DISQUS

calinazaret · 1 year ago

Great article. You make an excellent point about the decline of quality on digg.

The real revolution in social media resides with sites that have high customization. On Digg, there's one front page and what doesn't make it to the front page gets lost forever, never seeing the light of day.

On Mixx.com, the user has the option of creating a group with whatever theme they want. This allows literally anyone to find something of interest. There are hundreds of groups themed anything from apple fans to gay pride.

I'm really biased because I love mixx, but I don't work for them. I'm just a happy user who loves good content.

By the way, I came to this site because someone had submitted your article to mixx. I'd never been here before.

Eric Berlin · 1 year ago

Thanks for the kind words! :-)

As I just commented above, I agree that the right mix (so to speak!) of community, editorial curation, and customization has the potential to do gang busters. I've signed up for mixx and will check it out, thanks !

Michael Sherrin · 1 year ago

I'm not I'm familiar with your alternative. I've always viewed Digg, Reddit, and these bookmarking sites as best-of-what-you-won't easily find, thus making weird news or cool features the bread and butter of the site. Big news articles always fit in, of course, but I never viewed Digg's value in news articles since, eventually, big enough stories rise to the top. Techmeme however is a much more newsy resources and arguably one of the best places to find immediate news. Both remain useful for different reasons and obviously still have tweaking to do to be even more efficient (Digg repeats stories way too much).

Eric Berlin · 1 year ago

Social news sites are by their very nature going to be driven by what the community thinks is important. If you find Digg to be a useful resource, that's great -- obviously man others do as well.

I'm probably biased these days as I find Twitter and Friendfeed to be pretty amazing ways to discover "what I wouldn't easily find." Alternatively, browsing through Digg and Reddit today, it felt more like sifting through the aisles of a thrift store: there are some jewels in there, but you have to have patience, as well as some luck on your side.

aseever · 1 year ago

I certainly agree about single-river popularity sites; you'll always get bread and circuses. The new crop of services seeking to compartmentalize that crowd-sourced news dynamic based on interests sound good on paper, but I wonder if you wind up with some hybrid of friendfeed and a message board. In the end, as you allude with the thrift store analogy, the democratization of news is a net loss for signal/noise ratio.

Eric Berlin · 1 year ago

I'm not sure if the "democratization of news" is necessarily a net loss... but it certainly can be. I once had high hopes for social news as a whole, and I have to admit I'm a bit disheartened these days. That said, I do think that the right community mix, the right level of admin/editorial curation, and the right subject areas (probably niche e.g. punk music versus "news") has potential to be unique and valuable.

Spuds · 1 year ago

They are very useful. It is networking after all.

Eric Berlin · 1 year ago

Can you explain a little more what you mean, Spuds? Do you mean that people who are into social bookmarking can find use in sharing what they're into on an online platform? thanks!

ojbyrne · 1 year ago

http://news.ycombinator.com
(not spam just a concise recommendation)

Reilly · 1 year ago

I think they are useful in that they curate the detritus of our internet fetishes and turn a spotlight on things that historically only existed by word of mouth or in small groups. What would be great interesting is if a major news network took some of these tools and created new perspectives on this -- sort of like Diggnation but with a MEet the Press perspective.

Eric Berlin · 1 year ago

Totally see what you're saying Reilly but I think the counter-argument -- that I'm somewhat but not 100% sold on -- is that if the curated detritus is yet more detritus... is there a point to the whole operation?

That's why I completely agree that the future as I see it for the social news platform is to find niche environments and niche communities -- probably with some sort of editorial overlay.

Reilly · 1 year ago

Good point. At some point there's just detritus overload.

I agree with the notion that social news sites should become more vertical, but some of the early attempts at that have been slow going. I happen to like cars a lot and most of the social news sites for cars have been useless. Other than Digg/Reddit (which are somewhat horizontal, but as we know basically internet culture stuff), are there any truly vertical news sites?

Eric Berlin · 1 year ago

Reilly, there are some but as you note none that have really stood out from the pack as yet. It'll happen one of these days, I'd think !

YouYap.com · 1 year ago

it cool website. i like it so much, i am cloning it http://www.youyap.com

bigeasy · 1 year ago

I think the answer to the question depends on the site. I don't find Digg to be particularly useful or even fun for that matter.

However, I have a much different take on Mixx, which has rapidly become one of my favorite sites. There are hundreds of articles and blog posts out there by reformed Diggers about why Mixx is a superior site, so I'll decline to go into too much detail as to why.

The short version is that Mixx offers superior features (groups, breaking news and tags, just to name a few). A brief review a comment thread from a random front-page submission on either site demonstrates the superiority of Mixx's community relative to chaotic war-zone that Digg comment threads usually become.

The point is, some sites are useful and some aren't. I don't think that any broad statements as to the usefulness of such sites can be applied to the genre as a whole.

Eric Berlin · 1 year ago

I agree bigeasy, and in the end usefulness for a social media platform comes down to the community itself, with features and design and functionality merely helping to support and facilitate media sharing and communication.

I keep hearing about mixx -- may have to look at Digg vs. Mixx and report my findings ...

vdegeorge · 1 year ago

Digg lags so far behind my FriendFeed that it's hardly useful to me.

Ben · 1 year ago

I don't think social news is useless I think the main representatives *of* social news, the ones that previously or originally defined the genre, have evolved into something else but haven't shaken the *label* social news.