4 ms·

What Started The Downfall of Digg

8 points by transburgh 19y ago

jgrahamc 19y ago
This particular article is rather poorly written, but if its title has a ? appended it makes a fun discussion topic. My take is that Digg's downfall (if it happens :-) was sealed long ago by Kevin Rose's personality. One only has to watch Diggnation with their stupid drinking antics and Beavis and Butthead humor to know that the audience Digg was courting was pretty low brow. Then, suddenly, Digg tried to extend outside tech news and be a general purpose new site. Big mistake since low brow doesn't mix with Science, World News, etc. The only positive thing I can say for Digg is that at least the comments there aren't as bad as on YouTube. Or maybe I'm just bitter because I got banned from Digg and publicly branded a 'spammer' by a Digg employee.
- davidw 19y ago
  I think the "why do social sites decline" thing has been pretty thoroughly examined, but they all seem to trend downwards.
stillmotion 19y ago
Digg is hardly worth $300 Million. $11M Tops.
kyro 19y ago
The fact that one is submitting a story to an entire community means that users will resort to submitting stories that are either very sensationalistic or are 'funny', to appeal to the widest audience. And that's where I think Digg's flaw is. They put too much emphasis on 'making the front page', so users then adopt the motivation of submitting the most ridiculous garbage to get on the front page. On Diggnation, frequent front pagers became celebrities, and being a frequent front pager was a status symbol. Unlike here, where we're not concerned about making it in the top 10, but rather that we submit quality stuff. It really is all about the niche.
- Xichekolas 19y ago
  users will resort to submitting stories that are either very sensationalistic or are 'funny', to appeal to the widest audience If you replace the word 'users' with the words 'TV news' you also have a true statement. It's a general problem with all things consumed in mass. The lowest common denominator is pretty low.
  - eru 19y ago
    Perhaps we should strive for the greatest common divisor?
    - Xichekolas 19y ago
      Don't we elect the greatest common divisor every four years or so?
drubio 19y ago
Its interesting how they come up with $300 million valuation. This is the second post I've seen where they value each user at $77 Dlls, which is exorbitant based on click through monetization, simply look at a how much Google is really willing to pay for an actual user having Google as their home page and monetizing their searches, which is likely more profitable to them than content. I'll give you the Firefox/Google Toolbar signup with numbers, via AdSense they pay out from $1 dollar to .10 cents for each user you sign-up for Firefox with the Google Toolbar -- the range depends on the country the user is in, with $1 dollar going to north america and .10 cents to the lower bracket countries, those which I assume have less advertisers. With this model Google ensures that each time a user opens Firefox and makes a search they will exposed to their ads, even considering a huge premium on the signup, its a long-way from actually paying $1 dollar for every user to $77 dollars. If Google's 'user value' is any indicator, then at this rate Digg would be worth something around $3,896,103, assuming the user count is accurate, all users are located in North America and they don't apply some type of discount rate for not being able to make Digg a user's default home page.
vitaminj 19y ago
Digg, like reddit now, suffered from a bout of tyranny of the masses. Hard to come back from there.
mattmaroon 19y ago
I'm not convinced Digg has experienced any sort of downfall yet.

8 points by transburgh 19y ago

This particular article is rather poorly written, but if its title has a ? appended it makes a fun discussion topic. My take is that Digg's downfall (if it happens :-) was sealed long ago by Kevin Rose's personality. One only has to watch Diggnation with their stupid drinking antics and Beavis and Butthead humor to know that the audience Digg was courting was pretty low brow. Then, suddenly, Digg tried to extend outside tech news and be a general purpose new site. Big mistake since low brow doesn't mix with Science, World News, etc. The only positive thing I can say for Digg is that at least the comments there aren't as bad as on YouTube. Or maybe I'm just bitter because I got banned from Digg and publicly branded a 'spammer' by a Digg employee.

davidw 19y ago
I think the "why do social sites decline" thing has been pretty thoroughly examined, but they all seem to trend downwards.

stillmotion 19y ago

Digg is hardly worth $300 Million. $11M Tops.

kyro 19y ago

The fact that one is submitting a story to an entire community means that users will resort to submitting stories that are either very sensationalistic or are 'funny', to appeal to the widest audience. And that's where I think Digg's flaw is. They put too much emphasis on 'making the front page', so users then adopt the motivation of submitting the most ridiculous garbage to get on the front page. On Diggnation, frequent front pagers became celebrities, and being a frequent front pager was a status symbol. Unlike here, where we're not concerned about making it in the top 10, but rather that we submit quality stuff. It really is all about the niche.

Xichekolas 19y ago
users will resort to submitting stories that are either very sensationalistic or are 'funny', to appeal to the widest audience If you replace the word 'users' with the words 'TV news' you also have a true statement. It's a general problem with all things consumed in mass. The lowest common denominator is pretty low.
- eru 19y ago
  Perhaps we should strive for the greatest common divisor?
  - Xichekolas 19y ago
    Don't we elect the greatest common divisor every four years or so?

drubio 19y ago

Its interesting how they come up with $300 million valuation. This is the second post I've seen where they value each user at $77 Dlls, which is exorbitant based on click through monetization, simply look at a how much Google is really willing to pay for an actual user having Google as their home page and monetizing their searches, which is likely more profitable to them than content. I'll give you the Firefox/Google Toolbar signup with numbers, via AdSense they pay out from $1 dollar to .10 cents for each user you sign-up for Firefox with the Google Toolbar -- the range depends on the country the user is in, with $1 dollar going to north america and .10 cents to the lower bracket countries, those which I assume have less advertisers. With this model Google ensures that each time a user opens Firefox and makes a search they will exposed to their ads, even considering a huge premium on the signup, its a long-way from actually paying $1 dollar for every user to $77 dollars. If Google's 'user value' is any indicator, then at this rate Digg would be worth something around $3,896,103, assuming the user count is accurate, all users are located in North America and they don't apply some type of discount rate for not being able to make Digg a user's default home page.

vitaminj 19y ago

Digg, like reddit now, suffered from a bout of tyranny of the masses. Hard to come back from there.

mattmaroon 19y ago

I'm not convinced Digg has experienced any sort of downfall yet.