Thoughts on why Digg failed

[KenR]

David Marcus thinks he knows why Digg failed. Do you agree with him. On the other hand, I'm just going to give him the benefit of the doubt since I didn't know it had failed.

As I write, the top story on Digg is "Transparency in Social News", a newspaper-as-blog item that the Digg community have used as a little self-congratulatory pat on the back. I understand why Digg's users feel like they deserve to toast themselves now and then -- after all, they've made the place one of the Web's Top 100 sites, and they've made Digg, Inc. upwards of $200 million.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2007/2/14/131127/709

[dk70]

Digg did not get sold for expected sum of money = failed so far

[iphigenie]

He's mostly talking about how he feels digg has failed from a human community point of view - how the system doesnt work the way it was meant to work. How it is not openly selecting valuable/interesting news but being played, how the popularity became more important than the relevance, how the community is an unpleasant place to be.

Digg's never managed to catch my interest so i have no experience of its community, but I think it is less relevant than it could have been or that you think it could have been.

Purely my opinion but i think a lot of those collaborative websites and citizen journalism things are not at all as relevant and influentical as the buzz wants us netizens to believe. The mass is not as smart and witty, not yet.

But it sure if of interest to marketers.

And maybe I'm a cynic.

[justice]

Probably because most people think they know better than the average person. Which means any service focusing on averaging views will not be found to be as good as doing it yourself?

Strange way of opening a debate though: if the starting point is that Digg failed, even though it all depends on what your expectations were.

Catchy title = lots of interest.

[Laughing Man]

It failed because of humans. There's always bad apples among the human race. Give them a chance to be anonymous and you just made the problem worse.

[dk70]

I can recognize most of what he says, though not taken any part of the digging up and down, hunt for frontpage etc. Difference to a forum without management is very little. Same forum can have good content of course - like some videos on Youtube are great. As he says they already have rules to avoid the worst comment fighting - a few more could limit numbers of duplicates and intentionally stupid headlines. Matter of what they want, not impossible to police. If there were visible management only few would not understand rules - same people who get kicked out of forums and other places.

All that about being "top" submitter, getting many diggs while original story from yesterday get zero - hopeless no matter algorithms. Not taking it seriously seems easy to me.

User submitted links has not much to do with journalism but Digg has proved system works as attraction/entertainment. Now MSN is testing similar setup in some countries. Too bad for Digg since it could be more difficult to sell concept and regret they didnt go for highest bid when there was interest. Ive never understood how it could be of much value anyway. Same goes for Youtube. All they have is traffic - anything else can be copied easy, already is. Not like users are loyal to X site! Sooner than later nobody cares and go for next brightest light, matter of guiding traffic. But I dont understand internet deals.