What is Digg?26 Comments
- BloodJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26Just to clarify, he's offering people money to do your social bookmarking on netscape.
I don't see myself jumping ship on digg. - Tiabin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17"We will pay you $1,000 a month for your "social bookmarking" rights. Put in at least 150 stories a month and we'll give you $12,000 a year. (note: most of these folks put in 250-400 stories a month, so that 150 baseline is just that--a baseline)."
Alright guys... I know I'm a new guy around here, but I gotta get my say in on this. I think this is outright a bad idea for digg. Think about how much traffic an article on top of digg gets after a week of being there... Literally thousands upon thousands of unique visitors, which in turn bookmark and even BLOG about (thus putting links out there for the search engines).
These guys are familiar with PPC engines, and click fraud. They know that if they exploit a few guys up at the top of digg who have a massive turnover rate (blood, digital, how many of your stories flip?) the amount of visitors that they will reap for their MEASLY $1,000 each is absolutely astronomical. They will in turn even make a lot of it back from the ads they place on the URLs they request you to post.
Now, let me ask you, guys at the top... Why do most of your articles make it to the frontpage? Because people like what you submit. They follow you, and digg what you put out there because they know you're going to put good content out. What's going to happen when you're submitting 150 articles a month that are beneath your usual quality threshold? You're going to lose respect, and lose some, if not the majority, of your following. What happens then? You may have gained a few thousand, but in the end you screwed your digg name over.
If you're going to do this... why not just ebay your login and get the cash quickly over and done with? (No, I'm not recommending that you do that) - element, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14While Jason hides under the "Weblogs Inc." brand, make no mistake this is the multi-billion dollar AOL Time Warner trying to squash digg. Your money is no good here AOL, we can see through your wolf in sheep's clothing tactics. Digg is about story neutrality, not paid posts/placement.
- msaleem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14On second thought, most of us didn't understand what the writer wanted to convey in the article. He would actually pay us to post our stories to Netscape instead of Digg? I think I speak for all of us, top 20 and beyond, when I say "Your money is no good here at Diggers Inc."
- curtissthompson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10For those who thought this meant they'd pay you to post certain sites to digg to draw traffic, from what I've read and talked about with other diggers, it seems to be the consensus that they are paying the top diggers, and social networkers to submit stories just like they do to digg, but only on Netscape's version of digg!
This is a very clever marketing plan, pay people money for what they already do, and have them do it on a different site as well. Compete with digg, using its own users against them.
Though the flaw with this marketing scheme is that they don't quite understand the community well enough to know that diggers don't submit stories for a profit in the first place, they do it for the social networking aspect of it. They enjoy seeing what other people find interesting, and if they share the smae interests, along with debating current events, and even achieving status as community leaders, along with many other reasons.
Besides it has been proven over and over again....that when people begin getting paid for something they already enjoyed doing without a reward (payment), they over time will enjoy what they are doing less and less. Which in turn will degenerate their value as an "employee" as they will be less and less motivated to submit stories, noless to a website they don't like in the first place!
I agree with msaleem, I don't think any of the top 20 or even the top 50 diggers would sell out for something like this. They may have stood a chance with such a marketing scheme, had they either been the first site of its kind, or brought new and innovative features, etc. to it that tops digg, and built up a strong community. It is a good marketing scheme, but money alone will not capture what they need to become successful. - msaleem, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Heck I wouldn't argue with that logic. Its iron-clad. I'm on board.
- Tiabin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8They already killed off one browser, and that took them some effort. I have no doubt they'll gimp their n00b netscape version of digg too.
- titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9So the blogger wants the top 20 to go to Netscape? I or probably anyone else wouldn't touch Netscape with a stick, I probably wouldn't want to touch it with anything at all.
- msaleem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Look at this story, this is a commentary on what he wants to do:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Another_Take_Calacanis_offers_to_buy_out_digg_users
or Direct link: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/calacanis_offer.php - msaleem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7That's a very thorough response. You have to keep in mind that these top users wouldn't compromise quality for the money. But I do agree that they should be given more money. A percentage perhaps, just to make sure that they are posting quality stories. Money is the great motivator.
- shout, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Well I think BloodJunkie wouldn't argue with that one!
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think they are trying to 'Netscape' Digg. get it? *wink*
- Tiabin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Yeah...I misunderstood.
The consensus is in... Apparently they're trying to get the top diggers to go over and basically do normal submissions to netscape's new social engine, as opposed to digg's. Their incentive is that the top diggers obviously pump out good quality and they want to capitalize on that. - deanlowe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Digg Neutrality.
A new web 2.0 term? - jccalhoun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Why does he keep on typing digg as DIGG. Does he think that digg is one of those all caps names or is it a subtle way of pointing out (which we all know anyway) that he really wants digg users?
- rm999, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"Alright guys... I know I'm a new guy around here, but I gotta get my say in on this. I think this is outright a bad idea for digg."
Thanks, captain obvious. - juanbobo808, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Like Kevin Rose has said: You can't copy something and expect it to have the same success as the original. (ie. - Netscape copying Digg).
On another note, Calacanis seems to be phishing for some users that actually care about his website. Apparently he doesn't realize that Digg has a more loyal user base/fan base than the new Netscape will ever have. Whatever stick he has up his ass he better realize it quick before those 12 million users he and his company duped into originally buying their product leave (which should be pretty damn soon considering their redirecting ALL of their users who liked their old UI to aol.com...). - thisdj, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Calakanis is a ***** douce bag
- joehobbes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't it would really hurt Digg any if most of the top users left.
Usually they only get the front page diggs because they are quick to point out the good stuff.
Look at all the dupes that aren't far behind....
Somebody will fill the shoes of anybody who leaves - jayman16, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I can't wait to see Jason back on TWIT, and this time with Kevin! That'd be a good show!
- akinbanjo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Why has no one mentioned that this is stupid, and will not work?
Let's be honest here. The top digg users aren't up there because of the "quality" of their stories submitted. They're there because of how many stories they submit. Submit enough stories and some of them are gonna make it to the front. When they do, you'll gain a followship in that people will add you as a friend, to see what you're posting.
This results in more of your posts reaching the front page.
C'mon now, how many times have I seen VERY front page worth stories with NO diggs? There's a pattern with those no-digg stories. They're not dugg by top posters.
Calcanis will do just as well paying any Joe $1,000 to submit 150 stories. Whether they're a top digg user or not is just details. This is not a discussion board. People aren't going to follow these digg users...90% of the time, I don't even check to see who posted the stories.
No disrespect to those top posters, but I don't think anyone cares who submitted the story, most of the time, as long as it's on the front page, so that they don't have to look into the hundreds of upcoming stories.
I think Calcanis should post an ad on Craiglist. (GET $$$ NOW! WORK FROM HOME!) - juanbobo808, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good point. Yet with Netscape trying to turn themselves into a "leisure service business" they fall into the trap where they alienate users looking for a professional link to the rest of the world. Digg hasn't changed and will never change the underlying concept to their website, and that's exactly what Netscape did. Where digg users are here for the social networking/bookmarking ability that Digg.com provides them, Netscape was there before to provide their users with a hub for all their internet needs (be it email, news, etc.). Now that it's changed, you find users of Netscape migrating to other portals on the web like yahoo or msn. Not only that, but you find the users wanting a social bookmarking site migrating to Digg because it's better than that of Netscape's.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I think the whole Digg management has to be damn careful. They are a leisure service business and if they dont cater to the users they'll lose them.
- jamthedude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Who cares? If Digg falls to corporate manipulation so what, another, better Digg-like site will pop up, with better safeguards, etc against this kind of thing. I mean if you really believe in the spirit behind Digg then you have nothing to worry about. The internet weeds out the weak ideas and conserves the strong.
- sgamer, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2screw this. you want to pay me a ***** salary to spend my time grabbing web links? gimme a deskjob plz.
- titlesaysitall, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4Can I have 1,000 dolllars just for being Bloodjunkie's friend?
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