What is Digg?Sponsored by Rockstar Games
Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City view!
rockstargames.com - Out Now on Disc for Xbox 360. Includes The Lost and Damned plus the all-new The Ballad of Gay Tony.
16 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1237signals(creators of Ruby on Rails, among other things) have written a great book about building a startup with exactly that, simplicity and specialization.
It's available free online:
http://www.digg.com/tech_news/How_to_Build_a_Succesful_Web_Application_Free_book - kingkilr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Nah, the biggest problem was the $1200 price tag.
- V1be, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I don't know if I really agree with this guy. Here's my reasons:
1.) The writer doesn't exactly have a successful social network himself. I believe I've read a paper from him before on social networks, and he has done a lot of research, but can't put it into practice.
2.) Niche web sites CAN have some loyal users, but based on my own experience, he's wrong when he says you can make healthy profits (unless he means just coming out even, which isn't profit).
3.) Digg did not win because it was a niche market. Digg won because it was really easy to use, and had some strong users in the beginning.
4.) Once again, a market can be small enough that it can't make money. If you are running a car social network, sure you might get 10,000 users, but go ahead and try to monetize that. Making money is the mark of a successful web company, not users. Users come and go. I mean, take a look at Uselessaccount.com, which just came out yesterday, and has 4500 accounts already. Completely worthless.
My own feeling is that you have to think big. If your site is good enough to be marketed to the masses, it's good enough to capture a smaller market. Web 2 is about reaching critical mass, otherwise you'll just tank like the rest. To reach critical mass you need, well, the masses. - Barney7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5As an Internet neophyte myself I appreciate your take on it. Those pipeline profit dudes say the same thing so you aren't alone in yor opinion. Seems to me like a little of both is true. Need to attract a loyal niche to stay afloat while you build to "masses" appeal level.
PS. I have however noticed that the most bold and audacious slammers that cruise the net poo-pooing everything someone else has to say also maintain the most anonymity. I think I'll go check out your chinaspy deal just to spite them! - p0ss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@V1be
I wouldn't underestimate the success of shuzak if i were you, i mean, it got this story dugg didn't it :P - V1be, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I don't need to be anonymous. You can see my properties by searching my name, which an internet neophyte can find with ease, and cancel out results having to do with china and tibet, which an internet neophyte could also do. My biggest site was called GamerCentric, which had a Digg like system for deciding popular games, and way ahead of Digg's time. I'm also starting another at this time, and I'm at MIT right now for a Web 2 conference. I'm not sure what the big deal is with anonymity. As long as you don't have your phone number listed, not a huge problem. Spam comes anyway.
- Barney7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I was trying to give you a compliment ding dong
- V1be, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Chinaspy is not my social network, clearly. I claim no expertise either, but I do have experience with startups, and I was only pointing out the difficulties that I've experienced more than once with monetizing niche sites.
I do know the origin of Digg. I don't think that a tech site on the internet is niche, definitely not anymore. Same reason that I wouldn't call CNN a niche for publishing news.
And my goodness, I do love getting dugg down for stating an opinion. Digg is great for having random disagreeing people push the thumbs button, leaving you to wonder why they can't instead respond and have a nice, civilized discussion. - webdevil, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Fair enough.
But why should I listen to you either. I'm not sure what you've done but if you run ChinaSpy.org ( listed in his profile ) then I wouldn't exactly classify you as a social network guru either.
Your point about Digg is also false. Digg started as a tech only site and has only recently begun to expand into other areas. Without that beginning niche I really don't think Digg would be what it is today. A large majority of the traffic on this site are probably from users who have been around since back then.......isn't that loyalty - snowballs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Don't forget to IPO somewhere other than the U.S.
- gcnaddict, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Art Lebedev (optimus keyboard creator) would benefit from the advice here. He's trying to satisfy too many people and is alienating his core market as a result.
http://community.livejournal.com/optimus_project/ (for those who don't know what I'm talking about, here's the link to the dev blog) - JimmyCrackdCorn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1http://www.dugqmirror.com
- V1be, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Weeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllll, yeah. He does a good job of marketing his site, through clever "research" blog posts at various places. He even scored an interview with ZDnet. I don't think the site is particularly successful though; I could be wrong. I wish him success, it's a nice idea. "Geeks" are a tough market to make money from. We're all too savvy to click ads, let alone even see them in many cases.
- sensibledriver, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Yay! More sage wisdom from a nobody blogger!!!!!111!!
- erictheninja, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Except for a few unintelligent insights ("no market is smalle enough"), this article is what they teach you the first day of business school. Differentiate or die...duh. Someone must've been bored at home and sat in on a community college class.
Buried for being lame. - djames82, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i see many people writing books about business, claiming they know. The truth of the matter is...why do most authors (Publising books about starting businesses) have.. started their own business(es) - which went down the toilet.
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is