Digg: First Contact ------------------- Written by Israel Torres Friday, 20 January 2006 Digg is something I hadn't heard about until I saw Unic0der's poll posted on the Blacklisted411 forums asking where I got my "news for nerds." I automatically voted for Slashdot and didn't think twice about checking out this "digg thing." I didn't enjoy the feeling of not knowing why Slashdot was being compared to Digg so I decided to investigate further and see what this was all about. I typed in digg.com in my browser's address bar and slapped the enter key to be greeted with a very aesthetically pleasing front page. It looked very simple with very little main navigation links, the obligatory Google Ads and a listing of articles that were supposedly the thing to talk about at the moment. To be fair I brought up Slashdot and noticed some of the stories were very similar in topic and reference. Not sure what to make of this I clicked the first link on Digg and it took me directly to the article. Being used to Slashdot I was expecting to see a default threaded discussion view. I went back to Digg and searched around and saw the comments link and clicked on it. (I didn't know until later I could also click on the digg button with the numbers on the left to get the same link.) The comments appeared to be uninteresting one-liners with people saying digg and dugg here and there in witty ways (like digg++). I scrolled down and nothing that seemed like serious discussion on the topic at hand. In reality it looked like something you would see on a teenager-geared forum. I didn't want to throw in the towel just yet so I took a breath and decided to investigate further as to what exactly Digg was and what it was all about. I searched for reviews on Digg and read a few other articles about "Digg versus Slashdot" and got "my read on." Some bloggers even went to the trouble of posting statistically tracking data of the Digg Effect versus the Slashdot Effect complete with observation of traffic vs. influence. It was interesting and something I took into consideration while taking another look at Digg and whether I'd be putting it in my bookmarks toolbar. (I have to be picky because of the limited real estate). In some of the reviews I noticed mention of Kevin Rose being one of the creators of Digg (which brings me horrible flashbacks of "thebroken") and automatically put Digg back on my minus list while digging into my digg experience. As a few days passed I noticed I'd keep checking Digg and continued to compare years of reading Slashdot to only a few days of reading Digg. I'd flip back and forth, read the comments, the topics and more reviews. Then the inevitable moment came - right then and there - I felt a sudden sadness as if I had fallen out of love with the girl I'd grown up with and into love with the teenage babysitter. What was happening?! I cursed at Rose - and the hours ticked by. I thought this love affair would eventually end, but within the 6th day became fully committed by creating an account where I now diggith upon; to compare I have never created an account on Slashdot and rarely commented. With Digg I've dugg quite a bit and even commented on a few articles. After I hit Digg there was no going back. Slashdot just doesn't do it for me anymore - it's been fun, but it's over... Sure I'll visit for a booty call now and then, but there is no love in my click and scroll. Digg has a lot to offer especially because it isn't being driven by a set of given influence. It is driven by you and me. Every topic has a chance to be dugg. Digg also has many ways to view the information flowing within it. One of my favorites is the cloud view. Not many people might enjoy it as much as I do, but it is pretty cool on how you can see dugg diggs in such an abstract fashion. There is also a realtime digg spy which gives the pulse of any given moment. You are in essence watching the digg in effect. Of course because "the people have control" there are many dupes that get posted and many jealous posters that get upset their topic didn't get dugg (a few days back when they posted the same thing) but in all fairness sometimes you digg and sometimes you are dugg that is the nature of the Digg - live with it. I have yet to submit a story but I am sure that will come with time. I have already crossed many lines that I hadn't with years of Slashdot. I still give props for Slashdot's intellect (or pseudo-intellect) but in the days passed I noticed that Digg is more on the ball and has many many articles show up before they appear on Slashdot a day or so later. Digg still has growing up to do along with its followers, fans and features (such as allowing a decent preview editor) but I foresee Digg doing many good things in the future, and prevailing. I noticed a few security concerns that I plan to investigate further. For example it appears that Digg allows a user to configure their accounts for blog entries by saving their blog's login information. Anyone could see how this could be gleaned and stored somewhere the user may not authorize especially if the site would be compromised sometime in the future. Also such as with any public information a profile can be built from the Digg accounts because it stores information such as your "friends," your diggs, and a few sprinkles of ratings, email, and IM identities. A lot of this information is voluntary, but some tracking is not such as digging history (hopefully in the future it will allow you to disable this feature as well as anything containing track-able information): * stories dugg * stories submitted * stories on homepage * stories commented on * stories dugg by friends * stories submitted by friends * stories commented on by friends * list of friends In conclusion after 7 days of digging and dugging I can say that I am hooked. I think I was hooked on the first day, but I proceeded with caution because I am so used to being disappointed with the magic of the Internet. I'll digg you later... Keeping it 'rael, Israel Torres The FYI Links Digg http://www.digg.com/ Digg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg The Digg Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Digg_Effect Revision3 Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggnation Digg vs. Slashdot (or, traffic vs. influence) http://www.kottke.org/06/01/digg-vs-slashdot