comScore: Yahoo! Buzz Overtakes Digg in April
Digg is in big trouble. We already know that Yahoo! Buzz, a beta social news service by Yahoo!, can drive a large amount of traffic and comments to websites. We also know the ongoing problems at competitor digg, which continue to be skated around by digg management. Now we have proof that Yahoo! Buzz is kicking some digg behind in terms of stats. According to a new report from comScore, in April Yahoo! Buzz for the first time did more traffic than digg - Buzz got nearly 7 million U.S. unique visitors in April, a 74% growth over March. What's more, about 51% of Yahoo! Buzz users are women, compared to just 39% women for digg. We have graphs below from comScore...
The following graph shows that, for the first time, Buzz has overtaken digg in unique visitors per month. It is also trending sharply upwards, while digg is flat at best; and has been since October 2007.
The below graph shows minutes spent on site. Once again it's sorry reading for digg, which is trending downwards while Buzz goes up.
Finally, here are charts showing that Buzz is almost identical to the mainstream men/women Internet split, while digg users are 61% men.
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The most intriguing aspect of this data, is the overwhelming growth in minutes spent on each of the services. I'm no data analyst, but the trend is significantly positive for Yahoo Buzz. Something to consider is in the battle for eyeballs is the total volume of time spent on both Digg and Buzz....
Is Yahoo! bringing online new social news readers or stealing them away from Digg? From the total volume of news readers spiking (Digg plus Buzz), who else is Yahoo taking eyeballs from with Buzz?
Posted by: todd lucier | May 13, 2008 2:31 PM
Time to add a buzz me! button at the end of my posts!!
But seriously, if this trend keeps up, Y! Buzz will kick some serious Digg behind
Posted by: MrCooker | May 13, 2008 3:01 PM
How is this surprising in ANY way? Yahoo is one of the World's largest search engines and one of the Top 10 websites - period - on the planet. They embed the Buzz Featured articles as a mainstay of their homepage.
I'm sure Buzz gets lots and lots and lots of users and traffic from people they don't even know they're in "Yahoo! Buzz"... they just assume they're reading a news article.
This article is DRASTICALLY misleading. If Google embedded DIGG stories smack dab in the middle of the Google homepage, do you think the results would be different? You would have to be an idiot not to. And, that is the comparison you're making between Yahoo Buzz and Digg.
Don't mean to rant or be rude, I've just had a few too little hours of sleep hehe.
Posted by: MobileRoar.com | May 13, 2008 3:18 PM
Yahoo Buzz is buzzing no doubt. When they break out of testing, I'm sure Digg will be a memory.
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Posted by: The Masked Millionaire | May 13, 2008 3:47 PM
I am So glad Yahoo stood up to MS. Grow your Yahoo!
Regardless whether they know they're there or not, usage is usage. Digg always seemed artificial to me, a made up society of tech-heads. From what I see in those charts, Yahoo! Buzz usage is "mainstream". That's why it will succeed, and why it will most likely continue to surpass Digg in these kinds of stats.
Plus, I'm gettimg really tired of having to click myself to death just to Digg a story...
Ok I'm just gonna say it: Digg sux and it always has.
Posted by: Jon | May 13, 2008 3:53 PM
You're forgetting that Yahoo! Buzz currently only supports stories/articles from "partner" sites which SEVERELY restricts the possibilities and variety in articles that people want to see/read.
As soon as they open up the door to 3rd party sites, Yahoo! Buzz will have the same exact problem that every Social Bookmarking site does of "gaming the system".
Lets not forget that Yahoo! is exactly what you said it is... Mainstream. And Digg focuses on who you correctly thumbed... Techies. Yahoo Buzz and Digg will coexist serving different markets... it isn't one or the other.
At least that is how I see it. Unless Digg continues to mess with their algo and let all the crud float to the top. Or unless they get bought out by another company who wants to take the content more "mainstream".
Posted by: MobileRoar.com | May 13, 2008 4:15 PM
@mobile
Digg has abandoned its main tech base a long time ago.. me being one of them. I don't enjoy digg half as much.. and don't spend as much time on the site. I've gone back to slashdot, and reddit. As much as people left slashdot for digg in the beginning, slashdot, will be there in the end for understanding its base, and sticking to it.
Posted by: cease | May 13, 2008 5:46 PM
Digg has slowly wandered away from its smart techy origins and become much more "frat boy" in the process by dropping in IQ points. Making matters worse people game the results on a regular basis (which demoralizes the core audience that submitted high quality stories to begin with) and you also don't get any reward for writing intelligent comments. I've also noticed that it takes longer for a hot story to hit the front page, so they went from beating Google News to a 6 to 12 hour lag in some cases.
Maybe Netscape didn't go anywhere, but Jason Calacanis nailed it when he started to pay the top Diggers. Cool hunting has a value and Digg hasn't rewarded it. Even the Snorg t-shirt advertisements make me wonder what I'm doing there. I guess Techmeme is the new Digg.
Posted by: Michael Pinto | May 13, 2008 6:11 PM
Digg has long lost it's tech niche image - today if you look at Digg, there is a lot of low quality posts. Yahoo Buzz has a filter to start off with. Let us see how long Y! can keep that edge.
Posted by: Technology Watch | May 13, 2008 6:28 PM
when yahoo buzz will be open for small publishers like me?
Posted by: Ajay Pathak | May 13, 2008 8:52 PM
There are only a few possibilities in which Digg is really 39% female.
1. They are all tomboys and have interests indecipherable from males
2. Digg's algorithm is completely arbitrary and has nothing to do with what people "digg"
3. The females never digg and never comment
Posted by: Keith | May 14, 2008 12:19 AM
Digg has lost all of it's magic for me. I started with slashdot back in the day but I don't even go to them for news. To get my tech news, I just hang around reddit, twitter, and subscribe to tech blogs (scobeleizer, techcrunch, rww, sarahintampa, louisgray, etc...)
Posted by: acedanger | May 14, 2008 7:22 AM
Digg sucks - pure and simple. Mixx kicks its a$$ too.
Posted by: Jim Dorey | May 14, 2008 12:24 PM
Boing Boing, Salon and Popsugar all reported huge increases in traffic from Yahoo Buzz when it launched. Converting this new audience into loyal users seems a lot more difficult if you consider Compete stats
http://siteanalytics.compete. com/boingboing.net+sal on.com+popsugar.com/?m etric=att
Publishers who were quick off the mark with Buzz may be regretting it now. Failing to convert a huge increase in traffic into loyal readers has exposed the limits of their appeal.
Techrunch has so far failed to make an impression on Yahoo Buzz' Science/Tech section.
http://buzz.yahoo.com/articles/science/168/1/;_ylt=AuKegVePtO1GezePjp8l38UszJV4
It seems to do a lot worse than tech sites like Ars Technica, Wired (that'll make them smile) and Yahoo Tech as well as Boing Boing. I think this confirms that Digg and Techmeme are niche while Yahoo Buzz is mainstream. Interesting. Thanks for writing about it.
Posted by: Selina Howells | May 14, 2008 11:13 PM
Digg is memory now. Yahoo! Buzz usage is "mainstream". its gonna surpass Digg with the current trend for sure
Posted by: traveler | May 16, 2008 6:03 AM
Yahoo Buzz is good to use. But hen they testing, I'm sure Digg will be delete from the program.
Posted by: loans | May 23, 2008 5:40 AM
digg is encouraging spamming. digg is for seo people.
even google encourage it by giving more PR to digg stories.
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