What is Digg?102 Comments
- dirtyfratboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+102Not trying to go after Mr. Karp, but he's got it wrong.
The "weird" stories that Digg features may not have a thing to do with the state of the world, but they're interesting. If I just wanted world/breaking news, then I would have no reason to visit Digg. Reuters, AP, etc. cover that stuff. The "average" people already are bombarded by news outlets. I'm actually beginning to see Digg as a kind of refuge where I can hunker down and get my tech news, interesting tidbits, and maybe some *key* reports on the state of the world. - p9s50W5k4GUD2c6, on 10/12/2007, -2/+67This asshat has been taking swipes at Digg for some time.
Karp's diatribe is nothing but weak & transparent envy. Virtually every major publication features offbeat news. I think it's a great category. But to classify all (or even the majority) of Digg stories to be weird is to be wantonly out of touch with reality.
This piece of work is ~deliberately~ trying to get traction off an hybrid mix of story genres that are all rolled up into a major category that includes both serious AND offbeat news. Did this gentleman have the journalistic integrity to mention this?
The truth is: Netscape couldn't beat Digg with PAID people. Oh yeah - they already proposed that yesterday. - flash200, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27This translates as: "Netscape could beat Digg by not having a target audience". Sounds like a winning business plan. Sign me up!
/sarcasm - titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21I come to Digg for the sole purpose of finding those so called "wierd stories", I still remember when dirtyfratboy submitted the story of how that teen blew up his house with deodorant and laundry on an electric cooker, priceless but of course its too wierd so i'm off my rocker. Even the "Don't send me Word documents" on the front page today was funny but still to wierd for this idiot in the article. But according to him I am probably as wierd as it gets and should be treated immediately.
- danlovejoy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Is any criticism of Digg ever, ever warranted? I ask seriously, because you guys get very angry and quickly bury negative comments that are actually about Digg. Will geek groupthink sink Digg?
For example, here are some real criticisms that aren't hateful, aren't FUD, and are constructive, I think:
1.) We don't need a front page story every time Eric Schmidt goes to the bathroom.
2.) Ditto with Steve Jobs
3.) Reading Digg, one would assume that Apple has 85% market share in PCs and that the iPod was the only entertainment option available to humankind. (I own a Mac AND an iPod, and I LOVE them)
4.) The Google thing again. I don't get the adulation. Seriously.
Having written all that, I think reading Digg makes me smarter and more capable. Reading Slashdot makes me stupider. I've learned a lot on Digg, and I really like it. But it's not perfect, and there's nothing wrong with saying that. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13I think the problem for Netscape is they just dont get it. They dont understand the social bookmarking culture. All they see is money and all theyre interested in is making money.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11One thing I don't quite think the author of TFA understands is that Digg is community driven, Users submit stories, and Users decide if its front page material. The Users of Digg want to read these stories, and considering how Digg is one of the largest and fastest growing sites on the web, I'd say that accounts for a pretty large sector of the world.
- opie_wan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12digg started as sub-culture and will always have roots there, Netscape is just AOL trying to be cool....it will never happen...people like digg because of the fact that we all like the human aspect of it.....i can visit google news.....which has no humans behind its postings.....if i want a view of what the major media has to say....the trampoline would have never made it to the front page of google news.....hmmm.....
- Threnody, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Hey man I stand by that trampoline story wholeheartedly!
- deanlowe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Netscape ceased being Netscape as soon as Marc Andreessen left.
- JoeyDeacon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I like the fact that I can use the word "asshat" here
- armbar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Alexa is a wildly inaccurate measuring tool.
- caldroun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Wait! Netscape? We are not done with the Slashdot v. Digg yet.
jeez...who cares. - wvdavis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Average people have a need to share, express their opinions and insult others too.
- memebag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Netscape has a website?
- jbus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7One issue with digg that may hurt it with "average people" is that it defaults to Technology News and doesn't offer a way to set "All News" as the default. I don't know how Netscape works because I haven't tried it, but I'm going to assume it lets its users decide if they want to view all news stories by default.
- Topher06, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Isn't Netscape a browser, and who uses it anymore? I won't use anything with the Netscape brand as I haven't for over 10 years.
- joelhardi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6News for nerds. Stuff that matters.
Oops, wrong site. But point still applies. I could care less how well or badly Netscape does as long as Digg doesn't turn to crap. - OsakaWilson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Absolutely. We should at least be able to set it for View All.
- choice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'll mention two: US Presidential election 2000. US Presidential election 2004.
- dawgma, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Give it time. Digg only recenlty moved away from only being technology related. It will take a little while for power users from other categories to spring up, and hopfully then they will dilute some of the heavily wieghted bias around here.
- Kilroy2004, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It's amazing the number of "interesting" sites you get from Digg. I've already expanded my repertoire of sites to include these in just the past couple of days:
http://www.joesgoals.com/
http://www.hassleme.co.uk/
and the list continues! - AKBryant54, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7i declare bs.
and..
SHENANIGANS!!
everyone grab your brooms! - OsakaWilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Just one visit to Netscape and you can see how much better digg is. Do not underestimate the ability of the general population to choose crap, however. Examples are too numerous to need mention.
- lonekorean, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yeah, a lot of the stories here are kind of... Who cares? And sometimes the fanboy-ism gets on my nerves. But it's all short attention span theatre, with the occasional gem, which is good when you're trolling at work.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Good, I don't want Netscape's users using Digg. Keep the n00bs off this site!
- scott1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Here's a link to what they mean by the average person.
http://publishing2.com/category/average-people/ - malliemcg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I wonder how many people who are digg regulars would bother any more if it catered to the "average". Digg started out as a technology site, and has expanded from that base, if it went main stream I probably would not bother because that would mean a focus on America (not being America, I care little for smaller issues relating the the USA (things like RIAA/MPAA lawsuits however both scare and anger me) and a divergence from the odd, interesting and highly technical that keep me coming back here.
M - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3firefox is what netscape used to be
cool
digg is what netscape is trying to be
cool
besides the political arguements digg is great for tech news and finding new and interesting thing - dakkon2399, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Aren't such things really a critique of digg users and not a critique of digg itself? You only get this weighted bias due to the current user base (not that I would say this bias is necessarily good or bad). As Dawgma states, give it time. As the user base evolves you will see a more mainstream saturation of articles. Since I'm a hardcore techie, I love all the tech articles (but to each their own:).
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Netscape is owened by AOL , so it can never be for NORMAL people
- mckirkus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Here's why you're only kind of right. Democratic news also gives bloggers who write about non-weird stories a voice. I just want the best articles, I don't care if they're written by the AP, NYTimes, or some brilliant blogger. The difference is that the traditional news outlets are limited because they aren't allowing the voices of the people to compete with those of their employees.
- macross9321, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2they can have all the average people - as long as the Uber Geeks stay here I'll be happy
- killa2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Who cares... Netscape will have it's users, looking for "normal" news. Most of us and probably tons of more over time will continue to use Digg anyway. We get news plus all kinds of interesting stories regular newspapers will never put online.
- stewwebdev, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Netscape is very serious (sarcasm=true)
Here are some real headlines from Netscape from this morning.
Eddie Murphy and Scary Spice, To Be Married?
Oprah Winfrey Proclaims She's Not Gay
The 111 Wussiest Songs of All Time
Justin Disses, Defends Britney
Thanks goodness they don't have any wierd news stories on their site! - lonekorean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I really don't see what the debate is. There's plenty of room for many user-powered news collaboration sites (or whatever you want to call them) on the internet. The article almost implies that There Can Be Only One, which is absurd.
OK, so Netscape may have a slightly different target audience than Digg... Hooray? - mikejohnston, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Netscape = AOL = Obsolete = Sad
Remember when AOL purchased Netscape (maybe you don't but I'm an old fart)? I have never understood for the life of me WHY they NEVER dropped IE as thier primary browser for the AOL system and used their own browser. Contract with Microsoft or not, this was just one of the dumbest business moves in the world to me. An indicator that clearly AOL has no concept of how to be succesful at any of these "me too" enterprises. - circeus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Because Netscape's strategies have worked so well in the past? /me rollseyes
- Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Who cares. Everyone knows the geek is mightier than the average man.
MySpace is more popular than a lot of other social networking sites... and we all know how good MySpace is. - MicroBerto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Exactly. Digg is successful because it's amazing niche marketing. Now it can spread out. Netscape has NEVER known niche marketing.
Read Crossing the Chasm and you'll be enlightened. Digg is doing extremely well. - manualGirl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2who cares about average people anyway?
- deanlowe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If the Netscape browser was the same as FireFox then it would have more than the less than 1% market share
Let's face it AOL ***** Netscape up like they ***** everything up. Time/Warner is still paying for the merger. - BufordT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The trampoline story was one of those articles I actually read in its entirety. The fact that us geeks on Digg find an article like this interesting and worthy of the front page is a compliment (and probably keeps average people away from this site, which is a good thing). I remember when I first started browsing Digg, and saw the headline "WRT54G V5 Hackable!!!!" Seeing a headline like this on the front page makes a geek feel at home.
- xutopia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So what if Netscape uses the same type of system as Digg uses? It works. Imagine if people were told they weren't allowed to use spreadsheets because someone else had done it first or same pattern applied to the wheel! Get over it! Digg is a great tool and the user driven content approach is gaining!
- YoungBrews, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Average people = Sheeple
- kolop1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2 Oh well, let the average people have netscape. I'll stick to digg.
- DAC1138, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I didn't know this was a competition. I thougt the point of Digg was a nice, easy and new way to bring news stories to a select group of people (mainly geeks). Since when did Digg officially enter a news site competition?
- mikejohnston, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Funny. Isn't that the place you go to look at how-to's on JS 1.0? LOL
- MrKite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree that Netscape will attract more users because it's more generalized. The problem with digg is that there are too many fanboy guilds. So all you see is news based on Linux, Apple, and Open Source all freakin' day long.
Digg is getting boring. They need to change the design so that the same geeky posters don't make the front page because the same 20 geeky friends vote for each other's news articles.
I used to like the majority of articles posted here. Now, I'm lucky if I see one or two interesting articles a day. - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the only digg clone that would work is one with a crowd perhaps if microsoft tried a digg clone but i doubt any digger would say good for them and instead call it propoganda and crap at least microsoft could pay for a design team
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