Today, Kevin Rose announced the
release of new Digg features. What most people
covered in the
release were all the cool additions, but no one really talked about the small
changes that have drastically affected submitters. Before I dig into these small
changes that affected submitters, here is a quick recap of the new features that
everyone is talking about:
- Digg is now made for big widescreen monitors. If you have a large monitor
the site will now adjust the content so you can make use of your entire
screen. - Each section on Digg now has a top 10 story listing on the right side.
This area shows you the hottest 10 stories on Digg even if they are not on the
homepage anymore. - Because the video section did so well when version 3
was launched, they decided to create a separate section for it. They are
also using fancy javascript which allows you to now watch videos on Digg so
you don’t have to go to the actual source to watch them. - In the last few years the growth of podcasting has been phenomenal. Due to
this Digg decided to add a podcasts section
where users can submit podcasts and vote on them. At the current moment this
feature is only available to registered users.
Now that you know all the details that the Digg crew decided to share with
you, here are some the other changes that they did not talk about:
Digg Friends: You Can No Longer See Your “Friends”
The Digg friends feature is the main way people are gaming the system. Users
friend each other on Digg and digg each others’ stories, which makes it easy for
users to get stories to the homepage.
Before on Digg, you could see all the users that made you a friend, so you
could make sure to friend them back and vote on all of their submissions. In
this recent update, they took that feature out. Now you can friend people, but
you can’t see who has added you as a friend.
This was probably removed to help stop gaming of the system and to stop new
users from creating accounts and becoming a top 100 user in 30 days. The
downside of this is that it will keep the top users up there and also make it
much harder to out perform them.
Postscript: The friends feature will go back to the old style; Digg has said it was left off by mistake.
Top Users
Before it seemed that there was more emphasis on the
top users. Now it seems that Digg is
trying to steer visitors away from that section by moving the top users link to
the footer area instead of where it used to be in the sidebar. Although the top
users will probably still control Digg, this small change may change that
perception of many of the average users have.
New Voting System & Podcasts Ordered By Most Votes, Rather Than Latest,
Greatest
Kevin Rose made a video that covers
many of the new features he released. One of the things he went over is the
podcasts section and how it works, but if you look closely it seems that the
voting system for the podcasting section is different. The whole purpose of Digg
is to see what is new and the latest and greatest, but with the voting scheme of
the podcasts section it seems that the same podcasts might end up staying at the
top for a prolonged period of time. Maybe they did this because they don’t feel
enough new podcasts come out that are hits. This new voting system for the
podcast section might be a hint of some ways that Digg might change their normal
voting system.
Keeping Users On Digg
The new video section is great for users
because it allows them to watch videos on Digg, but it is not great for websites
that host the videos. YouTube wants people to go to their site so they can
increase their pageviews and ad revenue; this change keeps users on Digg and
away from the websites hosting the videos. By doing this, they also may be
reducing the temptation for marketers to leverage Digg for their viral video
campaigns because less people will go to the marketer’s website.
Overall the new Digg is a good improvement because it should improve the
quality of content on Digg and help stop new users from spamming. So far, the
reactions from users have been positive, but once they realize all the changes
and how these changes really affects them, it will be interesting to see if they
change their minds.
Postscript From Danny
: See also Up Close With Digg Podcasts (& Vote For The Daily SearchCast!) now up from me, taking a closer look at the podcast feature.
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