Comments for Shouts on Digg are Now Gone - Replaced with Email, Facebook, and Twitter

Shouts on Digg are Now Gone - Replaced with Email, Facebook, and Twitter

2009-05-26T19:44:11Z

At a Digg townhall meeting earlier this month, Digg's founder, Kevin Rose, and CEO, Jay Adelson, announced that Digg's shout feature would be removed sometime this week and replaced with a share feature. This change just went live on the popular social media site. Users on Digg used to be able to share stories on Digg with other users right on the site, a feature that was often abused. Now, Digg's users can only email stories, or share them on Facebook and Twitter.

]]> According to the announcement on the Digg blog, the Digg team "listened to your feedback, crunched some user data, and decided to remove shouts. As some of you know, shouts have been a controversial feature since their inception and considering the ever-changing landscape of the social web, we've elected to remove them in favor of more popular options."

To share stories, users can now hover over the 'share' link on the digg homepage and select the service they want to share the stories on (email, Facebook, or Twitter). Digg also removed the 'blog this' feature, which, according to Digg's Jen Burton only saw really low usage.

For a more detailed discussion of the pros and cons of shouts on Digg, please see our earlier report from last week.

Comment from Metin on 2009-05-26

2009-05-26T21:03:13Z

didn't visit digg for some months because it was chaotic there. now, it looks much better, cleaner, and easier.

Comment from Benoit Tremblay on 2009-05-26

2009-05-26T21:31:11Z

I hated the shout feature, so it's a good move in a certain way. BUT, I don't know how long Digg will be able to survive in this fast paced information sharing world. Honestly, with twitter, I don't see the need for Digg anymore.

Comment from Bob Caswell on 2009-05-26

2009-05-26T21:48:46Z

What Digg does can be a good mirror of social media in general. I remember when "blog this" was a needed feature because reblogging was what Twitter is now.

Then shouts came along, which was another Digg attempt at social sharing. Ultimately, though, what Digg learned with the rest of us is that social sharing is all about platform integration. Web 2.0-esque startups need not develop things that are already available and widely used elsewhere. But hindsight is always 20-20.

Comment from Bob Caswell on 2009-05-26

2009-05-26T21:51:48Z

What Digg does can be a good mirror of social media in general. I remember when "blog this" was a needed feature because reblogging was what Twitter is now.

Comment from MacStories on 2009-05-26

2009-05-26T23:39:38Z

this is wise move in my opinion. they just had to incorporate social networks.

Comment from Raymond on 2009-05-26

2009-05-27T02:35:26Z

FriendFeed's sharing is much better than digg. Posting to twitter is automatic, I wish they could do it that way.

Comment from Emmett Dixson on 2009-05-26

2009-05-27T04:14:34Z

Digg is missing what I refer to as "the period of socialization". Like the "age of aquarious", these days are crucial to interfaces like Digg. Speaking of interfaces, why does it have to be so labor intensive. I agree with Raymond; we want automation!

Comment from Worldof on 2009-05-27

2009-05-27T22:48:02Z

But what about the other changes - like the fact you cannot now 'share' to your blog? This was a big advantage of Digg - you could posted directly to your blog from Digg without doing anything else.

This was the feature I used most and I find it ridiculous they have swapped this for the weak options of only Twitter, Facebook or email. Digg should be making it easier to share and disseminate, not harder. This is a big FAIL in my book.

Comment from sir jorge on 2009-06-03

2009-06-03T23:37:59Z

well there goes my only chances at getting dugg.

Comment from Seo Guru on 2009-06-08

2009-06-09T03:52:48Z

The question i have is what are the new digg features for 'friends' you have collected in Digg.com.

No more shouts, so friends will be un-usefull?

I don't know, what do you think about?

Comment from mariodalo on 2009-10-26

2009-10-26T14:51:00Z

Digg remains a useful tool, although it is now absorbed by hundreds of similar sites.