The new Digg design launched earlier this week, and as an avid Digg fan, I was excited to see the new changes. The old Digg worked fine and had a nice mix of content from various genres such as business, offbeat, sports, politics and my favorite, technology. There were a lot of features the site had that I didn’t really care for either such as following “friends”, and I didn’t like the darn pop-up window that asked me to share the story I just dug on my FaceBook or Twitter pages. I like reading about Kevin Rose and really admire the guy for standing up to those that threatened to change his company vision. I am not sure what happened this redesign, but it strikes me as a huge mistake.
Tonight when I went to Digg.com, I immediately noticed that Mashable was promoted to the front page a total of ten times, and that was without scrolling down and hitting the load more button (which I am sure would reveal more Mashable links). Now, I am not an expert of Digg, and I did read Kevin Roses blog which outlines the new changes to Digg, but I just can’t get past why Mashable is up the front page so many times now where before they were only up there a few times a day (if you know why, I would love to hear it in the comments below).
If I wanted to see Mashable all the time, I would add their Google Extension to my Chrome browser, or plugged their RSS feed into my reader. I also have FaceBook and Twitter accounts and get notified of stories that my friends are currently reading and would like to share with me. Listen, Digg is not a replacement for Twitter or FaceBook, it’s not an RSS feed placed into a webpage and it’s certainly not the Mashable headquarters (that would be Mashable.com). What Digg is to me is a potpourri of mixed stories that have a certain uniqueness and specialness to them worthy of getting my vote. A collection of the best, if you will. It’s apparent to me that the company has lots it’s soul, and there is no amount of redesigns that are going to fix that. Time for Kevin Rose to go back to his roots and create something truly unique with Digg, step out of the “me-to” line and beat to a new drum. Save Digg my man!
I posted a video recording my computer screen, you will likely have to make it full screen and up the HD resolution to see it clearly.
Update: I just read this article at ReadWriteWeb, and it sounds like Digg users are pretty upset with the new Digg as well. This quote from the article hits the nail on the head: “This caused many long-time Digg users to accuse the site of “becoming too much like Facebook and Twitter.”This caused many long-time Digg users to accuse the site of “becoming too much like Facebook and Twitter.”
Update: After further investigation, it looks like Mashable is using the Digg company feed that automatically submits all Mashable stories to Digg. You can tell by looking at the story on Digg and seeing who submitted it (in this case Mashable). My guess is that Mashable fans are then Digging it up.
I nave been reading digg for a while now and ive never ever posted a comment until know, going to switch to reddit.
The new digg sux monkey balls
Weird. You see stuff on the Front page that has like 5 diggs. Good thing K.Rose diversified his holdings!
Thats too bad to hear that digg is not doing so well, personally I like the new digg and I actually just read a good article about using the new digg site to generate more traffic and how to get more followers on digg. Its definitely worth a read
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Get-More-Followers…
Lucky the fall of digg coincides with the rise of niche sites like http://stock.ly I will never ever go back to digg.
Digg is gone, they have betrayed its userbase. RIP Digg.
Reccomendation to sites like Mashable and Techcrunch, if you want top placment on news aggregation sites, come up wih content that PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO READ. Your money is better spent on good journalism than buying the front page of any site.
Digg refugee (switched to Reddit)
I havent been to digg for a few days..WTF did they do ?
I think this is the biggest mistake Digg has ever made. What made Digg a fun place was that everything was user submitted and has a certain quirkiness about it. By making all the popular stories fed through sites such as Mashable it removes the fun of exploring new things.
For 7 or 8 years, I've habitually checked Fark and then Digg every morning. Now that's becoming just Fark. One thing I love about Fark is that humor is cultivated while Digg usually was pretty angry. Now it's really angry.
Don't blame the programmers. Having retired from that profession, it is not usually our fault. We have better ideas than management – about 99% of the time.
Blame the terrorists – they have won.
its 'New Coke' all over again- I've just deleted my digg account. I guess we had a good run.
:( why digg.. WHY?!
Rose you have made a horrible mistake, theres a reason I closed my Facebook account, its because I don’t give a poop about peoples boring lives, so why change something beautiful into mainstream crap for 12 year olds??… I’m off to reddit..
Nice Article.
IMO, The auto feeds from major publishers combined with the inability to bury has radically changed the dynamic of what is appearing on the site. But it looks like changes are in progress because top news is not being updated, maybe a fresh code push is brewing, who knows.
My blog: http://advertific.com/the-power-struggle-at-digg/
This article now has over 400 diggs and it's not on the front page. Why???
542 now. Obviously someone at Digg doesn't want this up there on the FP.
Hi, I was also wondering why this was not in front page!!, Yes I can imagine why..