Guys have a look at www.search4geeks.com I have been experimenting with aggregating SEO blogs and news for a few weeks on another site (www.seogeeks.us) but is was very difficult to manage. So I have moved over to a Digg style format.
I started doing this because none of my business mates understood RSS and because everyone in SEO seemed to be over DIGG.
All feedback welcome, let me know what you think
Thanks Mike (Sydney)
Mike, that is a pretty nice site. Great interface. Now you face the same challenge that all the other niche digg sites face--how do you get that critical mass?
Hi Tom6a
Thanks, its really more the work of the pligg guys than me, Im just a skilled modifier of other peoples brilliant works.
I was sort of hoping seeing as I have seen so much criticism of DIGG and DIGG users that the community might be willing to give it a try.
I am adding a shared Adsense model (its implemented Im just testing it now) ie anything you post you get a share of the Adsense when your post is shown (disclosure: the way its implemented at the moment this is just for single pages not for the front page, but Im working on changing this).
I would be interested to hear SEOMOZ readers opinion about what % would get them interested and posting new stories?
Does the community really want their own version of DIGG (and do you like the search4geeks.com name or would you prefer seogeeks.us or something else)
Let me know and I will keep going
Thanks
Mike
How long has your site been up? How long did it take you to build?
up for 6 hours 4 hours to build :)
I noticed that you do not require users to register to vote. Why that decision?
Users have to register to nominate a site, but at this stage not to vote.
To be honest, I had been playing with Pligg for 2 days and had put up another site www.sportsnutters.com for my father in law who loves Football.
Truth is I launched it this morning, you know what its like when you launch a new site, use me, abuse me, just pay attention.
Reality dictates we will need to put some restrictions on at some point and people will game it but at the moment I just want to get people involved, you know what its like, when its early days, you are happy for any involvement.
I see it as an experiment. If its useful to the people it is aimed at will use it, if not it will die.
Also when you think about my motivation, originally my experiement started for 2 reasons, none of my business mates understood RSS and 2ndly I was tired of trying to find good content to put in my reader. This solves both problems.
Anyway, the floors open to anyone who wants to get involved. I am happy to take a very community based approach to it, I wont say its a democracy, but I will take advice and guidence from the SEO community about what they want in the site.
Over to you guys.
Thanks
Mike www.search4geeks.com
Following Andy's advice on growing your business, I am spending some time looking into PR. I'm especially interested in cultivating some relationships with journalists myself.
I think we must be one of the first (of many, I suspect) companies getting properly into PR after linkbait...
Either way, online or offline, it's all about the story. Sorry, I mean headline.
I still can't figure out how to drive traffic to my website via those services. Had only 14 visitors from digg. Guess I have to write something bad.
Just write something that has AMAZING or AWESOME in the title, and make it about the next version of Ubuntu due in 4 years, or some made up Apple product. If it's anything anti-business, anti-Sony, anti-MS, Ubuntu, or Apple, it hits the frontpage in hours.
You mean like?
Amazing Inside Info from Apple for X-mas '007 -- iTree!
A new branch of SEO will morph....
UGC-SEO or Social Site SEO
...this will be the latest offspring since SEO-PR developed in 2005.
It appears that using the right hook for your Link Bait is an art form. An irressitable Title and luring description can make the difference in Good Link Bait getting to the Homepage. https://digg.com/search?s=seomoz&submit=Search...
Also, SEOs will discretely infiltrate the Social Sites to focus on their clients quality Link Bait.
Rand, Do you know if there are any "out of the box" solutions to building a Digg-like site or a Reddit? Or anybody who can whip them up on demand for reasonable price?
EGOL, what about Pligg I read about it on this blog a couple of weeks ago. Have not tried it myself.
I am trying to make one by customizing Drupal. Not up and running as of right now.
I am kind of new to this so I was wondering if anyone knew how well these two options could really replicate digg? I mean as far as how it determines what story gets to the top. I imagine the digg algo is pretty complex. What will a simple Drupal or Pligg clone offers as far as that goes? And if someone wants to later switch to something more advanced, what do they do? Would they need some kind of programer?
Pligg seems to do a half decent job. I recently started an SEO focused community news site with it. You can see it at SEOyak.com
Toivo, I like the site. I just became your 14th registered user. How long did it take you to create and how long has it been up? Like the other user generated content sites your challenge is going to be gaining the critical mass.
Should be fairly easy with Drupal. Although Pligg seems to be better suited out of the box, I have done a few projects with Drupal (since 4.6.0) and I am very happy with its flexibility and SEO friendlyness.
I've been trying to find an idea to make a cooking related site for a while, and you just gave it to me!
https://www.kitchenlackey.com/
I'm importing my links now.
Thanks!
Sean
Great post of the sociology and dynamics of the social media world!
Digg mafia and top content is getting pretty ugh, like the "America's Funniest Home Videos" of the net. As far as MySpace, I can't wait till that dog is dead. The UI, ads and content are rock bottom. I don't know if they could make the experience any worse or more confusing for the newbies if they tried. Any guesses on what the new mainstream music/social site will be?
This new year I committed to buckling down and getting much deeper into Drupal. I see tremendous value in empowering people to create multi-user social sites without the expense of a full web development team.
digg is the slashdot for the pubescent; mentally and or physically, anti-MS anything Linux is god fanboys
:)
Digg (and Youtube) should offer white label versions at a cost so we can create clones for our niche.
Pligg.com - the opensource digg clone.