Social Media Today

Top Digg User Zaibatsu Banned - Reactions from Both Zaibatsu and Digg Management

2008-09-23T00:55:00.000-07:00

There's more user unrest in the community of popular social news site Digg, after the all-time number 3 ranked user Zaibatsu, a.k.a. Reg Saddler, was banned for alleged multiple violations of the Digg Terms of Use. That decision is "final and irreversible", according to an email Saddler got from Digg today. JD Rucker of Social News Watch interviewed Saddler to discuss the ban - we have the exclusive audio below.

ReadWriteWeb also contacted Digg to find out their side of the story - we have Digg's response below too.

So why was Saddler banned? It wasn't associated with the recent bannings of other digg users over using Greasemonkey scripts. Rather the ban was handed down after Saddler submitted a website which was, in the words of an email Saddler received from Digg, "spam and a solicitation of products and/or services".

Digg's Response

We sought a response from Digg on the banning, since Zaibatsu was a high ranking user who had seemingly put in a lot of effort and work into the community.

Digg's Sr. Director of Marketing & Communications, Beth Murphy, responded that "this user has been banned for multiple violations of the Digg Terms of Use over period of time and not just a single incidence."

So Digg's position is clearly that Zaibatsu has a history of TOS violations, not just the latest one.

What Got Zaibatsu Kicked Out

We don't know the previous violations, and Digg wouldn't discuss details because they told us they're "unable to comment on the specifics of this or any case given that we try to protect the privacy of our users".

Nevertheless, let's look at what the final straw regarding Zaibatsu was. The digg submissions in question, and there were two of them, were photos of a female digger. Although these submissions are no longer on Digg, the following titles give you a good idea of the content:

http://digg.com/celebrity/She_s_Hot_and_a_Digger_Nuf_Said_PIC
http://digg.com/people/A_Cute_Female_Digger_I_Know_A_Few_Of_Them_But_Wow_PIC

After learning of his ban after those submissions, Saddler told Digg that "I didn't know that a picture of a female digger was against the TOS. I didn't even know that she was selling something on the site.

Source : ReadWriteWeb

Digg Bannings: Interview with Diggboss

2008-09-19T21:07:00.000-07:00

With me today is a popular former Digg user, Diggboss. Thanks for joining me, Diggboss. Ok, let’s get right into it:

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself. When did you start getting into social media in the first place, and which network did you like the most from the start?

2. When did you first discover Digg, and what were your impressions of it back then? How do you think it has been in its progression and dealing with growth, enhancements, and issues?

Answer to 1 and 2 above -

Thanks for having me and giving me a chance to talk to you. I am a Freelance programmer. I specialize in Data Extraction services and writing web-robots or spiders as they are called. Hence the spider avatar.

My first exposure to social media was through digg.com. I didn’t know then that Digg was a “social media site.” I absolutely loved and still love Digg, I am not active on any other social media site other than Digg, i created accounts on Reddit, SU, etc but never found them as interesting as digg. I still don’t even have a MySpace or FaceBook account.

I guess I started from mid 2006, reading news and interesting geeky stuff on digg.com. I became an active Digg member since April 2007.

3. Although Digg has issues with your scripts as you have noted on your site (http://checkfriends.appspot.com/), any plans for creating scripts for other social media sites?

I am not into any other social media site as much as I was in Digg, I do use Plurk and Twitter sometime for micro-blogging but only rarely. So there are no plans for any scripts on any other site.

4. Had you kept your Digg scripts secret, only for personal use, would Digg have caught on you?

I could have kept it a secret but I thought it was a benefit to other Digg users so I wanted to share it. I had no idea it was going to end up like this.

5. Do you feel that your scripts had proper disclaimers on yours scripts? Remember that many Digg users probably don’t understand what goes into a script, API calls and the like. Do you feel upset that many people were just booted, assuming that the reason was due to your scripts?

My scripts used Digg APIs. Anyone can use Digg APIs. Digg data is open under Creative Commons.

Source : NowSourcing

Demystifying anti-script tools

2008-09-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

A few folks have been discussing the use of scripts on Digg recently, so I wanted to jump into the conversations that happened this weekend. Scripts/bots place additional load on Digg servers (slowing things down for everyone), so using them is a Terms of Use violation that will result in losing access to your Digg account. We are currently looking deeper into recent script activity.

Digg monitors for script/bot activity globally across all our site pages. In addition to that, our development team has completed some improvements that will be rolled out this week. These changes will be more transparent, warning and preventing the users from using these scripts/bots. This will only affect a very small group of people, and the overwhelming majority of the Digg community won’t notice these changes. As always, all content on Digg is subjected to the Digg promotion algorithm, which requires a unique diverse pool of Diggers before promoting content to the homepage.

Exclusive Look: Digg Recommendation Engine Private Beta

2008-07-03T03:06:00.000-07:00

After months of promises (and third party tools), Digg finally announced this week that their recommendation engine is to be released. Today, Digg has delivered the goods to private beta testers. Here are the first screenshots of the new digg recommendation engine features, along with a video guide.

Digg Recommendation Engine from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

Anton Talks About The Digg Recommendation Engine from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

Not all the users have these features enabled yet, but those of you who do can check by going to upcoming and checking for a red BETA label. The new upcoming system has three ways to sort it and the third option in the list, Most Diggs, is the one you're used to seeing, where all stories are presented in order of decreasing Diggs.

The first new option, Most Matches, looks at your history of Digging, compares it with other community members, and shows the stories in order of number of matches. In the case of the first story, you see the expanded view of the 'Recommendations via' list, and in the case of the second story, you see it in the compact version, not showing the user names and percentages, rather only the total number. For example:

The second new option, Most Recent, shows you the stories recommended by community members compatible with you, in reverse chronological order. You can also see why a story was recommended to you (via user name and percentage of compatibility with that user).

A new section in the sidebar, entitled 'Diggers Like You' shows you Diggers that are most like you in their Digging and submitting habits.

And finally, you can click on a user and compare exactly how much you overlap. In the screenshot you see below you can see the overlap between my profile and thediggboss's profile. In total we had 3864 overlapping Diggs in the past 30 days, which means our compatibility score over all our Digg activity is 38%.

Overall the design is great and there is a decent feature set. As far as what it is designed to do, it seems to function well. At the same time however, whether the engine will help content submitted by a fairly obscure user, remains to be seen. In the beginning, all your compatibilities are going to be with the people that you have been Digging and the people that have been Digging you back, i.e. your friends. It will require widespread use of the feature 'Diggers Like You' to help more obscure submissions travel to a lot of people.

It is also important to note that the recommendation engine will be a boon to advertisers as well (and of course Digg). By sending the most relevant links to the most relevant people, you can also send the most relevant advertisements to the right people (and ensure high-quality clickthroughs). Users get good content and related, hopefully non-intrusive ads, advertisers get the right potential customers, and Digg gets the money.

Source : ReadWriteWeb

MrBabyMan: Digg Users Revolt, Against the One Pure Man at the Top

2008-05-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sorcini lives in Los Angeles, works as an animator for Disney and is the most powerful user that social news site Digg.com has ever seen. Known at Digg and elsewhere as MrBabyMan, Sorcini has submitted a site-leading 2,400+ stories that have hit the site's coveted front page. Those front page submissions have delivered an estimated 50 million pageviews to the sites the submissions came from. A good number of those submissions have been RWW articles, and we appreciate that.

For months, a small but outspoken number of Digg's millions of other users have complained about seeing as many as three or four MrBabyMan submissions on the front page at one time. As we write this he has two front page stories. Those successes are outshined, however, by the most popular story on Digg Friday night: a cartoon accusing MrBabyMan of stealing stories from smaller Digg users.

Just before noon on Friday, Sorcini submitted the image on the left to Digg. An obtuse critique of the US Federal Government's economic stimulus plan, the image was apparently on the minds of more people than just MrBabyMan. Just after noon the image on the right was posted by Kimberly Vogt, a software engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Security, girlfriend of ~~Digg QA Analyst Jeremy McCarthy~~ a Digg employee other than McCarthy and a rare non-employee to have reciprocal friendships with many of the top staff at Digg.

Innocent enough, right? It was submitted in the humor category and Vogt now says the image was submitted "all in good fun."

Either way, it provided an opportunity for angry Digg users to lash out at MrBabyMan. At 7:30 Sorcini posted a message to Twitter reading: "If this is how the majority of the Digg community feels, I'll quit. I won't be a part of a group that doesn't want me" - with a link to the critical, remixed cartoon.

By eight o'clock that evening the Vogt submission hit the front page of Digg - two hours before MrBabyMan's original submission went popular. At midnight a link to Sorcini's Twitter message hit the front page with the title "MrBabyMan Might Quit Digg?" By the time the bars closed Friday night more than 2000 people had voted for Vogt's cartoon and there were 750 comments left between the two negative posts. Vogt's was the most popular of all submissions made to the site on Friday. A heated debate raged in comments between Digg users of every degree of psychological maturity and perspective on the issue that you can imagine: should MrBabyMan go or should he stay?

The Charges Against the BabyMan

There are a number of criticisms that Digg users levy against Andrew Sorcini. The primary one, which Vogt's cartoon remix refers to, is that MrBabyMan submits duplicate stories that other Diggers have submitted, knowing that his superior prowess will eliminate any chance that the original submission will hit the front page.

The next criticism is that MrBabyMan uses an unfairly large network of friends and spam-like "shouts" to garner favors and give his submissions an artificial momentum that they don't warrant on merit alone.

Finally, it's frequently whispered that MrBabyMan and other top Digg users are being paid for submitting stories. There are certainly people willing to pay them.

Via : ReadWriteWeb

Mixx Picks in your Inbox

2008-05-13T05:20:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, Jason here with a quick note about something new we’re sending out on a trial basis. We’re calling it Mixx Picks—a somewhat-regular email newsletter featuring a handful of stories, photos and videos curated by the Mixx staff. Our goal is to pick out some of the cool, yet potentially overlooked, items that come across the site.

Now, we can already hear the cries—”What the #@%*! Mixx is spamming me!” Truth be told, we’re only sending Mixx Picks to users who have “Stay up to date with Mixx!” checked in their Account Settings. If you don’t wish to receive Mixx Picks, unsubscribing is as simple as going to your Account Settings and unchecking that box.

As mentioned above, this is something we’re testing out, and depending upon your feelings about it, we may or may not continue Mixx Picks. We think it’s pretty cool and we hope you do, too. Definitely let us know what you think. If you didn’t receive the premiere issue, you can view it online.

Via : Mixx

CNN Jumps Into the Mixx

2008-05-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard, later today, CNN will be launching “Mixx It” buttons on all of their stories. CNN is the gold standard of news, both online and broadcast, and we’re excited to have them recognize us as being a growing presence in the social media space. CNN realizes that the Mixx community is a unique offering: a system that allows all content to be socialized into relevant human viewing circles through tags, personalization, and groups.

The amazing community we’ve been blessed with on Mixx has been showing the love to CNN from the beginning. We have over 1000 CNN stories, photos and videos submitted and more than 15% of them have been voted as a top story on the site.

Again, welcome to CNN, and a big thank you to our community! Look for our press release coming later today.

Via : Mixx

Welcome to Mixx Without Borders!

2008-05-13T05:17:00.001-07:00

Some people think that if you drive your employees too hard that, well, it’s a bad thing. Obviously, they’re not thinking about engineers. A strange and magical breed, engineers prefer that we show our affection and appreciation by giving them more work. So we keep them busy and happy by implementing loads of improvements—many dreamed up by our product managers, many suggested by you. In fact, several Mixxers have even offered to help out with our coding.

So, we had a little meeting and asked ourselves, “What do we do with so many Mixxers offering up so much of their time to help us create a better experience—not to mention the many others who have great ideas for what to do with Mixx data?” Some people might think these users presumptuous, but for us, there was only one answer: open the borders.

That’s right—we’ve launched our API! Want to check it out? Just head down to the Kitchen and click on the new Blender link. If you’re already a Mixx user, this is the place to check out the cool applications and websites designed by your fellow Mixxers to be used in conjunction with Mixx. If you’re a developer, use the Blender to whip up and manage API keys and brag about your cool new Mixx app.

Mixxcellany

2008-04-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

mis•cel•la•ny
pronounced mis-uh-ley-nee
a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items.

Or, in Mixx terms, our mixxcellany release. First, and most importantly, a number of user requests (and props to their suggestors):

Thanks to JNBammer, a “Career” category in Business
Thanks to m4tt, a “Google” category in Tech (and in return, m4tt wrote a nice thank you note to us!)
Thanks to NaturalWoman, a submit button on the Search Results page so you can submit directly from there after searching for duplicates.
Thanks Pleeker, RobDiana, Calinazaret, Tunisian Guy and Yoda among others, improvements to the way Breaking News is presented. You can now see “Almost Breaking” news that one SuperMixxer has flagged as breaking. Making it easier for news to break, and giving credit to the SuperMixxers who are flagging breaking news.T
Thanks Camille, a much better link to “Edit Your Mixx.”
For CMcGill, we moved the “add everything” option on the “Add To YourMixx” widget to the bottom of the list.
For MarkCarras, we moved the “Email This” link back to where it used to be on the story/photo/video pages.

Join Mixx on Facebook

2008-02-28T09:08:00.000-08:00

We’ve been hearing a lot about this little thing called Facebook and thought we’d check it out. It’s pretty cool and wow! were we surprised to see so many of you over there! Just kidding, of course—we’ve been working on a Facebook app for a while now, and we’re happy to say that it’s up and running!

So now you don’t have to leave Facebook to submit, vote on and share content from around the web, and you can share with your Facebook and your Mixx Friends at the same time. And by setting your Facebook Interests you’ll get the stuff you want delivered right to your profile page.

It’s easy to link your existing Mixx account to your Facebook account or to create a Mixx account and, once you do, voila! It’s a MiniMixx! You’ll be able to:

See your contacts, your faves, even your Mixx profile
Find out what’s popular on Mixx: video, stories, photos and tags
See which of your Facebook friends is also a Mixxer

Catch the brainwaves with Mr. BabyMan!

2008-02-24T03:33:00.000-08:00

Today we’re featuring Andrew Sorcini aka Mr. BabyMan of Digg and The Drill Down podcast as our guest.

Are you ready to catch his brainwaves, including:

The TRUE story behind his user name?

Then let’s begin!

1. I’m sure you’ve explained this one million times, but what’s the origin of your user name?
It’s actually a pet name given to me by my girlfriend at the time (who’s now my wife). It’s a reference to my arrested development and general refusal to grow up and act like a serious adult. I began to use it as a username (for lack of a better one) when I would go online. Honestly, if I knew it was gonna be so notorious, I probably would’ve picked something more intimidating.

2. Do you get hit by millions of messages, E-mails, Digg requests, etc. the minute that you go online?
Less than you’d think, but mostly when I show up on IM. I’m open to all emails and Digg shouts, as long as they’re not spam.

3. Some might say that you are an on-line celebrity. That brings up another question: why do you think people put so much value in being a celebrity?
Former Photobucket marketer MJ Kim once told me, “Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Well, when you’re ‘internet famous’, you’re famous to 15 people.” While I certainly don’t consider myself a celebrity (even an ‘internet famous’ one), I think celebrity is significant to some people as a public validation of success.

4. Does being the top Digger something you cherish or is it that big of a deal to you?
I’m proud of the honor, but I never sought out to be top digger. Many people consider Digg to be like a game, where the goal in competition is to try and get the most submissions to the front page, or to have a perfect submission record, or to be the most prolific thread commenter. Digg has never been about that for me. My only goal in submitting to Digg is to find the most interesting sites & articles and expose them to the broadest audience possible. In that respect, there is no goal of completion for me. I’ll keep submitting to Digg as long as there are great stories to submit.

5. Can you single out any one Digg submission or story that will be etched into your memory for the rest of your life?
Oddly enough, the stories that really stand out for me are the ones that I really felt passionately about, but failed to make the front page. The real tragedy of Digg is how many amazing stories are submitted, but never make the front page for one reason or another. I would recommend to any digg user that they take the time to look past the front page and onto the Upcoming page, where the real gems are.

Adding More Ingredients to the Mixx: Related Content

2008-02-19T21:18:00.000-08:00

A while ago we were trying to submit something to the Mixx and it was suggested that our story might be a duplicate. Sadly it was, because some “gunner” (yeah, you know who you are) always beats us to these things. But after voting for his story and moving on, it occurred to us that, while it was the same story, it wasn’t really the same story. Same topic? Check. Same source? Check. Same angle? Che… Hey! No, it wasn’t! The first one was the news story and ours was from one of the editorial page columnists.

It’s situations like this—and we know it’s happened to you, too—that have us doing a little happy dance about the new feature we’re rolling out. Starting today, when the system says that you might be submitting a duplicate, you’ll have the option to submit that story as being related to another piece of content. So instead of just saying “yes, it’s a duplicate” and voting for the original, you’ll be given a couple of options for how the content is related to the original:

Please note that this is NOT permission to sneak in dupes. Trust us, we already tried it and we can assure you that yes, you do still have to play by the rules. Read More...

Mixx Most Popular Words

2008-02-17T22:48:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of Most popular words used on Mixx.com

1. you 24 1%
2. your 24 1%
3. video 18 0.7%
4. youtube 16 0.6%
5. social 15 0.6%
6. how 14 0.6%
7. news 11 0.4%
8. new 10 0.4%
9. about 8 0.3%
10. car 8 0.3%
11. king 8 0.3%
12. luther 8 0.3%
13. martin 8 0.3%
14. pictures 8 0.3%
15. snow 8 0.3%
16. top 8 0.3%
17. blog 7 0.3%
18. can 7 0.3%
19. digg 7 0.3%
20. google 7 0.3%
21. know 7 0.3%
22. media 7 0.3%
23. most 7 0.3%
24. photos 7 0.3%
25. star 7 0.3%
26. time 7 0.3%
27. ads 6 0.2%
28. funny 6 0.2%
29. get 6 0.2%
30. life 6 0.2%
31. man 6 0.2%
32. old 6 0.2%
33. phone 6 0.2%
34. trailer 6 0.2%
35. why 6 0.2%
36. art 5 0.2%
37. bush 5 0.2%
38. day 5 0.2%
39. dog 5 0.2%
40. ever 5 0.2%

For More Information to see which words are the most commonly used in major social news and social bookmark sites Click here…

You Have Mixx Messaging!

2008-02-17T01:42:00.000-08:00

We’ve always said we have the best community out there, and that’s due in part to how well you communicate with one another—and with us. Today we’re launching two new features that will make it even easier!

Mixx Mail Phase 1: Now you can send and receive messages to and from anyone in the community without ever leaving the Mixx. Mixx Mail offers some very handy little features, including:

The icons of all Mixx friends in your address book—especially useful if you’re like us and remember faces/avatars better than names.
Send a message to a Mixxer directly from that user’s profile page.
Block overeager wanna-be groupies. That’s right—not only can you slam the door on their friendship pleas, but now you can block them from sending messages, not that you’d be so cruel. Right? Well ok then, just don’t block us.
Opt to have a daily digest sent to your regular email and we’ll let you know how many messages you have waiting.

Phase 2 with more improvements is coming very soon, so get your feedback and suggestions in to us as soon as possible.

Reddit : New Features

2008-01-29T07:17:00.000-08:00

We added a handful of new features last night. Among them is the ability for users to create their own reddits. Before we let anyone make their own, we're going to spend a week or so in a closed beta. We will invite a handful of users to play around with the new feature so we can see how things work before we open it up to everyone. If you'd like to participate in this, email feedback@reddit with the subject, "omg me please".

You will be able to make three kinds of reddits: public, restricted, and private. A public reddit is just like the current reddits: anyone can view and submit to them. A restricted reddit allows anyone to view the content, but only invited members may submit, comment, or vote. A private reddit is like a restricted reddit, but with the additional restriction that only members can view the content as well. Moderators of a reddit will be able to remove posts and ban users from their reddits.

Read More...

Mahalo Expands Multiprofiles: One Stop For Various Social Networking Sites

2008-01-29T07:09:00.000-08:00

Jason Calacanis has announced an expansion to the Mahalo social platfrom that allows users to access most major social networking sites within Mahalo itself.

The idea of social networking site aggregation or single landing page isn’t new, we’ve covered startups aiming to provide a similar service, such as MyLifeBrand, ProfileLinker and Loopster, but none have really captured the imagination of the broader internet. Mahalo is trying to better these services by becoming the front page destination for those looking to access sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube and others.

Setup is easy enough. You simply add your user name or user ID into the boxes provided, and it then pulls your profiles from each service. It’s not perfect yet, for example you have to provide your full URL for Facebook (which they noted) and LinkedIn (which they didn’t note). From there you can visit each page via tabs on Mahalo itself. I found that maybe half of the pages I opened remembered my ID and I had immediate access to use the sites, others didn’t at first, but after logging in work fine.

I wont fully revisit the whole is Mahalo a great service debate here other than to say that someone once described Mahalo to me as search for the mentally challenged (well he used another word, use your imagination). I’ve always thought that was a little unfair, it’s perhaps search for the Google and/ or Boolean illiterate (so I’m not the target market), but there is value there for the general consumer market. I’m not about to switch to using Mahalo for search tomorrow and I’d expect most of you reading this wont, but ignore the search and take a look at Mahalo Multiprofiles.

The Digg Community’s Concerns With Digg

2008-01-24T06:36:00.000-08:00

We, the undersigned (comment to join) are ready to find out if there is more to social bookmarking than Digg. We are going to stop submitting to Digg. The alternatives are plenty - now is the time to venture into new territory. As we organize we will evaluate and find a new space.

When a digital identity, like a Digg account, becomes penalized through its consistent interaction with a website we assume that site falls into one of two categories. Either (a. The site in question is ill-suited to become a healthy social network. or (b. The premise of the social network is such that it is based on competition.

Digg is, in part, a game. It always has been - and that is one of the reasons we love it. That it helped us share useful, entertaining or interesting content only made it that much more fun.

Unfortunately the rules to the game have never been under the community’s full control. As far as we can tell, the rule-makers barely listen to us. The latest change in the algorithm, along with rumors of secret editors, auto-buries, etc., have led us to believe it is time to break ties with Digg.com.

Digg: New Algorithm Changes By Kevin Rose

2008-01-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to give everyone some insight into some of the changes we’ve been making this week. As we’ve talked about in the past, Digg’s promotional algorithm ensures that the most popular content dugg by a diverse, unique group of diggers reaches the home page. Our goal is to give each person a fair chance of getting their submission promoted to the home page. Since Digg began more than three years ago, we’ve constantly been making tweaks to the promotional algorithm and will continue to do so. Most of our additions go unnoticed, and others take a few days to normalize as we watch them run live on the site. We spend a lot of time analyzing the data and improving the system.

As we point out in our FAQ, occasionally you will see stories in the upcoming section with 100+ Diggs - this is evidence of our promotion algorithm hard at work. One of the keys to getting a story promoted is diversity in Digging activity. When the algorithm gets the diversity it needs, it will promote a story from the Upcoming section to the home page. This way, the system knows a large variety of people will be into the story.

Read More ...

9 Reasons Why The Digg Story Sells

2008-01-22T06:23:00.000-08:00

Most of us know the Digg story. All it took was a scrappy-looking kid with an idea, and lo and behold, online news discovery and aggregation were changed forever. Digg wasn’t the first social bookmarking (now social news) site, nor was it the first to popularize the concept. It was, however, the first site with a story that touched people, and helped the site outgrow all its competition and become an industry (and even mainstream media) darling.

So why does the Digg story sell so well? Here’s a look at 9 elements that make a good story - one that people embrace and propagate through their networks - and how Digg has taken those principles to heart:

A great story rings true.

Digg tells you a story about a world where the media is controlled by a select few. Whether it be mainstream media, or fringe media online, the story outlines a hierarchical system where a few people decide what is important and subsequently feed that to the audience. True here doesn’t mean that it has to be factually true (though the story of Digg is). David and Goliath is a great story but some would say it isn’t necessarily true. True here means that it is authentic and it is consistent. That the story is believed by those who create it and by those who propagate it.

A great story makes a promise.

After outlining the limitations of the existing model of news aggregation, Digg makes you a promise. The promise is that the site will put power in your hands. You get to decide what content is submitted to the site, and you collectively decide which submissions are important enough to be promoted to the site’s front page. With everyone getting an equal say, the content that is promoted is the one that appeals to a majority of the people on the site (or at least the most active users on the site). The site promises to reject any hierarchical system or spoon-feed any content to the community.

The promise is a bold one. It goes against conventional wisdom and as the underdog, the site promises to fight all odds.

A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon: How to Build Massive Traffic to Your Website

2008-01-20T03:06:00.000-08:00

I’ve been experimenting with StumbleUpon for the past few months and have had several pleasant experiences. It’s simply an incredible viral means to drive a large amount of sustained traffic to any website over a period of time.

I wrote this mini guide on StumbleUpon because I thought StumbleUpon had enormous potential in maximizing brand exposure while fitting nicely with a long term site building strategy.

Included are some personal observations on using StumbleUpon to drive traffic to your website, as well as some strategies you can adopt to retain StumbleUpon visitors while monetizing your website.

Happy 100! The State of the Mixx

2008-01-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

Today Mixx has reached a milestone! This is our 100th day of being open to the public, and we never could have done it without you. We love our jobs, but you definitely make it a lot more fun to come in every day. We’ve always tried to keep you up-to-date with everything that’s going on, and we absolutely want to know what you think of us. So in that same spirit of openness, we give you:

The State of Mixx at 100 Days:

We’re now averaging hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month
There are tens of thousands of registered Mixxers – 78% of whom have personalized their Mixx pages with more than 10 category tags
Mixxers have created more than 700 groups, and counting
So far, more than 5 million votes have been cast
We now have a library of more than 50,000 tags submitted by Mixxers
Mixx buttons have been found on the websites of some of the biggest media companies, including USA Today , Reuters, The L.A. Times, Slate, Forecast Earth from The Weather Channel, and Kaboose, with more on the way
And it’s not just the big dogs! Many very cool and interesting blogs have added a Mixx button, allowing Mixxers to get great information from diverse sources.

Digg: Your Feedback on the New Comments System

2008-01-18T11:38:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone,

We’ve been hard at work improving the comments system based on your feedback. We’re looking forward to rolling out an easier, more lightweight and speedy system soon.

Before we go too far down the path of locking down these features, we’d like to hear what you think of the proposed changes. Check out the video and let us know what you think by posting, digging up, or burying the comments in this thread.

Thanks for your continued feedback and patience as we put the finishing touches on the new comments system.

Q and A with Mr. Babyman

2008-01-17T01:19:00.000-08:00

Here is an interview with Mr.Babyman [Andrew Sorcini]; who had over 1800 Stories made popular and over 7,500 stories submitted with in a short span of 2 years at Digg and became the top digger.

How much time would you set aside a day for such activity?

I spend a couple hours each weekday morning looking for great stories and digging up friends' stories, and about 3 hours at night after putting my daughter to bed (while catching up on TV, etc). Occasionally, I'll also try to sneak a submission or two during the day, when work is slow.

Where do you think people should go to be on the lookout for good content?

The best advice here is to follow the leaders. Watch what stories become popular and take note of what sites regularly hit the homepage. Many mainstream media sites, such as “The New York Times” and “Business Week” are also reliable sources.

What do you view as compelling content?

My criteria for compelling content is based on two things:

The first is zeitgeist, the spirit of what's currently popular in the blogosphere. This can be unpredictable and change fairly rapidly. There's no real easy way to gauge this other than to spend some time on the internet observing what's being submitted and what becomes popular. One week it may be Apple. The next week it may be the RIAA.

The other criteria is my own personal taste. For the most part I will only submit the stories that personally appeal to me.

Does digg discourage or encourage submitting our own content?

Officially, Digg doesn't discourage users from submitting their own content, but ultimately the Digg community decides that fine line between great content and spamming. Often they tend to err on the side of caution and bury many author-submitted posts.

Do most users start by looking at popular stories on the home page or by looking at their favorite other users' lists?

Most of Digg's users tend to only look at the stories on the front page; some aren't even aware there's an Upcoming page at all. More often than not, I'll look at my friend’s submissions before looking at the front page.

What advice do you have for Diggers just starting out?

You will ultimately be judged as a reflection of the content you submit, so the more choosy you are early on, the more trust people will put in you as a submitter. Make lots of friends and support each other by digging each others' stories. The only thing as important on Digg as submitting quality content is maintaining a network of friends to help raise that content above the masses of other submissions.

Few Words about Digg Algorithm?

The Digg algorithm is extremely complex, and does its job of leveling the playing field amongst new and experienced submitters quite well. On a personal note, however, I feel that longtime submitters learn from experience and ultimately submit better content, and it seems a bit harsh when I see fantastic content from my fellow longtime submitters fail to hit Digg's FrontPage because of the inflated promotion threshold.

Few Words about top diggers Digital Gopher, Muhammad Saleem, Zaibatsu [ Reg Saddler]?

‘Digitalgopher’ is a true gentleman, who taught me by example how to (and how not to) submit to social news networks. The former number one submitter on Digg, I'm certain he'll make the same splash in amateur photography on Flickr that he did with social bookmarking on Digg, as his beautiful photographs prove.

Not only is ‘Muhammad’ a brilliant observer of social media in his blog posts, but a masterful social news submitter in his own right. Honestly, I don't know how he manages to juggle everything and do it so well. I foresee big things in his future.

‘Reg’ embraces life, and it shows. 'Go big or go home' could easily be his motto, as is evinced by his submissions. Between his great sense of humor, his passion for world events, and his likability amongst nearly every Digg user, Reg is a great friend to know.

A word about recently banned top diggers?

From interviews I've read with both Kevin Rose & Jay Adelson I understand that Digg's internal security is quite comprehensive. They claim to be several steps ahead of spammers & cheaters. Having said that, I can't dispute the validity of recent bannings without an understanding of the facts from both sides.

According to banned submitters, however (whom I have spoken with), Digg hasn't been very forthcoming regarding exactly why they were banned. And while Digg is under no obligation to explain themselves, it does certainly give the impression of not being closely involved with your user community.

Are there any other social media sites, which you have found to be interesting?

There are aspects of StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Mixx that I appreciate over Digg, but ultimately Digg works the best for me.

What is your view on the future of social media?

Social media is a niche field on the verge of eruption. As the tools of social media are becoming democratized, we're beginning to see it incorporated into our daily lives more often. Choice appeals to us, and we like the ability to access user-submitted content alongside content from mainstream media. In the future, those distinctions will blur until they're imperceptible.