Okay, so you’re the CEO of Digg
To play off the Technorati entry, let us pretend that you are the CEO of Digg (and no it isn’t Kevin Rose) and you are trying to stop the spamming/gaming issue that everyone is well aware of on Digg. What do you do? First let’s look at the problems and see if their solution matches any of them.
For one reason or another people like Digg. I enjoy it for the random great link I will find that makes my day. Some enjoy it because they can get on the frontpage and get a nice boost in traffic. Others like to see their names on the Top Digg Users list because it gives them a sense of accomplishment. Finally a small band of geeks love it just so they can see who will have the funniest comment in the entries.
These things are possible because you created an open system with the only rule being that you need X amount of Diggs to make the homepage. Your community thrived on this openness, yet in a society with no rules, chaos is bound to ensue sooner or later. That is what you are left with now. A community with no rules except for the ones the top people have put into place. Now you figure you want to gain your community back because some things aren’t right.
People are getting paid to push stories onto the frontpage and in a free market society that was never expected, right? People were expected to act rationally and just have fun pushing the best of the best through to the top. People would act civilized and leave insightful comments that made you think. You would have Slashdot quality news without the need for editors. The Wisdom of Crowds would kick in…
And guess what? The Wisdom of Crowds phenomenon did kick in. The geek masses love Linux, Apple, Google, Anime and Nintendo. Geeks also have a need to feel superior to their peers so they will want their stories getting pushed onto the frontpage even if it is a duplicate. Many site owners are driven by the need for that traffic fix so again and again they are going to submit trash articles. Everyone wants to be the cool, funny guy at the lunch table so the comments are going to turn into a comedy club. And hell, if you can make a little extra cash to use your power that you earned to get stuff on the frontpage then why not go for it?
Reading everything that is written can you spot the problems with Digg? Take a second to think about it and if you are one of the Digg fanboys do you really think there is a problem with a site that you continue to go back to and participating in? It fulfills so many “wants” of a Geek that the problem isn’t how to control them, the problem is getting people to understand that the system works perfectly for the way it was setup and the crowd it caters to.
So if you are the Digg CEO and you think that removing the top Digg users list will solve your problems I don’t think it will. Finding those top users isn’t a difficult task and for a lot of people you have now taken the game away from them. A portion of your audience used Digg for the game of it. For that need to show people they can be at the top. If you want to think that is pathetic or not that’s fine, but that’s how some of these people work because that was their only incentive to use Digg. What incentive have you left them with now?
If I were CEO of Digg I would help foster the passionate community that I created by not pretending I can fix things that aren’t truly broken. If you can’t give people the incentive to make a top 100 list, give them incentive some other way. You can’t take one method away without replacing it with another thinking it will solve a problem because in reality you don’t make the rules anymore. But then again, maybe it really is too late.
Related reading:
In response to your comment that “finding those top users isn’t a difficult task”? Well, it just got even easier with this interesting development:
http://www.efinke.com/digg/topusers.html
(via TechCrunch)
By Rick Turoczy on February 2, 2007 5:40 pm
Exactly my point. It’s a measure that does nothing but piss more people off. Sure some people will champion the fact that they are all equal now, but those usually stem from the people who have no need for such lists or couldn’t make it on the list themselves.
By Scrivs on February 3, 2007 3:13 pm
If I were CEO of Digg I would help foster the passionate community that I created by not pretending I can fix things that aren’t truly broken.
Reading into your article, it seems that what we are seeing is a reflection of the lack of business plan issue. When KR paid that first developer 200bux to code up Digg 1.0, what was his cash flow model? Likely AdSense.
So now, maybe we want to turn this thing into something more mainstream, where the user base is bigger and therefore the target market is bigger (see left hand side of graph). This could increase the valuation of Digg.
But the issue is what you are saying. Digg has been built for a certain target market (see right hand side of graph). Pissing off that market may be a bad idea. If anything, they should, as you say foster the passionate community that I created.
Maybe they should think about taking up another niche and customize the application for that market, rather then trying to make Digg something it isn’t, or something that it’s user base won’t let it become…
By Mike Papageorge on February 4, 2007 10:03 am
I think you need nailed it Papa G. You don’t think creating new sites would cannabalize the current userbase?
By Scrivs on February 4, 2007 4:13 pm
If I were the CEO of Digg, I’d stick my head in a volcano rather than listen to that twit, Kevin Rose.
By Kyle Korleski on February 6, 2007 4:43 am
You don’t think creating new sites would cannibalize the current user base?
I don’t think so, no. I mean, digg is for digg users, it’s only going to get so wide an audience. Hell, I can’t stand the noise in there; I’d pay to get into an *ahem* more mature venue, for lack of a better way to put it. Sure, I may go to digg once in a while, but I’d go to the paid venue too. Just like I’d surf HUGG for green links, and possibly some other niche link site for other stuff.
Basically, think of a big discotec. One room has hip-hop, another rock, another has some chill and then of course the house room :-). Take your pick depending on your mood.
Build out sites that cater to a particular niche, and maybe have one login to rule them all. Let your userbase go where they want, but market the different topics to their predominant market. Maybe a user could build it’s own homepage by subscribing to different niches…
The gist is marketing. Build a product that you know a market wants. Digg has a product that a market wants, and now they’re, as you say, fixing something that may not be broken…
By Mike Papageorge on February 6, 2007 10:39 am
Even though removing the top users list is a terrible idea for Digg, I would love it if that happened. I hate top users, they add so many links from sites that don’t need the Digg traffic boost.
By Montoya on February 7, 2007 12:24 pm
[...] - Wisdump [...]
By TPN :: The Global Geek Podcast » Blog Archive » Another Nail in Digg or Falling on It’s Sword? on February 8, 2007 12:37 am
[...] Running a community is a fine balance between making the users feel empowered and doing what is right for the site. We come across such situations a lot over at 9rules and fortunately have done pretty well. For everyone that thought user-controlled content sites was the wave of the future you better think twice. It will be interesting to see how the site looks in a couple of hours and what the aftermath of all this will be. Almost funny that just last week I asked what happens when Digg plateaus and not too long ago what would you do if you were the CEO of Digg. [...]
By Digg, HD-DVD and the True Power of Community on May 2, 2007 12:49 am