Why Digg Sucks
Hello everyone. I’m a new contributor signing in. I never expected to write for JOAB, but I knocked, and opportunity opened its doors (wait, isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?). For today’s post I would like to diss(cuss) Digg. I know it’s the darling of the new media/Web 2.0 world. When I first started using Digg when it first came out in 2004, I loved how people got to have their say on things, and how even the most obscure information got to be popular.
However, the novelty eventually waned, and I grew tired of Digg. After all, the information I found there were originally sourced elsewhere, and I found it easier to just keep those other sites on my bookmarks and RSS readers for later reference. And one thing I really hated was the weird news being promoted to front page. It seemed funny at first, but later on those items became quite annoying. It occurred to me that the news items being promoted to Digg’s front page might also reflect the character (and interests) of majority of the Digg population. And that made me not want to be part of it any longer.
I’ve been checking in time and again, and I still see the weird stuff getting popular. And I think to myself, there hasn’t been any improvement. Tsk. Even a multi-million dollar pet project could have its quirks. And it’s supposed to have been bringing out the collective intelligence among its users. Sure, you occasionally get useful posts. But then it’s mostly clutter.
As an example, here are a couple of really duh entries on front page lately.
What do I care about my neighbor’s dog? This is surely front page material. For a local tabloid!
So what if it’s about gadgets? I’d rather get my gadget fix by reading about laptops or the upcoming iPhone!
So there you have it folks. I know some of you are Digg fanatics. But not me. I have had my share of admiration for these folks. But seeing how they’ve fostered this kind of silliness for a long time now, I’d think Digg sucks. At least for me.
You can’t expect anything else from user-generated content. It’s not a control environment and it’s not specific to digg either. Unlike newspapers or even online news websites like news.yahoo.com and others, none of it is objective. Whatever users digg up or down is strongly dictated by their emotions at the moment they click.
Long said this on May 17, 2007 7:22 am
I couldn’t agree more…Check out my tribute to why digg sucks (or “blows”):
http://www.diggblows.com
Digg Blows said this on June 7, 2007 11:27 am