Of course, credibility is an important thing in any business, and especially one where you’re trusted to provide good information. Digg has been having credibility issues for a while now with rumors of Diggers getting paid to Digg articles, and it just got smashed in the face with a battering ram.
Here was the experiment: Annalee Newitz decided she would try an experiment and write an article about it. She would create one of the worst blogs ever - it’s at http://www.crowdhacking.com/blog/, not even going to give it nofollowed-link-love.
And then she would hire a Digg promotion company to promote it. For $100, she hit the front page (and incidentally, came up with some of the best link-bait I’ve seen in a while). Here’s a quote from Adelson saying Digg can’t be gamed, but obviously this experiment proves that wrong:
If the corporate brass at Digg were right, this would be a complete waste of my money. CEO Jay Adelson told me before I conducted this experiment that all the groups trying to manipulate Digg “have failed,” and that Digg “can tell when there are paid users.” Adelson added, “When we identify a (Digg user) who is part of a scam, we don’t remove their account so they don’t realize they’ve been identified. Then we let them continue voting, but their votes may count a lot less. Then the scam doesn’t work.”
So what can we learn? Digg can be gamed. Gaming Digg can get you a lot of link love. More generally, uncovering hard fact that proves rumors gets you lots of link love.
March 1st, 2007
posted in Digg, Top, Marketing |
no comments
Most of the time, it’s not enough to be the best. To be a market leader, you have to be first.
Look at Netflix and Blockbuster. Blockbuster offers a cheaper, comparable service and allows you to take movies home from their physical locations, in addition to millions spent on advertising, yet it still has less than a third of the market share. Wal-Mart tried to enter the arena, and crashed and burned - never making it above 2.6% market share.
Basic econ claims people would switch, but the risk of switching to another service that they think they’d have to learn how to use isn’t worth the $2 per month they’d be paying. If it even costs them one hour to cancel Netflix, set up a Blockbuster account, and learn the new system, that costs the average person $20 - it would take almost a year to recoup those benefits.
So how do you break people out of the mindset that “even though my service isn’t the best, it’s good enough that I won’t waste time switching”? Make your service the first - by creating a new category that didn’t exist before.
If you’re in your own category, you’ll have no competition, but how exactly do you break out and make a brand new sector? Take something that’s unique about your site, and tout it everywhere - exaggerate its significance on the site. Don’t label yourself as part of the crowd you’re like, but do label the new category.
Look at Digg. At its most basic level, it’s people voting for content. This idea isn’t new. Digg’s new features were:
1) Socialization. It got implemented at the right time, and it caught on.
2) The time-based algorithm. Votes were not counted equally, but rather based on how frequently they were coming in, hence allowing for an automated and real-time system.
Then look at Coca-Cola and Pepsi - who’s to say one product is better than another? Both have their fans, but Coca-Cola came first, and so people still trust and like it more.
Here’s another: Google. It wasn’t the first search engine. It was the first search engine to use backlinks as a criterion. Yahoo! was already a search engine, but not in Google’s “new” category, and as a result, it’s still struggling to catch up (although it never will until it breaks into completely new territory - fact).
So to sum it up: Take your most unique asset or assets (focus on one or two), and advertise it/them as much as possible. Base a new “category” around it. Reap the rewards of no competition.
If you don’t have a unique asset, then you’ll never break out. Sorry.
Sidenote: “AJAX” is NOT a unique asset.
February 26th, 2007
posted in Digg, Top, Articles, Marketing |
no comments
Web 2.0 was all about the social. We’re starting to graduate from that and see the “Personalized” trend. In my last article, I mentioned the idea that we were entering the next version of the web, and I praised StumbleUpon for being one of the leaders in this field.
On Feb. 8th, I wrote that Digg needs to get in on this trend, considering how much information it already has. On February 9th, BusinessWeek talked to Digg founder Kevin Rose - Kevin announced that “Digg will be smart enough to know what interests you.” By the end of the year, Digg should have a recommendation system out similar to Stumble and be able to give you stories based on what you’ve dugg and buried.
I’m going to give myself a cookie for calling it. Look for a post on this new trend of personalization and all of the sites that have or are starting to implement it.
February 10th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Digg, News, Top |
no comments
People have had mixed responses to Google’s Personalized search. Surprisingly little has been said about it- Graywolf is bitching about it, and Search Engine Land is cautiously accepting it. Who else is writing about it? (damn, I wish Google Reader had a search feature)
I think it’s the best damn thing ever.
In fact, I think it’s almost herald of the “new” generation. Granted, I use this term loosely, but if Web 1.0 was content based on computer algorithms, and Web 2.0 was user-chosen content, then the next logical step would be to have a hybrid; one that would take the user input, throw it into a personalized algorithm to give you an absolutely unique set of highly specialized results.
StumbleUpon has already done this - their algo matches up our interests with other peoples similar interests to give us personalized results. Unfortunately, their system is a bit too haphazard to work as a search engine, but is a fantastic tool for channel-surfing the web. In terms of idea, it’s far more advanced than Digg.
And what about Digg? Why isn’t it jumping along on the personalization bandwagon? It would solve many of their problems - how can you scheme onto the front page of digg if everyone has a different, customized page? And you already KNOW what people like - they’ve been telling you since Digg’s creation. Take that information and USE IT.
There’s going to be a lot of negative reaction in the web development market, because people aren’t going to know how to react, and testing will be more difficult - forever. That’s a bad thing for legit SEO’s, but an even worse thing for spammers and black-hatters.
Things are getting shaken up. Let the fall-out begin.
February 8th, 2007
posted in Digg, StumbleUpon, News, Top, Google Search, Google |
4 comments
So the hot news on the blogwire right now is Web 2.0 posterchild Digg dropping its top 100 userlist from visibility. This comes as a result of all the controversy surrounding how companies are trying to “game” Digg, and it shows that the company is maturing. It’s a step in the right direction and hopefully they will continue to make such steps. Will it hurt the company? Perhaps, but far less than rumors (and occurences) of paid appearances on the front page.
Search Engine Land has a good article discussing what this may mean.
February 6th, 2007
posted in Digg, Social Search |
no comments
