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Remember when Digg failed to address long standing issues and instead redesigned the site to be more like Twitter? Prediction: The redesign is the straw that w

Remember when Digg failed to address long standing issues and instead redesigned the site to be more like Twitter? Prediction: The redesign is the straw that will break the Snoo's back.

newsbinator 9y ago
What's the new Reddit? I'd like to get on that.
- winslow 9y ago
  Voat.com has been around for a while. They made a decent push during some reddit drama ~2 years ago. However, looking through voat 'subverses' aka subreddits they look pretty dead for the counterparts that I visit on reddit ex: www.reddit.com/r/homebrewing vs www.voat.com/v/homebrewing and www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine vs www.voat.com/v/unrealengine Their 'HOT' ordering makes the site look dead where they should probably take into account newer stories as everything in the 'HOT' ranking is years old (except for heavier trafficked subverses)
  - newsbinator 9y ago
    I noticed that a surprisingly large number of comments on Voat were anti-semitic and/or racist. Totally out of context, I mean. You might expect hate speech on political subreddits/subverses, but on Voat these were just out of the blue, and numerous.
    - robin_reala 9y ago
      It’s not surprising given the context in which it was started.
    - sterlind 9y ago
      Voat's userbase consists of the members and communities who were banned by Reddit's hate speech policy. Effectively, Voat is Reddit's "recycle bin." Judging from its content, I think the admins made the right call..
      - whywhywhywhy 9y ago
        > Voat is Reddit's "recycle bin." I definitely agree, but I also remember how Reddit was considered the dumping ground for users banned on Digg and content that wasn't good enough for Digg. Today unpleasant content probably makes up a large percentage of Voat traffic. But if a few big subreddits moved over that percentage would be dwarfed and suddenly it's no longer a Recycle Bin.
    - rsynnott 9y ago
      Voat has had three big influxes of users in the last few years: - When reddit cracked down on the paedophilia subreddits - When reddit banned fatpeoplehate - When reddit banned and/or hid some of the more egregiously Nazi-ish subreddits. So yeah, this is pretty much what you'd expect.
  - benbristow 9y ago
    It's voat.co, not voat.com
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  Facebook Groups is the new Reddit (and the new Craigslist).
esrauch 9y ago
I don't know about that. I was a heavy Digg user when that happened and Reddit was already an increasingly serious competitor when then the redesign killed Digg. I don't see the "next one" that is already starting to steal some Reddit traffic that could possibly take over even if Reddit's design is similarly badly recieved.
- whywhywhywhy 9y ago
  >Reddit was already an increasingly serious competitor when then the redesign killed Digg. Isn't it pretty well known that at that point a lot of the user activity was being faked by the Reddit team?
bonesss 9y ago
The big difference, IMO, is the extent of the redesign. Digg went past graphics & UX into the core experience of the site and how content propagation worked, alienating power users and key content aggregators. Reddit seems to be focusing mostly on the visual. While this may regress the site in some ways it shouldn't have the same relationship killing power.
- pygy_ 9y ago
  The redesign is user hostile. - Infinite scroll without numbers to give you an idea of how far you've dug in. - The titles now point to the comments rather than the articles. - They took out the subreddit bar at the top of the page. The general idea is that they want to control how you use the site. And that's just for the desktop experience, and I didn't dig too far (a couple of hours). There may be other neat surprises lurking in there. It looks like the muffins[0] grew shark teeth. Edit: that snark may not be warranted... But at least, they grew too hungry for me as a user. ——— 0. as Jessica Livingston used to call them when they were doing YC
  - Scarblac 9y ago
    The titles linking to the comments just reflects reality, most people don't follow the links but go to the comments immediately; then if the discussion is good they maybe go to the article in question.
    - pygy_ 9y ago
      I do it sometimes too, if there are many comments. The new UI makes it more complex to make that choice though, because the position of the actual link isn't fixed, it is placed inline after the title. Currently, you can browse the home page without moving the cursor horizontally (by keeping the cursor in place and scrolling, mostly). Not anymore with the redesign.
  - ko27 9y ago
    > The titles now point to the comments rather than the articles. As a user, I am more than happy with this change.
shawn 9y ago
People only left digg because there was someplace else to go. Where would they leave Reddit to?
- jug 9y ago
  Absolutely not. Reddit existed and filled Digg's old shoes, so Reddit was chosen. But people didn't leave Digg because Reddit existed. The key problem with Digg was "Digg Version 4" which made their users much less influental in the dynamics of the website. http://reddithistory.wikia.com/wiki/Digg_exodus http://reddithistory.wikia.com/wiki/Digg_exodus One place that I have gone to instead of Reddit lately is Hacker News... I have started using Reddit more as only a source for current events because it's easier to sift through (with categorized subreddits and all) than a Twitter stream of breaking news. But for science and tech talk, this place seems to have a higher quality discussion in the majority of the cases.
x3sphere 9y ago
Didn't Digg also force the new design on all users right away? I think that was a big mistake, at least Reddit are rolling this out to a subset of users first and then they can collect feedback before going live with it on a broader scale.
gpmcadam 9y ago
Everyone keeps talking about how reddit is going the way of Digg. It feels like maybe for the last 4 or 5 years. But here it stands. I wonder who will be the last person to claim it, and in turn, claim to be the Nostradamus. I suppose if you claim something often enough, you'll be right eventually.
realharo 9y ago
I believe reddit was always closer to being the site that Digg's users wanted that Digg itself. It was more focused on discussion (there are self-posts, r/AskReddit, etc.) and less on pure link sharing. Digg v4 just gave many Digg users a reason to give reddit a chance (and maybe push through being initially put off by its design), and they never looked back, even after Digg resolved the initial issues.

Remember when Digg failed to address long standing issues and instead redesigned the site to be more like Twitter? Prediction: The redesign is the straw that will break the Snoo's back.

newsbinator 9y ago

What's the new Reddit? I'd like to get on that.

winslow 9y ago
Voat.com has been around for a while. They made a decent push during some reddit drama ~2 years ago. However, looking through voat 'subverses' aka subreddits they look pretty dead for the counterparts that I visit on reddit ex: www.reddit.com/r/homebrewing vs www.voat.com/v/homebrewing and www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine vs www.voat.com/v/unrealengine Their 'HOT' ordering makes the site look dead where they should probably take into account newer stories as everything in the 'HOT' ranking is years old (except for heavier trafficked subverses)
- newsbinator 9y ago
  I noticed that a surprisingly large number of comments on Voat were anti-semitic and/or racist. Totally out of context, I mean. You might expect hate speech on political subreddits/subverses, but on Voat these were just out of the blue, and numerous.
  - robin_reala 9y ago
    It’s not surprising given the context in which it was started.
  - sterlind 9y ago
    Voat's userbase consists of the members and communities who were banned by Reddit's hate speech policy. Effectively, Voat is Reddit's "recycle bin." Judging from its content, I think the admins made the right call..
    - whywhywhywhy 9y ago
      > Voat is Reddit's "recycle bin." I definitely agree, but I also remember how Reddit was considered the dumping ground for users banned on Digg and content that wasn't good enough for Digg. Today unpleasant content probably makes up a large percentage of Voat traffic. But if a few big subreddits moved over that percentage would be dwarfed and suddenly it's no longer a Recycle Bin.
  - rsynnott 9y ago
    Voat has had three big influxes of users in the last few years: - When reddit cracked down on the paedophilia subreddits - When reddit banned fatpeoplehate - When reddit banned and/or hid some of the more egregiously Nazi-ish subreddits. So yeah, this is pretty much what you'd expect.
- benbristow 9y ago
  It's voat.co, not voat.com
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cookiecaper 9y ago
Facebook Groups is the new Reddit (and the new Craigslist).

esrauch 9y ago

I don't know about that. I was a heavy Digg user when that happened and Reddit was already an increasingly serious competitor when then the redesign killed Digg. I don't see the "next one" that is already starting to steal some Reddit traffic that could possibly take over even if Reddit's design is similarly badly recieved.

whywhywhywhy 9y ago
>Reddit was already an increasingly serious competitor when then the redesign killed Digg. Isn't it pretty well known that at that point a lot of the user activity was being faked by the Reddit team?

bonesss 9y ago

The big difference, IMO, is the extent of the redesign. Digg went past graphics & UX into the core experience of the site and how content propagation worked, alienating power users and key content aggregators. Reddit seems to be focusing mostly on the visual. While this may regress the site in some ways it shouldn't have the same relationship killing power.

pygy_ 9y ago
The redesign is user hostile. - Infinite scroll without numbers to give you an idea of how far you've dug in. - The titles now point to the comments rather than the articles. - They took out the subreddit bar at the top of the page. The general idea is that they want to control how you use the site. And that's just for the desktop experience, and I didn't dig too far (a couple of hours). There may be other neat surprises lurking in there. It looks like the muffins[0] grew shark teeth. Edit: that snark may not be warranted... But at least, they grew too hungry for me as a user. ——— 0. as Jessica Livingston used to call them when they were doing YC
- Scarblac 9y ago
  The titles linking to the comments just reflects reality, most people don't follow the links but go to the comments immediately; then if the discussion is good they maybe go to the article in question.
  - pygy_ 9y ago
    I do it sometimes too, if there are many comments. The new UI makes it more complex to make that choice though, because the position of the actual link isn't fixed, it is placed inline after the title. Currently, you can browse the home page without moving the cursor horizontally (by keeping the cursor in place and scrolling, mostly). Not anymore with the redesign.
- ko27 9y ago
  > The titles now point to the comments rather than the articles. As a user, I am more than happy with this change.

shawn 9y ago

People only left digg because there was someplace else to go. Where would they leave Reddit to?

jug 9y ago
Absolutely not. Reddit existed and filled Digg's old shoes, so Reddit was chosen. But people didn't leave Digg because Reddit existed. The key problem with Digg was "Digg Version 4" which made their users much less influental in the dynamics of the website. http://reddithistory.wikia.com/wiki/Digg_exodus http://reddithistory.wikia.com/wiki/Digg_exodus One place that I have gone to instead of Reddit lately is Hacker News... I have started using Reddit more as only a source for current events because it's easier to sift through (with categorized subreddits and all) than a Twitter stream of breaking news. But for science and tech talk, this place seems to have a higher quality discussion in the majority of the cases.

x3sphere 9y ago

Didn't Digg also force the new design on all users right away? I think that was a big mistake, at least Reddit are rolling this out to a subset of users first and then they can collect feedback before going live with it on a broader scale.

gpmcadam 9y ago

Everyone keeps talking about how reddit is going the way of Digg. It feels like maybe for the last 4 or 5 years. But here it stands. I wonder who will be the last person to claim it, and in turn, claim to be the Nostradamus. I suppose if you claim something often enough, you'll be right eventually.

realharo 9y ago

I believe reddit was always closer to being the site that Digg's users wanted that Digg itself. It was more focused on discussion (there are self-posts, r/AskReddit, etc.) and less on pure link sharing. Digg v4 just gave many Digg users a reason to give reddit a chance (and maybe push through being initially put off by its design), and they never looked back, even after Digg resolved the initial issues.