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The Decline and Fall of Tech on Digg

readwriteweb.com — If you're a fan of digg, you've probably been noticing that tech stories are becoming less and less a feature of the social news site. The reason? Digg is attempting to attract a large mainstream user base. Just how low has tech sunk in digg? We have new data that shows that the number of frontpage tech stories is halving every year on digg.

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  • JamesMatt, on 04/17/2008, -15/+175http://digg.com/news/technology/upcoming
    • noahgelman, on 04/17/2008, -4/+40"Currently the most popular category is World & Business, which accounts for just over 22% of the total"
      I assume this is all because of the increased election coverage. Plus, young America is getting increasingly involved in politics, slowly though, but surely. Give it time, Digg will Tech back up, I just hope it doesn't turn into a site like 4chan
      • prophetpimp, on 04/17/2008, -1/+79"I just hope it doesn't turn into a site like 4chan"
        In between Ackbar and Rickrolling you can hardly tell the difference.
        • nospinhere, on 04/17/2008, -12/+19The lowness that digg has sunk to is perfectly illustrated by the Ron Paul and Obama spam that has taken over this site for the past year. What a shame indeed.
          • PeppermintPig, on 04/17/2008, -1/+9Those things don't prevent people from submitting and digging tech stories, though saturation does influence what people will likely see. The interesting statistics here are the numbers, as opposed to looking at percentages.

            If they wanted to, they could skew the weight of tech articles or something else to adjust for this.
          • rebrad, on 04/17/2008, -16/+4Digg has become just another Perez Hilton. The only tech allowed is Apple approved press releases. Everything else must comply with what they were taught by left leaning, Hate America, naive teachers who pray to the alter of "Science" (the new religion) and who couldn't get a real job. It's creators can only hope that some mega corp will buy it before their users grow up and realize what little they are getting for the taxes they pay and refocus on a real reality.
          • cwgannon, on 04/17/2008, -3/+2OK, some of you have some kind of victim's complex. I don't know if there's a name for it, but please, stop feeling so ***** sorry for yourself. You're not the only ones in the world tired of iEverything, RON PAUL, bad British pop, etc.
        • bot001220, on 04/17/2008, -0/+19"In between Ackbar and Rickrolling you can hardly tell the difference."

          Don't forget the Caturday macros (aka "lolcats"), motivational posters, and 5+ year old "Fw: Fw: Fw:" chain email garbage.
        • KMartSheriff, on 04/17/2008, -6/+27I'm just sick of seeing all these Goddamn political articles. I don't give a flying ***** if Hilary ate a sandwich today or what she said a long time ago and how some jury in Pennsylvania is going to react to it. Stop digging this *****. Leave Politics for some other boring, uninteresting site.
          • Macskeeball, on 04/17/2008, -3/+21There's a customize link in the top of all web pages on Digg. You can tell Digg what topics to show and not show by clicking a few checkboxes.
          • byronm, on 04/17/2008, -6/+5Thats how I ignore all the Mac and Linux Stories as well
          • cwgannon, on 04/17/2008, -5/+4Thanks for telling us how to use the Internets! We sure are glad you're here to walk us through what we should and shouldn't be doing, oh elite one.
          • Furkle, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2He had a valid point douche bag, the post above his was complaining about politics on digg, if he doesn't want to see the articles he should disable those topics on his account.
          • Lewie, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2It's too bad Politics rules everything and everyone. Maybe you should be interested in politics so some asshat doesn't destroy your country. Or you can go back to your ascii porn.
          • burrgrinder, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2I don't mind the political articles (I have them turned off), but I hate when people start spouting politics in other random non-political stories.
          • UNL1M1T3D, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1@burrgrinder

            You'd say that you liberal pussy. /joke
      • fkr3, on 04/17/2008, -3/+72"I just hope it doesn't turn into a site like 4chan"

        It already has. Digg's been moving towards a wider (read younger and more juvenile) audience for a long time. Every move they've made in the last 2 years or so has been geared towards attracting stupider users. Most of the popular stories are funny pictures / videos or blog posts telling the kids how great they are because they smoke pot. The rest of the site's dominated by topics that get beaten to death and then kicked around a thousand more times anyway and a handful of sites that exist purely for digg's traffic and managed to become a fixture on the front page.
        • fugazied, on 04/17/2008, -19/+11Geeks are often elitists.
          • fkr3, on 04/17/2008, -3/+47Meh. Digg's users make it easier and easier to feel like an elitist every day.

            Anyone who thinks digg isn't doing everything they can to attract the lowest common denominator is a part of it. The sad reality is there's more stupid people then smart and digg decided long ago to pursue that demographic. Each update has progressively dumbed down the sites and categories to the point where there's a category for the stupid pictures of animals that get front paged at least once a day.

            It started off as an interactive Slashdot but it's degenerated into i-am-bored.com with a tidier interface.
          • cwgannon, on 04/17/2008, -10/+4Why the ***** would you complain about extra categories on this site? The more categories, the more options you have to block.
            But no, you're right. The sky is falling. The average IQ here is 70. And Ron Paul should probably be the next President IF EVERYBODY WASN'T SO ***** STUPID.
            And yes, that's how stupid you sound.
          • burrgrinder, on 04/17/2008, -0/+5Turn off all the stupid ***** and whats left? Pretty much nothing except stuff that was posted to Slashdot, Reddit and Fark 3 days ago. I hit up Digg to see some of the more popular things in a wider spectrum of interests, and just about every day, I'm disappointed by the level of "news" or anything new posted. It really is an i-am-bored.com clone with commenting now, and that's how I treat it.

            Digging up/down comments was nice at first because it gave power to the people to dictate what was said best. Then "the people" became a group of drooling idiots, and your diggs up or down directly relates to how well you pander to the readers' opinions, and not how well you said it or if you're actually right or wrong.
      • thenumber8, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1there is a deidcated category for the election so that shouldnt increase world & business too much, though it probably gets a small bump from people who don't place stories in the correct category.
    • firepowered, on 04/17/2008, -3/+22i set Technology as my main Digg page.
      • Klisk, on 04/17/2008, -0/+18Dittos.

        Part of the problem is that digg is no longer a site for TechTV refugees. Hence it is no longer a tech site at all. It's more of a SomethingAwful to be honest, most people just come here to troll.
      • ThirdPrize, on 04/17/2008, -1/+6I have set Technology as my main Digg page as well. On the one hand I have not seen any of these Clinton/Obama stories everyone is complaining about. On the other hand the tech stories do seem to hit the front page less frequently.
        • burrgrinder, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2And much slower than just about any other tech site. If it's not Apple related, there can be a gap of days between Slashdot and Digg.
        • kidcodea, on 04/17/2008, -2/+1ppl only complain about obama. thats where the spam is at.
      • kenok, on 04/17/2008, -1/+4just keep on posting tech news/articles on digg.
      • antdude, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Use filters if you only want to see tech and geeky stuff. I don't mind seeing other stuff unrelated to them too. Digg rocks for that.
      • stormado, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Maybe we could petition digg to change the way new users create their accounts.
        I propose that new users are presented with a choice of their topics of interest in the registration process instead everyone having the default topics selected. There could be preset profiles of the different types of personalities that people could choose from. That way, those who are purely interested in technology don't have to be exposed to the foolishness that makes it to the front page these days by default. It might help to keep some order with the people who are yet to come to digg.
        • Phisolo, on 04/17/2008, -0/+4I would like it if the customize options offered a weighted option. personally I would choose something like: Elections -3, Odd -10, Tech +10, etc.

          This would allow some interesting odd ball stuff through, but it would have to be "one charming mutha-f**kn' pig" to get to my front page.
      • Phisolo, on 04/17/2008, -1/+4I set slashdot.org as my main page. Digg and google news now compete for my second news source. Slashdot had moved from first to third several years ago because of Digg's rise, but it is back as first. Gnews has always been second (at least since it was invented). currently, Digg usually bumps gNews to third these days, but digg's relevance has been dropping quickly. Habit is the only thing propping it up in my personal ranking. But as we all know, habits can change rapidly on the internets.
    • testcase, on 04/17/2008, -10/+301Sorry to say, once a decline like this starts, it must reach its inevitable conclusion.

      I have been with Digg for quite a while. I was at Slashdot as a lurker and occasional contributor for much longer. Most of the early Diggers were Slashdotters like me. But Slashdot was a closed shop, run by Cmndr Taco and his pals. It had become a tyranny. Digg represented freedom.

      We early Diggers had a tradition of putting a lot of thought into our comments and submissions because of our Slashdot origins. If we were slammed, we felt it keenly - where did we go wrong? Our standings and reputations mattered to us very much.

      Now, I put the same amount of effort into a Digg comment, polishing it just as carefully, but I know that I will probably get swamped by a bury-squad who's taken offense at my lack of anarchist credentials, or because I have misspelled a 4chan neologism. Getting 20 negative Diggs for no real reason is nothing these days.

      You can be buried just for being serious, or writing too much. Because on Digg, the clever one-liner is everything now. The quick quip, and the obscure "Billy Madison" trivia reference matters more than any substantive social commentary. Digg has become a tyranny in its turn, only this time, Adam Sandler is King.

      Digg is now as vacuous as a sit comm, but sadly there is no FCC to keep a lid on the toilet humor and the titty shots. Digg feels like being back at high school, and every time I open a comments page, I swear I can smell sweaty socks. In high school, everybody shouts, and nobody listens. Everyone who doesn't think like you is an "idiot" and must be put straight, by force if necessary. Everyone is completely self-absorbed in their own benighted, juvenile issues. That is, when they're not laughing at each other's fart jokes.

      I hated high school, and would never choose to go back there. So, I no longer wish to reward Digg with my participation. It's that simple. I am not so much abandoning Digg, as Digg is abandoning me.

      It is time for me to move on now. I'm sure I won't be missed - in the time it has taken me to write this, 10 teenage boys, all virgins, have joined Digg and are ready to take my place.
      • arjie, on 04/17/2008, -29/+2Maybe your problem is that you went to a bad high school ;)

        Digg isn't great, but it has its place. Slashdot isn't the most awesome site on the web either, it's quite funny how the stuff marked +5, Informative or Insightful there is often *****. I agree that I prefer that to digg, though I do come here for the equivalent of Reuter's Oddly Enough.
      • ParticleMan420, on 04/17/2008, -12/+3i recommend shoutwire.com or dailyrotten.com for a little perspective
      • inditech, on 04/17/2008, -1/+56Very good post mate - could not agree more. I also like a healthy debate about interesting articles, but sadly whenever I try, in come the flames from all sides.

        A little while ago, I wrote a post to a linux forum explaining in a frank and balanced way of my experiences of installing a partricular distro, along with the problems I encountered. Not only was the post taken very well on that forum, I had a plethora of favourable responses and the forum mod made it a sticky post that he thought would be helpful to others.

        I then submitted the post to Digg, and was instantly shot down and buried. Sad, but as you say, inevitable.
        • burrgrinder, on 04/17/2008, -0/+11Yeah, I remember when you could once google a term, see a digg page about it, read the digg comments and learn something. Now it's just ***** bickering on every single page.
          • inditech, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3Is this just total irony that the very first comment that I have ever made that attracts digg's, is a reply to one that is detailing digg's unfortunate slide on the slippery slope to youtube'dom. I have only been a member a little while, and thoroughly enjoy the site most of the time. I did not experience the heady days when it appears that Digg was the place to go for tech stories/advice, and I feel sad it took me so long! To complete the irony, I expect this one now gets stabbed to death... (Oh and yes, and wtf is partricular? oops - didn't get to that edit button on time...)
        • Dralite, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2I think the best way to combat on Digg is to add people who seem to want the same kind of discussions as you on you friend list. It's kind of lame but it helps me a lot. Though i like to post funny comments and Digg 4-popped collars images, i do like a good conversation and i have found them on this site through people, AND stories... rare but thought provoking when found
      • JeFurry, on 04/17/2008, -1/+33I wish Digg had an option to mark a favourite comment as you can with a favourite story.

        I'm not ready to quit Digg just yet, but I agree with every other sentiment you stated. Unfortunately, the downside of popularity is the populace it brings, and restraint and self-regulation just don't work.

        I still hope idly that the freedoms people discover through the internet might lead them to grow up and act sensibly... but hope as I might, I see little evidence of that.

        I reckon about 95% of the *good* comments on Digg are placed by about 5% of the commenters (though of course WHICH 5% varies according to subject areas...).
        • Cheddar79, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Yeah tottally agree I would love to add this comment into one of my favs. A very good viewpoint from which I believe a great deal of people feel is true about the site.
      • atticus8, on 04/17/2008, -2/+7I want to back up ParticleMan's comments by also drawing attention, for a true "what the general Internet is like" refresher course, for even more perspective, the Comments section of any and all YouTube pages.
        It will burn your eyes.
        • vertexoflife, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3Try AOL groups.
          Far, far worse.
        • Verdanic, on 04/17/2008, -0/+6Those pages make me depressed for the human race, in all seriousness. I don't understand the stupidity. It's actually incomprehensible.
        • cwgannon, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Yeah, ***** internet. It's made people so much worse in just a decade than they ever have been, ever.
          Before the internet, everybody would hold hands, have deep philosophical discussions, share food, etc. But now that the internet is here, the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
          I suggest you shut off the computer and hang out with your real world friends. The swarthy masses of the internet can't touch you there.
        • burrgrinder, on 04/17/2008, -0/+0Cell phone help forums.
      • xtmno3, on 04/17/2008, -1/+25Don't forget that discussion (which is supposed to be a big part of digg) sucks. I mean, if a story gets 1000 comments, it will peak my CPU just having the page open. Not to mention Firefox will ask if I want to keep scripts running at least 5 times before all the comments load.

        It is a crappy system. AJAX etc have their place, but this is just absurd.
      • Wiinii, on 04/17/2008, -0/+30That was the best comment I have seen on Digg in a while, and you didn't even use the word "Obama" to do it.
      • AngryFox, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2@testcase: So, I believe what you are saying is that Digg has "soldout"? If so, I agree. Digg as MSM? That's laughable; of course, the kind of laughable that's awash in tears.
      • wildkats74, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3Very well said, I couldn't agree more.

        I will go out on a limb here and say I have noticed some sort of "Internet phenomenon" over the years where something new starts out really well (a new MMORPG, or digg, etc) and has a fairly mature user base/audience and is very enjoyable. Then after about a year or two, it inevitably implodes on itself, overrun by a less experienced/immature population (teenagers?? I don't know) that in no way feels they are different from the first user base but are wreaking havoc the new system/game/whatever it may be.

        If this "phenonmenon" has a name or has been noticed by others I'd like to know. I feel it's a given or a law of the human-online psyche. In years to come maybe it will have a well recognized name llike Law where everyone understands exactly what we're talking about. The long and short of it is that the "Pioneers" of the new system eventually relocate due to becoming disenfranchised with where things end up. Pioneers' Law or something. I don't know. I'm very interested if others have observed this same effect.
      • tomjm5000, on 04/17/2008, -0/+6I took a minute to go back, testcase, through a few of your old comments. They were all thoughtful, and pretty poorly under-dugg.
      • stormado, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3That is what happens when you sacrifice quality for some freedom. But don't leave testcase. There is some hope left.
      • samfishercell, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2I saw this story on the front page and new exactly where the comments were headed. I too joined up in the early days and enjoyed reading tech stories, design stories that didn't end with "__ best Photoshop tutorials EVAR!", and more.

        Digg has sadly become a refuge for trolls and high schoolers. I don't like making that distinction as I'm sure there are plenty of younger Digg users who are positively contributing to the community, and older users who are just as bad...but as you said, the stories themselves are getting more and more juvenile. I've stopped visiting Digg as much these days because a lot of the good stuff is buried in between videos of "friends" hitting each other or taping other friends falling down or something.

        Comments are just as bad. I remember having worthwhile conversations about topics on Digg, and as you perfectly said, it's all about clever one-liners now. There was a post that went front-page on Nintendo's upcoming lineup the other day, and I wrote up a huge comment about how I felt Nintendo had swindled a lot of it's fans, how the future is looking a bit bleak, and the reasons behind my assertion. I got some support but mostly it was people talking about how much "Double Dash RULED!" and one 16-year old making the claim that he had been with gaming "since the beginning." Granted, posts on religious stories or videogame stories would always attract their measure of fanboys on either side, but it's gotten out of hand these days.

        If anyone finds a better place than Digg, send me a shout and I'll scuttle my account. Props to mostly everyone in the comments so far, you've all said exactly what's on my mind.
      • exoendo, on 04/17/2008, -2/+1"We early Diggers had a tradition of putting a lot of thought into our comments and submissions because of our Slashdot origins. If we were slammed, we felt it keenly - where did we go wrong? Our standings and reputations mattered to us very much."

        Lol.. come on dude.. you joined august 06, way after the initial boom. You are acting like it was you and 5 other people. You haven't even been here for two years yet. n00b.

        That said the content of what you are saying is decent, just not from the right person. You aren't an early digger.
        • xerigen, on 04/17/2008, -0/+5Just because he registered then doesn't mean that he might not have lurked before.
        • burrgrinder, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1New account, same old person? I've had an account before that would get dugg down because of the account name, not because of what was currently being said.
      • PhildoVT, on 04/17/2008, -5/+1***** cry about it. if you dont like what it has become, then leave. it's that simple.

        I completely agree with you that the average person on digg has a lower IQ than most vegetables, but whining about it and threatening to go somewhere else isn't going to get you anywhere.
      • wookiekiller, on 04/17/2008, -0/+7I liked Digg better when no one knew about it
        • boot20, on 04/17/2008, -0/+4You've hit the nail on the head Testcase. Not only has digg turned into a monster, but a moronic monster at that. The tech articles are non-existent and it's just a bunch of high school kids mentally masturbating on topics they know nothing about.

          Good forbid you actually have a well thought out and well written comment (like yours), you'll be dugg down because it's "too long" or you "use big words."

    • jabz, on 04/17/2008, -1/+15Let me know if you find a better place. Really!
    • Jord4n, on 04/17/2008, -0/+33To summarize this article with one picture, take a look at this.

      http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/936/diggggvp2.p ...
    • zyryx, on 04/17/2008, -1/+5let's take it back from the tabloid knuckle dragging morons. identify the offending submitters, and spend just 10 minutes of a day burying their upcoming stories. they have these submission/digg up groups, let's form some digg down groups. I already have a personal favorite that I spend a little time every day burying her stories after her "toddler in a sleeping bad" story.
    • ronjohnson, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1Story buried for being technical with no mention of politics

      *ahem, cough, cough* there is a market not being serviced right now from digg. Why don't one of you industrious youths start up a digg clone for technology articles. Call it dogg.
    • martoq, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2I really have to agree with your points. Digg is great at its foundations...If only digg had a rating system for the poster itself much like it does for stories. To a point where you can just digg down the people you can digg up the people who post quality and those digg ratings are unique to you. Then you get quality comments and not nonsense.
    • Variz, on 04/17/2008, -0/+4I agree with the above comments. I came from Slashdot early on eventually stopped going there completely. As of last week I've found myself hitting Slashdot again for tech news. Such a shame.
    • gandhirs, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Not only it's declining and falling, but it's also going down!
  • jflowers45, on 04/17/2008, -38/+509The beauty of digg is that you can go straight to the tech section if that's all you want ....
    • ralphthemagi, on 04/17/2008, -9/+81But when the focus shifts to lolcats, there really isn't a point. You might as well just go to Slashdot instead of going to the tech section.
      • GameFinisher, on 04/17/2008, -35/+12Nah, just go to the tech section and stop complaining.
        • ralphthemagi, on 04/17/2008, -2/+20I'm not really complaining. The reality is that both the user base, and the scope of Digg itself, has changed. It's time to recognize that. The addition of profiles and shouts shows us that, as a company, Digg already has.

          The problem, I guess you could call it, is that Digg was never designed to be used the way that it is, and so it suffers from certain architectural flaws. As an alternative to Slashdot, that is, as a social news site, it's actually damn near flawless. But as a site for managing simply any kind of content that a majority of male dominated, 14-19 year olds find interesting—well, it simply was never designed to do that. Images, Videos, and even the comment system are ill-equipped to handle this kind of user-content interaction. The dev team realizes this, and they are trying to adapt as best they can without a complete overhaul. I respect their efforts.
        • amnesia888, on 04/17/2008, -6/+1Ok you recognized it, now what?
      • Phisolo, on 04/17/2008, -1/+4I did just that (switched back to slashdot) several months ago. I switched to the Digg Tech page as my landing over a year ago, but that has proven not to be enough. The tech page has been taken over by gizmodos of the world. I do not find all that much that useful knowledge there anymore. But I have found that EVERYTHING that is useful makes it to the /. home page first, and with more insightful summary, links multiple articles if appropriate, and the comments are better regulated.

        The irony, I remember when all the /.ers were complaining about how immature and irrelevant the comments were getting, and how Digg was the golden future we all sought.
    • TheReport, on 04/17/2008, -2/+75what you fail to realize is that ever since the generalization of topics on digg even the quality of tech stories have suffered. Now its like check out this unboxing of my new Macbook Air, when back in the day it was more like setting up a SSH tunnel at work to bypass strict filters.
      • Philluminati, on 04/17/2008, -33/+3This is wrong.

        Unboxing of my new Macbook Air is new and interesting. This is a news site and we like to see the latest tech.

        "back in the day it was more like setting up a SSH tunnel at work to bypass strict filters."

        Nothing gets buried faster than Ubuntu guides to miscellaneous things. There is nothing social-news-network about SSH tunnels. Google the Internet if you want to do something, don't submit it to diggh. This isn't about teaching you things or the best guides to things it's news and your part of the problem.
        • locojones, on 04/17/2008, -2/+40People like Philluminati are part of the reason for Digg's rapid decline. I remember the day where I would read almost every article on the front three pages of Digg when it first launched because the content, including guides like how to get around work filters, was so damn interesting and useful. Now I'm lucky if I read one story every few days. I load Digg, scan the front page, sigh, and find my info elsewhere. I never thought I would resort to the filters on here, but I've axed pretty much every topis but Tech from the listings, and I'm still not finding anything interesting. The day Digg opened its doors to the unwashed masses was the day it rang its death knell.

          And as to Philluminati, unboxing of any sort is not interesting. And why don't YOU go search for it if you're that fascinated by it. Silly juvenile hypocrites.
          • xtmno3, on 04/17/2008, -3/+6The easiest way to see what people think digg is for is look at their date of joining. People who have been a member for a long time think of digg as a tech news site. People who join more recently think of digg as a "Social Networking etc etc"

            Case in point:
            locojones: A person who joined Digg on November 18th, 2005
            Philluminati: A male from Lincoln, England (GB) who joined Digg on November 7th, 2006
          • grimward, on 04/17/2008, -0/+7xtmno3, you have to have a more broad statistical variance than two people, your reasoning suffers from data depletion.
          • cwgannon, on 04/17/2008, -2/+3I know. Digg is the only place on the internet to find SSH guides.
            Somebody should really step up to the plate and create a site with a box that I can type "SSH guides" into and get results. And if the results came from pages all over the internet, that'd be even better. Any takers? What would we call this thing? A finding machine?
          • Philluminati, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2xtmno3 are you basically saying new people aren't welcome?

            This is becoming such a trend on the Internet. You hate newcomes, so does Reddit and so does 4Chan ffs. This is retarded. I've been since 2006 as well. I've been here long enough to know my mistake was saying something against Ubuntu rather than for not having a valid point.
      • atticus8, on 04/17/2008, -0/+7I basically support jflower45's original notion of just going to the tech section. Yes, the tech section is different from years ago, but the population of digg is different, and digg is fundamentally dedicated, by its very structure, to its population, not to tech-related matters. Kevin Rose submitted to this fundamental nature of his own creation in regards to the HD DVD key issue, when he just let digg be digg, and took the controls off and just let it ride. We all must do the same.
        But anyway, that wasn't the real point of my post. The real point was to call out unboxing-anything as the inane, laughably ridiculous phenomenon that it is. Look, I'm a serious nerd, but this phenomenon does not compute in any fashion. There is an item in a box. You are going to film yourself taking the item out of the box. Really? Don't people feel silly filming themselves unwrapping something? And how can I even explain people that salivate for the next new hot unbox video..... "ooooh I just gotta know what the packaging around the item in the box looks like! I am a molded polystyrene enthusiast!"
        I can understand the changing / "degradation" of digg, but the concept of the unbox video is unfathomable.
    • superkendall, on 04/17/2008, -5/+37But how many people will do that, instead of coming to the front page and just saying "Oh another political site".

      I have to say that I really got into digg as an alternative to Slashdot, but I'm starting to use Slashdot more than digg again...

      And as a mostly political site Digg is really one-sided, with mob mentality carrying the day. That can get you some traffic spikes but it ultimately traffic limiting.
      • Speed, on 04/17/2008, -6/+3At least the one-sidedness changes day-to-day so it alters between left-wing bias and right-wing bias.
        • TheMidnight, on 04/17/2008, -0/+4Yeah right. When was the last time you saw a "John McCain prays for baby's healing" instead of "John McCain funnels money for puppy killing through Halitburton" story on digg?
      • cwgannon, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1Should the lefties here start pretending that they don't care about politics? Should they pretend to be conservative?
        Should we recruit some conservatives? Should we shut the site down until we have a 50/50 split (no moderates allowed)?
        You sound like the same ***** people that start complaining about everything new. Rather than, you know, ignore it, you have to ballyhoo about other so-called idiots ruining your setup.
        • rezist, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2you missed the point
          • cwgannon, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1And I'm glad you were here to tell me what the point I missed was. Wait.
    • Allanon, on 04/17/2008, -2/+22I know you can only read tech if you want but that's not the problem. The problem is as Digg goes mainstream so do the tech stories that get promoted. Instead of getting very technical stories about the inner workings of the latest gadget getting promoted by the mainstream, you get stories about the iPhone's latest firmware update making front page. Digg use to have a lot of hardcore tech stories on the front page but now you need to search through the submitted stories to find them.
      • niceyuk, on 04/17/2008, -16/+2If you just want hardcore tech stories theres plenty of other more boring sites like slashdot, reddit, etc. I like the mixture of tech, politics, current affairs, lolcats and humour. Its all the interesting news is in one place rather than lots of different sites.
        • Allanon, on 04/17/2008, -0/+11I like getting all my news at the same place also and Digg was that place, but now I need to go to other sites to find my tech news because I want more than mainstream tech stories. Also, if Digg keeps getting more mainstream it's going to turn in to the site where you get your bias political news, top ten lists, and videos of people getting kicked in the nuts but if you want real news you go to other sites.
      • dynamojoe, on 04/17/2008, -3/+0"Instead of getting very technical stories about the inner workings of the latest gadget getting promoted by the mainstream, you get stories about the iPhone's latest firmware update making front page."

        You realize that you contradict yourself, yes? The iPhone may not be the latest gadget by Digg standards, but it is less than a year old and firmware's pretty internal (and newsworthy to me).

        I agree with your argument though. Lately Digg has just become Hillary-bashing, pro-Obama, pro-Paul, anti-Comcast repetition.
        • SteveMax, on 04/17/2008, -1/+8Dissecting the architecture of the newest Intel CPU on a 15-page article = "very technical story about the inner workings of the latest gadget"
          Two-paragraph blog about "OMFG NEW FIRMEWARE 1.1.1.3.4.1 ADS A BLUER COLOR TO SAFARIS ICON IN IPHONE!!!!!!1" != "very technical story about the inner workings of the latest gadget"
      • uncwidiot, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3You mean it isn't that already? Every day I see at least one cracked.com list of 6 to 10 items, many times I see multiple lists in a day, along with videos from break usually pretty similar to what you describe, and the Ron Paul/Obama fest that has already been pointed out.

        Edit: and obviously I clicked the wrong reply link, I was meaning to reply to your comment that was two deep.
    • Jaliyl, on 04/17/2008, -9/+3Being newer to digg than many of you, I was not here when it was a tech site. I read slashdot, tomshardware and arstechnica for tech. I read digg for random and funny news (including tech) with funny commentary, ASCII art and rickrolls.
      • mindspaceindia, on 04/17/2008, -3/+3Wow, someone WANTS to get rick rolled?
        • Canadian0207, on 04/17/2008, -2/+4i kind of enjoy the song personally
          • TheMidnight, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2You know the rules, and so do I...
    • koko775, on 04/17/2008, -3/+18Better yet, go to programming.reddit.com and science.reddit.com for some quality (relatively speaking).

      I only go here for the lulz, anymore. Honestly, the commenting system still sucks, the users have gotten worse, and the only reason I post anymore is to get my comments dugg up. I barely even care anymore whether I'm actually contributing to the discussion (this post being an exception), which I almost regret. I'm probably part of the problem, but honestly, I hardly think I'm the worst of the bunch.

      On a semi-related topic, my respect for Kevin Rose has done nothing but gone down over the past year (at least). I used to feel like he was in touch with the community he built on Digg; now I just think he's some guy who records inane, drunken conversations with a 31-year-old teenager. Kevin, I beg of you, please sober up and fix digg.
      • BrandonMills, on 04/17/2008, -0/+8Kevin should have brought up what happened to Digg months ago, if not years ago. He has a weekly soundoff board on Diggnation, and they never address this key issue. Digg has changed, and it's no longer the tech site it once was. That site is dead and will never come back. RIP old Digg.
    • scruffles, on 04/17/2008, -3/+7This *IS* the tech section. There's nothing technical about this article.
      • seanmc303, on 04/17/2008, -1/+8The tech section is watered down. Advanced tech articles don't make it anywhere because the average digger's tech IQ is much lower than what it used to be.
  • imreal, on 04/17/2008, -13/+76based on the data this story has, it's not a "digg thing" it's a "user thing" since users are the ones digging the content up. and besides, you should have paralleled your research with the amount of tech stories SUBMITTED, not just promoted. i'm willing to bet when you size those 2 factors up you'll see that there are still A LOT of general tech interest. or maybe count all diggs in technology now vs. then.

    until you do that, the data only presents a portion of the reality you're trying to identify
    • zoom1928, on 04/17/2008, -23/+17It's not a "user" thing. It's a "spam" thing. Just look at all the Obama garbage on this site now. This site is under a concentrated attack from at least one group of spammers, and they are really hurting this site by getting a ton of Obama spam on the front page. One of the sites that these spammers gather on is democraticunderground.org. They talk about ways of disrupting this site.
      • RobotBuddha, on 04/17/2008, -1/+10I disagree, it's the users that keep me from really commiting anything to tech threads anymore. I used to run benchmarks, grab relevent sections of source code if I was familiar with the application, etc etc. They almost always wound up dugg down, for a variety of possible reasons. The bottom line was when I posted a benchmark in one thread that showed a speed improvement and then shortly after posted a comment of "It feels a lot faster!". The subjective post wound up modded up fairly high, the actual demonstration of it modded down fairly low. It's not at all an isolated case, and I've seen it happen to most people that try to go into much depth on tech topics. I, and I think a lot of other people, just got the message that most users want to feel their technology instead of understand it.
        • dmadzak, on 04/17/2008, -4/+18That why I spend most of my time back at slashdot, the "grown ups" still seem to be in charge there, while digg is turning into a playground of special interests that are almost as bad as Congress. Funny that I now spend most of my time back at slashdot, because the tech nature of digg is what lured me away initially and what is leading me back.
    • sporg, on 04/17/2008, -2/+2

      http://www.google.com/trends?q=digg%2C4chan&ctab=0 ...
    • tmessing, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3Digg has attracted more users that aren't necessarily interested in tech by adding more categories (Politics, video, etc...) so you do see more articles being submitted that have less to do with tech.
    • i88gerbils, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3You are correct. It's the *users*, not *digg*. Digg is mass media now, it sucks. Have you ever watched your local news channel? Ever hated seeing the ***** news segments they had about the cute puppy? Well that's made popular by the masses, and since the "masses" like it, it must be good! That's Digg now. There's very little worth reading that gets brought to the front page or in their respective sections.

      Ever tried to help out Digg by downvoting the most recent diggs? You'll find that people will spam the same links over and over again. Nobody looks for duplicate issues. It's a cesspool of the worst of democracy. Never trust users to know what's good.
  • ricmac, on 04/17/2008, -25/+46@imreal, I disagree. It is a "digg thing" because the digg mgmt has purposefully reduced the number of tech stories that hit the frontpage. they ultimately control what goes on the frontpage -- you can see this by the number of digg it takes most tech stories to hit frontpage. Not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, it's digg's choice if they want to make the service mainstream. But it has definitely affected tech coverage on digg.
    • imreal, on 04/17/2008, -4/+31"digg mgmt has purposefully reduced the number of tech stories that hit the frontpage"

      when did they say THAT? i know propeller at one time throttled the amount of homepage stories per category but i've NEVER heard that digg does the same thing. i think you may be mistaken
      • ricmac, on 04/17/2008, -9/+7they've never said it, but just look at the data. and their whole bizz strategy has been around making the site more mainstream. It's possible I'm mistaken, but all the logic points to them doing this.
        • sinatosk, on 04/17/2008, -4/+1I suggest you watch digg down tall :p... that's all I'm saying
        • cwgannon, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1Tell you what. If Digg's new business model is so terrible, how about you and some of your friends start a new site that picks up where the old Digg let off?
          You can even have IQ tests at registration. I'm sure you'll do swell.
        • sinrtb, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1It could also be that there is not a lot going on in the tech industry right now in comparison to politics, atrocities and other such content.
    • msaleem, on 04/17/2008, -12/+24Ditto. The algorithm favors the world & business category more than anything now (big surprise). Unfortunate to see that Digg is not the savior that the niche sites were hoping for, rather it is just a traffic source that helps mainstream sites get bigger and more popular.
      • notque, on 04/17/2008, -3/+11Niche sites certainly have a punchers chance though, which is better than you can say for most outlets.
      • aelias, on 04/17/2008, -2/+3How in the hell do you know what the algorithm favors? Do you work for them, or have any verifiable first-hand evidence of this? AFAIK they don't weight any topic in comparison to the others. That's the whole point of Digg. As more mainstream folks show up, they digg a larger percentage of non-tech news. Shocker! I'm seeing more articles that aren't Engadget, anandtech, etc, but there are also a million new sites going up every day, and noone can have a neverending supply of fresh content to put up. People get sick of sites cannibalizing themselves and the little guy, with something new to say gets a fair shake once in awhile. Doesn't happen all the time, since those other sites still have hundreds of thousands of readers. At least it's a start.
    • sickswaystop, on 04/17/2008, -4/+15Sure the frontpage stories vary now, but Digg has also encouraged users to use the website differently. That way if you like don't like politics or offbeat stories all you have to do is set your digg homepage to technology (like most users) then you don't have to read about anything besides tech, whats wrong with that?
      • mga911, on 04/17/2008, -4/+14I'll tell you what's wrong with that: You only get a few front page tech stories compared to the amount digg used to produce. Thats the problem.
        • Myonosken, on 04/17/2008, -1/+4Then set it to the most popular upcoming stories?
        • sickswaystop, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3Then I would say the problem lies in the users not digging enough tech stories. That's the problem.
        • yeti22, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Sickswaystop: And now you've come full circle to the exact argument made in the article.
    • Johnny1337h4x0r, on 04/17/2008, -1/+23for someone who knows "digg things", you missed one very important one:


      the reply button
    • SeyWat, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2Tin foil hat
    • borneo66, on 04/17/2008, -3/+1I love how people who don't know what the source code for Digg looks like are all incredible experts on how it works.

      Also, I love charts, so I like this story.

      Also, please find something, anything, better to complain about.
  • Steaminx, on 04/17/2008, -6/+22Digg doesn't actually create the content, so the users are making the site less geared toward tech, and more geared toward more mainstream topics. If you're hardcore into technology only, there are filter settings that you can apply to your account so that you only get technology based news.
    • Earthacis, on 04/17/2008, -1/+9Tech things in the world are just starting to get popular. The fact is that Geek / Nerds created digg. Word of mouth was first spread between us which is a more tech related crowd. Social bookmarking sites like digg.com are getting very popular because finally the people have the control. In a world where tech is popular but still not the main focus in everyones lives, I don't find it surprising that tech stories are declining as the population grows.
    • BrandonMills, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Put simply, Digg filters don't really work because the entire Digg audience determines the content of the entire site. The biases of all other users will leak into the other catagories. The new Digg audience reminds me more of MySpace than it does Slashdot, given that most stories posted are LOL stories that are pointless an a utter waste of time.

      They can't co-exist. As far as I'm concerned, throw the MySpace crew back to MySpace with harsh regulation of stories that waste time. If the story is retarded, no matter how many diggs it gets, it needs axed. The will of the masses can be sheer and utter stupidity. Just watch American TV on any given day.
    • Lewie, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2I don't understand why it's such a big deal to be interested in things that actually affect you.

      Also, if you look at Digg's model - content submitted and voted on by the user - it has the feel of, i dunno, democracy to it. Apparently politics does affect everything.
  • s73ve, on 04/17/2008, -7/+110Who wouldn't want to increase traffic to digg in a non-disruptive way? I however miss the days of pure tech.
    • atticus8, on 04/17/2008, -1/+5Well stated, but I don't even mind the disruption - not if you take the long view. This is not a zero-sum game here, people. One thing that the RIAA stuff & the DRM stuff taught us, the one thing that the "I just bought the old version of _____, but Apple went and released the new version of _____ immediately afterward, so thanks for screwing me Apple!" people taught us, is that you can't hold on to the past, especially in tech. Anyone here, anyone posting, could become the new Kevin Rose, make your own site, and best of all there is the very real prospect of big-time millions in it for you.
      There is always The New, it's always right there just over the horizon. Isn't the thrill of the new what we tech people live for? That's why I say I take the long view and am thus not bothered. In some perverse way, I want the growth and change of digg to accelerate, so I can see what's next. When one door closes, two new doors open.
      • grimward, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3Yes, in my point of view, there are many tech sites out there which just spew the same garbage over and over again, only focusing on the latest release of hardware type XY with firmware blah blah and the obligatory benchmark which accentuates it's properties one way or the other. So, when one has their fill of techie news, one comes over here and reads something weird like that article where some crazy woman actually has a blog where she advocates the missionary as her favorite position.. seriously, you'd NEVER find that anywhere else, nor would you find the discussion that digg has for that article anywhere else either.
        And even thought I sometimes feel that the noise level in these threads is incredibly high, sometimes you come across (or even better yet) engage in a discussion about a topic which you never imagined yourself thinking about, and that's why digg is so much better than any boring tech site where there's 50 people yammering on about the latest hardware/software combo, because digg has that too, it just has so much other ***** that's wonderful too! So, for those people that want the "old digg" back, go join an underground forum somewhere which caters to your techie needs and let digg evolve, because that's the way .. or you die.
        • rfunches, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1"seriously, you'd NEVER find that anywhere else, nor would you find the discussion that digg has for that article anywhere else either"

          First, "when once has their fill of techie news," they do not head to the TEHCNOLOGY section of digg. Second, whatever you read on digg has probably been pushed out on some XML feed and you can probably find it somewhere else, and with relative ease.

          As a "social bookmarking" site, the discussion on digg is representative of its users and the sites that get enough interest to go front-page. For a site that started off with a tech focus, the userbase has steadily descended into the depths of stupidity. You get bright spots here and there but for the most part the tech comments are full of lolz, rickroll, and "your mom," and the tech stories are "Mac Chick of the Month," "Unboxing the Macbook Air," and "NEW specs on $car_make $car_model."

          This place used to be great for *real* tech news -- stories made it to front-page faster than CmdrTaco & Co. could approve submissions and the content was still pretty informative -- but to be blunt, the tech news section has gone to *****. digg has spent so much time focusing on volume and bringing in the masses that they've neglected their original audience, and it's clear from the stories that they've fled this place.

          I'm disappointed in Kevin & Co. My co-workers and I used to talk about at least two or three stories a day from digg. Now we discuss maybe one or two a week. I don't expect anything to change, but like many, I'm already looking for a better "social" tech news site.
        • nickert0n, on 04/17/2008, -2/+1heres how I see it guys. Digg is losing an aspect that we loved it for, content centric to the pioneers who used it, however its gaining mainstream popularity. Its to be expected. A long time ago, Yahoo, Google, MySpace, Facebook were ours, then popularity increases which in turn means mainstream, the reason we went to digg is to cut away from mainstream. However as it gets popular it will conform. It all boils down to one thing. MONEY, So to those who say evolve, its evolving alright, its evolving into the biggest piece of ***** ***** ive ever laid my eyes on. But im still here arent i?
  • dynacrylic, on 04/17/2008, -2/+56Part of it is the videos and pics that people are submitting.
    • ProfChaosOmega, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3I completely agree. I don't visit digg to see demotivational pictures or car wrecks.
      • culbeda, on 04/17/2008, -4/+1Demotivational pictures of car wrecks? WHERE!?!?
        • grimward, on 04/17/2008, -2/+1TECHIE NEWS - When you read them, you will crash your car -
    • culbeda, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1I think you have to fault Digg, to some degree, for courting that kind of content / user. I do enjoy the odd political article, but could have found it elsewhere. I loathe reading Slashdot, so I was coming to Digg for tech content. Now the entire site is watered down with pictures of small children flipping off the camera and random examples of "Epic Fail!"
    • TheSuperunknown, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1Ha ha! Look, a picture of a cat! With text!
      This is what the internet was made for.
    • VonBargenJL, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2and when i woke up this morning, 4 articles bashing Hilary and 2 bashing ABC's debate....
      i wonder what will fill the void after the elections...
      tech news i can only hope. this place used to be cool. i hardly come anymore because it's full of non-news worthy stuff.
      if you want funny news/pics, go to fark.
      if you want politics, go to crooks and liars
  • Bviper, on 04/17/2008, -30/+20Why the hell can't it be a simple pie graph?
    • plunderphonics, on 04/17/2008, -3/+44Because a pie chart couldn't show you how the data changed over time
      • Ramzy, on 04/17/2008, -18/+6Multiple pie charts could.
        • theHive, on 04/17/2008, -1/+21It's not the same as a linear progression.
          • Speed, on 04/17/2008, -10/+2At least I'd be able to read them then
          • talonstriker, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3@speed, who are you kidding? The current graph is extremely readable....although the choice of colours could be better.
        • Coffeedemon, on 04/17/2008, -1/+7Oh yeah - 20+ pie charts to compare because you can't trace an axis across a single chart.
    • bot001220, on 04/17/2008, -1/+4@Bvipe

      THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!
    • Gravey9, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1because it's a simple line graph instead
  • ShoGunX900, on 04/17/2008, -17/+3Stalactites and stalagmites :]
    • eigenweasel, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Would made a cool map for Thrust, too.
  • plunderphonics, on 04/17/2008, -16/+48Yea, and they are entirely too busy punching me in the face with how awesome Obama to let me know more about tech stuff anymore...
    • geogeer, on 04/17/2008, -4/+21Funny I was just about to post how tired I am of repetitive Obama vs. Hillary articles
      • thebigmatay, on 04/17/2008, -5/+19Almost makes me miss all the Ron Paul articles.
      • AngryFox, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3Oh God, you took the words right out of my mouth. I posted a similar comment in a few other threads to see what kind of replies I'd get. Most, as only loving Techies can be, suggested I alter my filter settings. I took that suggestion immediately. One reply, however, simply swore at me. Conclusion: people do not want their political comments/forums criticized; even if the forum they're on was usurped for that purpose.
    • Coffeedemon, on 04/17/2008, -19/+3Stop whining - this is like the antithesis of every "old man argument".
      Too many damn political stories! I want my stories about gadgets!
      Be thankful someone out there actually gives a ***** about whats happening politically in your country. Even if (apparently) you don't like their choice.
      • SteveMax, on 04/17/2008, -2/+4Why do you assume people are from the USA? Why should I, a Brazilian, be more interested about the current minutia of the American politics than about the developments in science and tech, which influence directly my work? And why should I be glad that what used to be a good tech site has been giving more attention to those minutia than to what drove me here in the first place?
        I watch the news in the morning and in the evening. Unless something really big happens between those, I don't need to keep up with trivial details all day long. Specially if those trivial details are basically USA-centric, since what happens in the USA politics doesn't change a lot around here (or anywhere else in the world).
        • Lewie, on 04/17/2008, -1/+11) Submit some Brazilian news
          2) Go to/create Digg.br
          • SteveMax, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1Again, I don't want "news" here. I want tech stories. Digg used to provide me with them, and doesn't anymore.
    • Enron, on 04/17/2008, -2/+5Well if it's any credit, many months ago it was nothing but Ron Paul and iPhone stories. Now it's Obama and Scientology. I can't wait to see what the new trend will be after the election.
    • analogkid01, on 04/17/2008, -0/+5How about, um..."Students at MIT have invented a robot which punches you in the face with how awesome Obama is." Better?
      • grunion, on 04/18/2008, -0/+2Needs "Awesome", "Apple", "iPhone", "Ubuntu", and / or "hack" in the there, otherwise it'll NEVER make the front page even with the face punching robot.
  • grumpyrain, on 04/17/2008, -1/+15There is no doubt a reduction in the number of tech articles making the front page (it doesn't take a graph to know that). However stories in the 'Gaming' category would have previously been categorised as technology. You can't attribute too much meaning to the percentage graphs, because this does not account for additional readership that may correlate. But the trend is still downwards.
    • anaesthetica, on 04/18/2008, -0/+1Yes, I think if you were to really aggregate the categories of interest to tech folks (especially with an eye to comparability with Slashdot's traditional focuses), it would be Technology + Gaming + Science + a few elements of Entertainment (Music, Movies, and Comics/Animation with tech.geek relevance) + a very tiny slice of World & Business (Politics stories relevant to tech interests).

      But for the purposes of this article's comparison, you'd really want to add Tech + Gaming + Science together to determine its relative weight against the other topic areas, which are mostly frivolous content (from a tech POV).
  • treelovinhippie, on 04/17/2008, -6/+17I wouldn't be surprised if Digg has a special algorithm for the technology section to actually limit the amount of stories that get promoted. Since their plan is to make Digg appealing to the masses. They've started with the tech-crowd who tend to be the early adopters of technology/websites, and now they've got that base, they're hoping to level-out the promoted stories to grab the non-tech users interest.
    • Lewie, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2Really? I think Digg just allows users to submit and digg stories they like. There is no conspiracy.
  • whoreable, on 04/17/2008, -20/+61Anyone who is interested in tech stuff, is no doubt intelligent enough to use the technology tab at the top.
    • GameFinisher, on 04/17/2008, -6/+2I so much agree with you!
    • faultytext, on 04/17/2008, -3/+5Furreal. Why is everything always an argument?
    • Nossie, on 04/17/2008, -4/+16Let me correct that for you:
      Anyone who is interested in tech stuff, is no doubt intelligent enough to go to www.osnews.com or some other site that hasn't been taken over by 12yr old gamers where 'geek' means following some stupid tutorial to turn x into y and please your other 'geeky' friends. Its funny how people here take the piss out of apple for being the toy computer for wannabe 'geeks' when digg itself is pretty much the same thing.

      No disrespect to the people who post here, I've seen some insightful conversations in amongst the lolcatz and goatsie ones (and hell, even some of those are amusing) but people ran away from slashdot to escape a lot of this crap only to bring it with them to digg. Minus the gnaa spam and obvious trolling /. is years ahead of digg in maturity of content. Not that digg does not have mature posters but I'd suggest the ratio is now FAR lower than it used to be.

      Think of the worst old school paper tabloid (think ones with *****) and you have the internet version on digg...

      Digg = The Sun, or The News of the World of the intertubes... No wonder rumours of Rupert murdoch taking over the company are rife.

      And yes, I still read digg... but I dont expect to find anything useful these days.
    • locojones, on 04/17/2008, -2/+5Your comment assumes that there's anything interesting or relevant left in the Technology section, which, sadly, compared to when this site launched, there simply isn't.
  • Joneth, on 04/17/2008, -5/+10Once all this election business is done with I bet it will probably swing back the other way, probably not to its original prominence though.
    • Reddog_x2000, on 04/30/2008, -0/+1For a couple months, maybe. Then they'll start campaigning for the 2012 election.
  • Zachari, on 04/17/2008, -9/+35But why do we need Tech when we have fanboy wars and LOLcats?!
  • pmpsta, on 04/17/2008, -2/+35The audience of Digg has grown in size over time, the site is definitely more mainstream now then what it was three years ago. The fall of tech stories is just an effect caused by Digg's new found popularity with the masses, tech is still very much a niche. I highly doubt that the algorithm is fixed, just watch the upcoming section, less and less tech stories are being submitted substituted with crap like a dumb ass dude sticking a dart in his head. It's not the same place it used to be.
    • aelias, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3There are so many nerds congregated here that I think they forget that they still represent less than 5% of the populace. Reddit is laid out like *****, and slashdot is just painfully boring. The more work it becomes to sift through the *****, the more people are going to cry foul, especially when they were here first, but until there is an alternative, they feel compelled to check the front page one more time. Personally, I like the occasional funny video with my up to the second tech news. Call me a fence-sitter.
    • Zera, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1The popularity with the masses argument no doubt has some truth to it, but total number of stories made popular has decreased by 20%. Now, that could be a pure result of the algorithm, but I'm just saying we would need another graph to support the idea that digg has significantly grown in popularity as far as total daily users.

      I believe I've read that Digg user numbers had roughly stabilized, starting about a year and a half ago. Anyone have a graph of this? And no, total number registered is irrelevant, what matters is total number of active users over time
  • neuromachine, on 04/17/2008, -5/+160Anyone have a chart showing the decline and fall of intelligence on digg?
    • CountBrass, on 04/17/2008, -16/+8I think the decline in intelligence corresponds directly to the increase in pro-Obama posts.

      I don't support Clinton but I always digg-down any pro-Obama posts because of the way he / his supporters are abusing Digg. It's getting so bad they should just rename Digg to "Vote for Obama cos he pwns".
    • fkr3, on 04/17/2008, -3/+13Picture a straight line. A vertical one.
    • tim710, on 04/17/2008, -3/+2(attempt to make an ASCII graph didn't work, looks like I'm an example of the fall of unintelligence)
    • outsid3rNo17, on 04/17/2008, -2/+1The new digger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ddEytVPHYY&feature ...
    • TheSuperunknown, on 04/17/2008, -1/+0I see it roughly like this: The popularity of the Offbeat news section correlates inversely to the collective intelligence on Digg.
    • active1x0, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1It's just suffering the inevitable invasion that has killed almost anything once popular on the internet, and it's called "preteen *****".
  • 1randomguyO8, on 04/17/2008, -26/+6Which is a good thing. Far out how many Ubuntu, Macintosh and anti vista topics do we need? I'd rather lolcatz and rickroll topics lol
    • B1663r, on 04/17/2008, -1/+9You forget the iPhone.
    • Speed, on 04/17/2008, -3/+13You should have seen Digg back in '04. It was all tech and 100x better.
      • bosssmiley, on 04/17/2008, -9/+3Expect your right, but then *everything* was better 'back in the day'.
  • chubbybubba, on 04/17/2008, -16/+28Digg is a tabloid. Pretty soon it will be all about Britney's Hair and Bat Boy.
    • InfamousAtheist, on 04/17/2008, -8/+3If that's how you feel, then please: go away.
  • jjive, on 04/17/2008, -3/+8Why did they use a tie-dyed shirt for their charts?
  • fakekevinrose, on 04/17/2008, -2/+11oh you mean those submissions categorized as "tech" when it's only photos of mac setups, if so,then we've got no shortage of tech.
  • braineater2448, on 04/17/2008, -5/+8Its really quite sad =[ I miss my tech stories, Digg. I really do.
  • Koush, on 04/17/2008, -7/+14I blame you all, with your LoLcats and OM NOM NOM NOM NOM ways.
  • StanleyKoolPrik, on 04/17/2008, -6/+24I ho, I ho, back to slash dot we go....
    • 1807, on 04/17/2008, -6/+4Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya
    • diggcensors, on 04/17/2008, -0/+4Dont get me wrong, I love digg. But slashdot is way more informative. I mean really, look at some of the crap that makes it to the digg frontpage. I think there should be an Epic filter that would remove anything with the the word "epic" in the title, description, or comments.
  • pyro12, on 04/17/2008, -4/+13Why would I ever want to be well informed about technology when I can read about celebs dieting habits and watch talented 80's musicians?? And Britney, everyone wants to know about Britney!
    • newnie, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a FP story about Britney..
  • OneLess, on 04/17/2008, -0/+23Dugg because I'm a sucker for those graphs...the end of games like Civ and Age of Empires always just enraptures me.
  • Samzo, on 04/17/2008, -4/+45The decline AND fall?!?! oh dear...
    • all_about_the_D, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1welcome to the redundancy department of redundancy. please enter, come on in, sit down and have a seat.
  • Zzone, on 04/17/2008, -10/+5Maybe they do this because digg is a great site and shouldn't be riddled with articles about Linux or Darth Vader on the crapper submissions.
    • alienunknown, on 04/17/2008, -3/+5Yea, ***** linux, programming and anything tech! It's so ***** lame! All I really want to read about when I go on the net are dozens of biased political articles, pseudo-scientific/religious articles (like how having a heart-transplant transplants the person's soul too! Boy digg sure taught me a lot with that article!!!) and view a few hundred lolcats pics. Now THAT is what most of us here want!
      • aki42, on 04/17/2008, -3/+2That's right when you get on the internet it better be for programming or linux.
        • 1807, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2wow your comments are DRENCHED in sarcasm
  • AdonalFoyle, on 04/17/2008, -3/+61I blame MrBabyMan. He controls Digg, remember?
    • sinatosk, on 04/17/2008, -2/+9If you use Mozilla Firefox and have the extension Greasemonkey installed... you can use a script called "Digg Washer v2" to filter certain users

      this is assuming you want to ignore their content
    • antdude, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2No! I control Digg. :)
    • GhostFreeman, on 04/17/2008, -0/+2He who controls the diggs controls the universe.
  • Charlatan22, on 04/17/2008, -14/+13to reddit i go

    (besides half of digg's stories i find interesting are on reddit before here)
    • 1807, on 04/17/2008, -5/+2don't let the door hit ya, where the good lord split ya
  • highlyhigh, on 04/17/2008, -10/+13mainstream= average= TEH FAIL! goodbye digg. its been nice knowing you while your IQ was more than 100 points. I regretted seeing this site go mainstream and uninteresting but that was all intentional? you corporate whores.
    • ThirdPrize, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3Same with Facebook going mainstream and turning into MySpace2. There is no money in niche markets. You have to sell out to sell.
      • nephilimx, on 04/17/2008, -0/+1 since when did getting flooded with 4chan crap from users become digg selling out?
  • Crossmenjeff, on 04/17/2008, -9/+8what a non issue, the percentages comparatively remain the same. just cause apple doesn't release something every week doesn't mean digg is any less tech than it was, and with other sub categories allowing for more accurate placement of stories, the percentages work out. if you could conclude anything you could probably say that digg is declining, but since most of the first years of digg were dupes, many many dupes, i'm not concerned
    • ryanadc, on 04/17/2008, -1/+2that's not to say that the dupes have gone away...
  • Vileputrid, on 04/17/2008, -5/+10You know a place is going to ***** once one of the main issues there is the place itself.
  • zmjone2992, on 04/17/2008, -6/+9the rise and repeating of redundant digg titles
  • Donoram, on 04/17/2008, -6/+25The ratio of Tech to Lolcat has gotten ***** ridiculous
  • michaeljd, on 04/17/2008, -6/+9Damn it, I meant to click on the Hillary is a dirty skank story. DAMN IT
  • deMonkey, on 04/17/2008, -10/+53Wasn't Digg recently acquired by the Obama'08 campaign?
    • WikiEasy, on 04/17/2008, -2/+8*hijacked*
    • modsuperstar, on 04/17/2008, -1/+23They bought it at the Ron Paul campaign's yard sale.
    • tcpip4lyfe, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3I used to bury every obama/Clinton bashing story when it first started. Now I've realized it won't make a difference. Hopefully it'll be different after the campaign.
  • fiskintl, on 04/17/2008, -6/+2pretty colors...
  • thomasprebble, on 04/17/2008, -3/+25If you are serious about technology you don't read about it on Digg anymore. There are far better alternatives such as Slashdot.
  • pedo, on 04/17/2008, -9/+6uh, there are plenty of tech stories in the "technology" category.
  • Awspire, on 04/17/2008, -10/+27The Obamabots have been making this site unbearable lately. As I post this comment, there is 1 Pro-Obama and 5 Anti-Clinton submissions on the front page, which are all Obama SPAM. Don't these spamming ***** know the term over-exposure?!
    • alienunknown, on 04/17/2008, -3/+10Yea, it's getting ridiculous. I really don't want to know about how bad Hilary's farts stink or why Obama is now god.
      • capainter, on 04/17/2008, -2/+5My Profile > Settings > Customize Topics > Unselect Political News, Political Opinion, & US Elections 2008. Amen.
        • loopyloopy, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3does that work for RSS feeds? i couldnt get it to.
        • Pssdoff, on 04/17/2008, -1/+4Its sad that I had to do that too. Digg is unbearable when every other submission is a Clinton hit piece praising Obama and his whimsical 'change'.
    • hilikus34, on 04/17/2008, -0/+3People should start to bury all those garbage stories so they are never on the FP. Problem solved.
  • masterm1nd, on 04/17/2008, -7/+4Ha, you can see the transition from ron paul to obama.
    • asus2000, on 06/30/2008, -3/+8Yep. First they had to write the RP2008Crusher.app then the SPAMAMYOBAMA.dll.

      Too bad they didn't just leave it alone... The Ron Paul Revolution lives on!
    • Pssdoff, on 04/17/2008, -2/+4IDK, a lot of the Ron Paul articles were actually pretty informative. They brought to light many actual issues that the media wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
  • faultytext, on 04/17/2008, -4/+5No joke. I was totally thinking yesterday about this topic, wondering, "Hmmm...I wonder when I'll see a story about the decline in tech stories on Digg."

    Perfect.
  • ohplease, on 04/17/2008, -13/+7
    Who cares, most of the "tech" articles are clueless Linux fanboy diatribes by people that don't understand the real world of enterprise desktop management, support agreements, software deployment, support escalation and licensing. There isn't some secret Johnny Helpdesk knows that the enterprise architect convincing the CIO to spend 20 mil on an MS enterprise license doesn't know.

    The problem is that for the most part, really good tech articles apply only to a select few people who specialize in a given technology and have little value to a broad user base like digg.

    • alienunknown, on 04/17/2008, -5/+4I can haz proof of diz?
      • ohplease, on 04/17/2008, -1/+0Proof of what? Talk to any enterprise architect for a major company. Guaranteed most if not all know Linux better than you do and still know it has no place on the corporate desktop (unless it's competing against NT4). An cohesive enterprise isn't just a bunch of home PCs plugged in to the same network. When you need to deploy a major application to 12,000 users overnight, and that application has to have various permissions and settings based on the role of the user, the department they are in, the geographical location of the workstation (is it in france? give them french edition), whether they are a contractor or an employee, and a myriad of other criteria LINUX IS NOT UP TO THE TASK. That functionality is not built into the back end or the client. Windows has supported this with active directory and group policy objects since Windows 2000.

        People who make these multi millon dollar platform decisions have to justify them. They don't just pick Windows for 90,000 users with a 10+ million dollar enterprise license because that's what's on their laptop.

  • Hangly, on 04/17/2008, -1/+10Graph needs a section for paid advertising from Twitter.
  • danjal, on 04/17/2008, -2/+14Dig turned away from tech when in there own podcast they started introducing it as "social news website"
  • bryantee, on 04/17/2008, -4/+7I think it would be interesting to see a how many users are still active since 1.0 days.
    • Misanthrope, on 04/17/2008, -1/+3Hi.
    • kahrn, on 04/17/2008, -1/+1I joined when it was only tech, back in march 06'. Now it's gone WAY downhill, full of idiots. Slashdot and reddit are the only two cool places with decent content left. Everynow and then a decent piece of content appears on digg, but nowhere near like what it used to be.

      Bring back the old Digg!
  • headzoo, on 04/17/2008, -8/+15Digg is becoming the first mainstream 4chan.. congrats.
  • GrodyChamp, on 04/17/2008, -17/+23Digg was alot better before it became a place for 18 year old libtards to spam Obama stories.
    • IdiggJR, on 04/17/2008, -4/+1Exactly.
    • BrandonMills, on 04/17/2008, -1/+6Wow GrodyChamp. Member since 2007. You go 'way back'...*cough*.
  • loopyloopy, on 04/17/2008, -5/+33***** 'World & Business'. most of its political spamming. I'm so sick of it. Digg should just nix this category or push it off to a seperate site. I use the RSS to get my Digg stories and all I see is Obama this Hilary that, Bush this or that. FFS!

    can i edit how i get my RSS?
    • alienunknown, on 04/17/2008, -2/+9Same as me. It's depressing looking a the RSS feed. From a quick glance just then there are 5 obama/hilary stories on the list... :(
    • ThirdPrize, on 04/17/2008, -3/+1I have All and Technology selected on the menubars. Click the RSS button and you get the Digg-Technology feed . Simple as that.
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