Digg - ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com/feeds/tag/Digg en Copyright 2009 Richard MacManus readwriteweb@gmail.com Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:00:00 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.23-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Taptu and OneRiot Launch Real-time Mobile Search Specialized mobile search engine Taptu and real-time search service OneRiot have teamed up to launch a new real-time search engine for mobile. With the touch-friendly interface provided by Taptu, you can now perform searches from your mobile phone and receive real-time results from sites like Twitter and Digg. In addition, you can browse through the trending topics to see what recent events are currently being buzzed about.

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]]> According to the company's press release, this joint venture has created "the first ever real-time search for mobile." That's not entirely true - after all, you can visit search.twitter.com from any mobile device with a web browser. Plus, there are tons of mobile Twitter applications that have search features built in and/or feature a list of Twitter's trending topics. However, this new search service does appear to be the first ever dedicated mobile search engine for accessing the real-time web.

Using the OneRiot API, Taptu's new homepage presents a mobile-friendly search engine interface complete with search box and verticals for searching just the web, images, and now, "buzz." Previously, the site included verticals for music and video searches too, but those have seemingly been done away with in an effort to simplify the interface.

The new "buzz" section is where you can find the real-time results. Here you'll find content pulled from sites like Twitter, Digg, other social sharing sites and the company's own panel of users who have downloaded the OneRiot toolbar and are sharing their web-browsing data in anonymous aggregate.

While Twitter is clearly a source of breaking news, we've always found it a bit odd that OneRiot includes Digg in its "real-time" search engine. We've never thought of Digg as anything near real-time - in fact, it pales in comparison to Twitter when it comes to the speed with which information spreads. With the immediacy possible on today's web, sites like Digg seem much slower - painfully slow at times - often taking hours on end to feature the news that had already been buzzing on Twitter for half a day.

That said, Digg and other social news sharing sites can sometimes unearth news that had been overlooked by major media outlets, especially when focused on a particular niche like technology. For example, just think of how many stories you read on someone's personal blog or Reddit and never saw anywhere else on the web. By tracking niche websites like these as well as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, social bookmarking sites like Delicious and StumbleUpon, microblogs and URL-shortening services, Oneriot can discover links that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Taptu's new mobile search engine interface currently works on major touch-enabled devices including the iPhone, iPod touch, G1, Nokia N97 and 5800, and the BlackBerry Storm 1. The Taptu iPhone application will also be updated soon to include the additional functionality. You can test the new service yourself starting at 9 AM EST by pointing your mobile browser to www.taptu.com.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/taptu_and_oneriot_launch_real-time_mobile_search.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/taptu_and_oneriot_launch_real-time_mobile_search.php Mobile Services Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:52:20 -0800 Sarah Perez
Can Digg Do Real-Time News? digg_trends_logo.jpgA great community for crowd sourced news and content, Digg is taking a page from the Twitter playbook and testing its mettle in the real-time stream. Similar to Twitter's Trending Topics, Digg is set to launch Digg Trends. According to a company blog post , the bookmarking community is offering users a chance to view trending stories before they make it to the home page. True to Digg fashion, this public view of the trend firehose comes with a catch. Voters have 10 minutes to digg or bury a story in order to determine whether it occupies valuable homepage real estate.

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]]> Digg Trends are identified when stories receive a high volume of comments, favorites and shares. From here a trending story will appear in a box above the site's "most recent" page content for ten minutes. Within that time frame users decide which stories are worthy for the homepage. In order to ensure that Digg members stay connected to these trends the company is also introducing a new Twitter account with a real-time feed of rising stories. These notifications are likely to increase user engagement and encourage higher traffic to the site during peak hours.

digg_trends_nov09.jpg

What makes this an ingenious member engagement tool for Digg, is that sub-par articles with a high number of comments are likely to incite action. In the past, many of us simply ignored the sensationalist stories that plagued the lower echelons of Diggdom. Nevertheless, with trolls being a driving force in the determination of trends, users will find themselves clicking through simply to right the wrongs in the Digg universe. While real-time shopping notifications like Woot's Twitter account incentivize users with deals, Digg knows that its members will keep coming back to maintain a sense of justice. The company will be rolling out the trends feature in the near future.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/can_digg_do_real-time_news.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/can_digg_do_real-time_news.php Real-Time Web Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:26:00 -0800 Dana Oshiro
Kevin Rose Accidentally Announces Digg's Upcoming iPhone App In a bit of "gotcha" journalism, interviewers Arnt Eriksen and Thomas Moen got Digg founder Kevin Rose to confirm that his company is developing an application for the iPhone.

When Eriksen referred to having seen a sneak preview of the application, Rose was visibly surprised. "I cannot show that off yet. You're not even supposed to know about that... Nobody knows about that." A video of the interview is embedded below.

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The duo's full interview with Rose will be available shortly via their weekly tech video podcast.

How did the interviewers end up catching a glimpse of the application? Eriksen wrote us today in an email, "We were sitting next to each other, and he had his iPhone in hand. I was turning to him to ask him a question when I saw him playing around with the app."

It goes without saying that a Digg application would take a lot of pain out of social bookmarking for a large number of smartphone users. Currently, startups such as Smub have offered work-arounds for simpler saving and sharing of links on mobile devices.

The Digg iPhone app represents the company's first major mobile offering since a revamping of the Digg mobile site in July 2008. We can reasonably assume that Digg apps for other types of mobile devices will be released in the months to come, as well.

We at ReadWriteWeb are definitely looking forward to playing around with Digg's new toy when it's released. What do our readers think, and what kinds of features do you hope to see when the Digg app hits the App Store?

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/kevin_rose_accidentally_announces_diggs_upcoming_i.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/kevin_rose_accidentally_announces_diggs_upcoming_i.php Social Bookmarking Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:15:38 -0800 Jolie O'Dell
Weekly Wrapup: Real Time Delicious, Read/Write Digg, Web Squared, And More... In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup - our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week - we analyze the impact of real-time information on the Web, investigate 'web squared' (when web 2.0 meets Internet of Things), tell you why cloud computing is the future of mobile, look at Delicious' new Twitter re-design, check out Digg's read/write API plans, and more. We also check in on our two new channels: ReadWriteEnterprise (devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' trends and products) and ReadWriteStart (dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs).

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Our Report gives you the facts on 240 deals closed in April, May and June - who invested, in what company, how much they invested and when. Read on to see what's included in the guide and how to purchase it.

Web Trends

Could Real Time Information Be An Unfair Advantage?

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is considering a ban on a stock market practice known as "flash trading," where supercomputers get access to information milliseconds before other traders. This raises similar issues about the growing prominence of real-time information on the web.

Web Squared: When Web 2.0 Meets Internet of Things

Recently Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle released a white paper entitled Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On. It's a none to subtle attempt to re-brand web 2.0. But less cynically, the report also nicely applies Web 2.0 principles onto the emerging Internet of Things.

Twitter's Most Active Users: Bots, Dogs, and Tila Tequila

twitter_sysomos_logo_aug09.pngOnly 5% of Twitter's users account for 75% of all the activity on the service, and almost one third of all the tweets posted by the most active users come from bots that each generate more than 150 tweets per day. According to a new report, one quarter of all the messages posted on Twitter are currently generated by bots.

As the EBook Market Matures, Amazon Will Face Stiff Competition

kindle_logo_mar09.jpgeBooks and eReaders are slowly but surely becoming mainstream. However, while Amazon is the current market leader among early adopters of this technology, there will be a lot of opportunities for other players in the market - including Sony and large mass-market retailers like Walmart.

Why Cloud Computing is the Future of Mobile

The term "cloud computing" is being bandied about a lot these days, mainly in the context of the "future of the web." But cloud computing's potential doesn't begin and end with the personal computer's transformation into a thin client - the mobile platform is going to be heavily impacted by this technology as well.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

A Word from Our Sponsors

We'd like to thank ReadWriteWeb's sponsors, without whom we couldn't bring you all these stories every week!

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Our channel devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' and using social software inside organizations. Sponsored by Socialtext.

Enterprise 2.0: Awareness is Easier Than Execution, Says Nielsen

82899080_dbc8443758.jpgIn a new report studying social networking on intranets, Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen asserts that despite broad awareness, real execution of Web 2.0 in the enterprise is still rare at this point. This is a sobering reminder of just what it takes to make change happen in business.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

How to Scale Without Losing Your Shirt

This is one post/chapter in a serialized book called Startup 101. For the introduction and table of contents, please click here.

There comes a time for every venture when the owners have to decide whether hockey-stick-like growth is feasible or not. In your initial plan, you indicated a sudden surge in revenue at a certain point in time, i.e. where the hockey stick shows up. You have now reached that point. You may have a great business, but will it hit the big time?

SEE MORE STARTUPS COVERAGE IN OUR READWRITESTART CHANNEL

Web Products

MySpace to Unveil Integration With Sites Around the Web, Using Open Standards

myspaceID.jpgMySpace will announce in the next few weeks a major new feature being added to its MySpaceID product that will allow third-party websites to write updates into the MySpace activity feed just like Facebook Connect, but will also incorporate open semantic microformat code too.

Delicious Reborn as Real-Time News Tracker

Yahoo's social bookmarking service Delicious launched a new home page this week, combining recent tagging activity and cross-referenced links on Twitter to deliver what it calls the hottest news from around the web in real time.

Digg Opening Up? New Read/Write API Coming Soon

The social news community at Digg.com may be on the verge of opening up. A forthcoming Digg API will allow people to "not only read data, but also contribute data, too." In other words, a Read/Write API.

SchoolRack Gives Teachers, Students, Parents Interactive Resources Online

SchoolRack is a resource for grade school and high school teachers to create their own websites where they can communicate and interact with their students and those students' parents.

Spotify to Close Up to $50M Round Before US Launch

In anticipation of the company's US launch, the on-demand music streaming site Spotify is finalizing what is rumored to be a $50 million dollar round of investments. This will value the Swedish company at $250 million dollars.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/weekly_wrapup_real_time_delicious.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/weekly_wrapup_real_time_delicious.php Weekly Wrapups Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:00:00 -0800 Richard MacManus
Digg-able Ad Program to Launch This Week digg_ads_aug09b.jpgIn today's blog post by Chief Strategy Officer Mike Maser, Digg announced that it will be rolling out its beta ad program later this week. In addition to the community's existing banner ads, the company is launching an initial set of ads to appear in rotation with regular content. From here, users will interact with the ads in the same way they interact with articles - by digging, burying and commenting on them. Advertising with a high number of Diggs will fetch lower ad revenue and buried advertisers will be charged more.

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]]> ReadWriteWeb covered Kevin Rose's suggestion for this advertising system in April. The program will be launched this week for testing to a select few users before making a public release.

Says Maser to the community, "The success of this system depends on your participation and feedback, as it will help advertisers to create the best possible experience for the Digg community. Our goal with Digg Ads is to encourage advertisers to create content as compelling as organic Digg stories, and to give you more control over which ads you see on Digg.

digg_ad_aug09.jpg

It will be interesting to see which advertisers attempt to game the system by digging their own ads, and how fast these ads will be buried. The official June announcement of the Digg ad program received more than 400 comments within the community, and surprisingly many of them are very positive. While critics argue that the ads will simply be buried and advertisers will stop paying for placement, others called this "marketing democracy." A few commenters pointed to the fact that they already use Adblock - a Firefox extension that allows users to filter out advertising content. Nevertheless, others chastise Adblock users for not supporting the community they enjoy. In a community as opinionated as Digg's, it will be interesting to see how the first users react to this new play for revenue.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/in_todays_blog_post_by.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/in_todays_blog_post_by.php Crowdsourcing Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:16:21 -0800 Dana Oshiro
Digg Opening Up? New Read/Write API Coming Soon According to news posted this morning to API-tracking website ProgrammableWeb, the social news community at Digg.com may be on the verge of opening up. In a recent message shared on the Digg mailing list, developer Jeff Hodsdon announced that the forthcoming Digg API will allow people to "not only read data, but also contribute data, too." In other words, a Read/Write API.

The implications of this decision are huge. Whereas before Digg was the place to find and share interesting links from around the web, that role has, as of late, been taken on by microblogging site Twitter.com. To combat Twitter's threat, Digg has tried launching new features like the DiggBar and their own URL-shortening service, but nothing they've done so far could have as big an impact on their future as the new API.

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]]> Digg Knows How to Get Traffic and the API Will Deliver That Much More

To drive traffic to their service, Digg launched a couple of different initiatives this past year including a browser toolbar and a URL-shortening service. First, there was the controversial "DiggBar" which initially drove traffic to Digg.com via a short URL service that displayed the news story within an iframe wrapper. Later, they changed the way their short URL service operated to redirect anyone clicking the URL directly to Digg.com - even if they weren't currently logged into the Digg website. This quickly became known as Digg's attempt to "bait and switch" its users. Instead of being sent to the news story as expected, users unwittingly wound up on Digg.com. Despite the outcry (and a confused founder Kevin Rose who wasn't aware of the change), the site continues to operate their URL service in this way. And why is that? Because, at the end of the day, Digg.com needs traffic to stay competitive. The soon-to-launch read/write API will simply be another way to get those valuable clicks.

With a read/write API, developers will be able to add "Digg This" functionality to their third-party applications. Adam DuVander on ProgrammableWeb notes this means developers could do a number of things like "automate posting stories and incorporate it into a publishing system,... save a link once and have it go to Digg, your bookmark service and Twitter... allow anyone to create their own interface to Digg, which would also provide Digg itself with additional content." The potential is nearly limitless. Heck, you could even incorporate a "Digg This" button into a Twitter client app like TweetDeck, for example.

To encourage developers to actually build apps or integrate Digg functionality within their existing applications, Digg recently allowed commercial use of their API. That means developers can actually monetize their applications "with full ownership and free of fees," says the Digg API license agreement. That gives the developer community even more incentive to put the API to use.

Digg Needs Traffic to Fight the Real-Time Web

The API change is arguably a brilliant move by the (potentially) fading social news site to combat the threat that comes from the real-time web.

There was a time when Digg.com was the king of link-sharing on the social web. Getting "dugg" sent massive amounts of traffic to your website, often overwhelming servers and bringing the site down - a problem that soon became known as the "Digg effect." While Digg still has that power today, Twitter is quickly becoming the link-sharing site of choice for many users. The reasons for that are many, but one key reason is that Twitter levels the playing field a bit - getting "dugg" is notoriously hard and getting something to the front page seems to be controlled by an elite crowd of diggers... no matter how hard Digg tries to combat that problem. Twitter, on the other hand, is easy. Anyone can share links, and through the power of "re-tweets" large amounts of traffic can be driven to websites, too. Although there's no "Twitter effect" just yet, its time may be coming soon.

With Twitter. we've seen the dispersal of information sped up. Where it can still take hours - and sometimes even days - to see a hot story make the front page of Digg.com, breaking news on Twitter moves at a much more rapid pace. Within minutes, the news spreads like wildfire, overtaking people's timelines and making its presence known in the Twitter trends. Although today Digg is still going strong, if they can't transform their service into more of a real-time news site where information isn't "old news" by the time it reaches an audience, then they will eventually find themselves outpaced by other services.

By opening up their API, Digg could deliver even more traffic to their site than they've ever done before. And with the additional traffic, stories could move through their system faster. Getting the necessary number of diggs needed to make a story "go popular" could, in theory, take minutes instead of hours if enough diggs came though. With additional traffic speeding up front page turnover, Digg could remain competitive with other real-time services that are attempting to steal their glory. Soon, one of those services may be bit.ly, whose URL shortening service is now the default for the Twitter community. According to recent news, bit.ly plans to mine links it collects to create a real-time news service a lot like Digg's, but based on Twitter instead. There's no doubt that Digg is aware of this potential threat, and that has at least partially influenced their decision to open up.

Still, despite Digg's plans, we have to wonder: will the read/write API be enough for Digg to compete further down the road? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_opening_up_new_readwrite_api_coming_soon.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_opening_up_new_readwrite_api_coming_soon.php News Tue, 04 Aug 2009 07:10:08 -0800 Sarah Perez
Comments Dead, Twitter Holds Smoking Gun echo_comments_jul09.jpgAt the recent Real-Time CrunchUp 2009, Khris Loux, CEO of one of the web's largest commenting services, announced the
"death of the comment". This declaration was extremely significant as Loux's JS-Kit is currently installed on over 600,000 sites. He blames the death on social media sites like Twitter and Flickr and the rise of "parallel channels away from [the] product". In essence, dialogue has moved from a singular destination to a series of parallel but separate social networking channels.

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]]> Loux took the opportunity to introduce Echo - his new product that allows publishers to embed a simple JavaScript widget and aggregate social media and blog dialogue from across the web. This means that all of the related posts from Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, Digg, WordPress and Blogger end up below your post for the world to see.

For those who are widely loved, you'll see this as a blessing. For those who are widely loathed, you'll see the full wrath of the internet in colorful cross-platform commentary. Echo further transcends existing commenting systems with the incorporation of HTML, photo and video. This appears to be a truly amazing tool for mash up contests, political debates and global events.

Loux said, "When Robert Scoble saw this his response was, 'blogging is back'." Scoble's own Building 43 project aggregates comments into the Community 43 page from various social media sources using hashtags. However, where Scoble's community dialogue gets buried as new media comes in, Echo produces a live feed that stays visible with the source material. Chris Saad, VP of Product Strategy and Community, said,"We look for links back to the source page inside tweets/FriendFeed etc and bring in the related conversation - in real time."

echo_comments_jul09b.jpg

This evolving stream of truth (good and bad) is about to stare us in the face every time we visit our pages. It will be interesting to see how this will affect blogging as we know it. Do you think bloggers will elevate their game to gain accolades or simply become gratuitously extreme in order to stir conversation? To reserve an Echo subscription, visit the JS-Kit site.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/comments_dead_twitter_holds_smoking_gun.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/comments_dead_twitter_holds_smoking_gun.php Blogging Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:38:56 -0800 Dana Oshiro
Sub.DiggerPlus Finally Makes Digg's Social Network Useful; Too Bad People Are Afraid to Use It subdigglogo.jpgA new service called Sub.DiggerPlus vastly improves the user experience for social news mega-site Digg and its social networking features. The service shows a Digg user's friends' link submissions in an attractive slideshow of live pages inside a frame. Digg's own view of friends' submissions is cluttered with extra pageviews and not a lot of fun to use. Sub.DiggerPlus could make users want to make more friends and increase small group engagement with Digg, something the social networking feature of the site has always aimed for but never really delivered. So what's the catch?

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]]> Digg users are afraid to use Sub.DiggerPlus because Digg has banned users in the past for using scripts to make digging your friends' links faster and more thoughtless. Given Digg's moves today to further open up its API for 3rd party applications, its own highly controversial introduction of a tool-bar frame and the fact that Digging your friends' links without actually looking them up is much easier on the Digg site than it is with the Sub.Diggerplus service - given all that, banning people for using the site would be supremely ironic. On Twitter and Digg, though, people are expressing both excitement about the interface and fear of getting banned for using it.

To use Sub.DiggerPlus just visit the page and enter a username. If it's your username, all the better - but it doesn't have to be because no login is required. Then you'll be taken through a slideshow of all the most recent submissions from friends of the account you entered by name. If you are logged in to Digg, then you'll see the Digg toolbar at the top of the page to vote on the links you're viewing. All of that will go on inside another Sub.DiggerPlus frame - it's my Digg in a box, you might say. (Sorry!)

Sub DiggerPlus10.jpg

The Digg method of viewing friends' submissions shows you links not directly to the pages submitted but to their item pages on Digg with comments, etc. It's pretty unwieldy but it means more pageviews for Digg. Sub.DiggerPlus, on the other hand, makes friends' submissions a lot more fun to stumble through.

So will Digg allow the app to be used - or will the company ban people who use it? It would be absurd for them to ban users on account of this service (unless there's some detail we're not seeing in this story) - but are you ready to risk having your account nuked on the biggest social news site on the web? There's been no word that we've seen from Digg management, but the fear around applications like this can't help but be a hindrance to adoption of the API, for small innovators on the margins at least. Presumably Digg API implementations by large trusted old-media brands will feel nice and safe and see plenty of adoption.

In the meantime - I'll see you at Sub.DiggerPlus.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/subdiggerplus_finally_makes_diggs_social_network_u.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/subdiggerplus_finally_makes_diggs_social_network_u.php Products Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:55:10 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick
Spinn3r Adds Twitter Support and Social Media Ranking Blog-indexing service Spinn3r announced today that for their new 3.1 release, they will offer support for the Twitter firehose - that's right, the entire public Twitter stream - as well as social media rankings.

The Twitter firehose feed content will belong to a new microblog designation that Spinn3r will also use for indexing other microblogging services. The rankings will consider the relationships and links between users and determine the top 10,000 accounts over four social and link-sharing networks.

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]]> The Twitter firehose API is a sample of the full Twitter feed. Now that it's part of what Spinn3r "listens to," this is the breakdown by Spinn3r-indexed service by volume of posts (as opposed to volume of actual posted content or word count):

The rankings cover FriendFeed, Twitter, Digg, and Delicious. Unfortunately, there is no "harmony of the rankings." Each service has its own top-users list. From the Spinn3r blog:

"Sources are ranked by authority whereby the more friends or inbound links you have, the higher your rank... We do not consider raw inbound link count to be an accurate representation of authority. This is highly vulnerable to spam and rank errors as users who attract a large number of links (either through black hat methods, link baiting, or viral marketing) can inflate their rankings..."

"We consider the quality of inbound links to be far more important... The authority for a source is not a direct function of raw inbounds links. Some users can have high authority but very few (relative) inbound links."

The algorithm also considers interactions between friends within networks and connections to "seed" users who were hand-picked based on their in-network clout. Neither Twitter nor Facebook has been fully indexed or ranked yet, but the Spinn3r rankings site says this is a mere matter of time.

This first version of the rankings is published manually and only once; future support will be determined based on user reactions. Spinn3r also hopes to add rankings by vertical to determine the strongest users in political, technological, and other fields.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/spinn3r_adds_twitter_support_and_social_media_rank.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/spinn3r_adds_twitter_support_and_social_media_rank.php Social Web Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:58:00 -0800 Jolie O'Dell
Shouts on Digg are Now Gone - Replaced with Email, Facebook, and Twitter digg_logo.jpgAt 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.

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]]> 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."

digg_share_may09.png

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.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/shouts_on_digg_are_now_gone.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/shouts_on_digg_are_now_gone.php News Tue, 26 May 2009 12:44:11 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
Digg: Shouts Out, Share on Facebook and Twitter In digg_logo.jpgDuring Digg's Townhall (embedded below) this evening, founder Kevin Rose and CEO Jay Adelson announced that the shout feature on Digg will be removed later this week to be replaced with a new share option that will "streamline your ability to share on Facebook and Twitter."

According to an e-mail from Digg tonight, it will likely happen Thursday. "We've elected to remove shouts in favor of more popular sharing options, based on user feedback and broader market research," a Digg spokesperson told us. The new share feature will also include an e-mail option.

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]]> "Right now Digg is really focused on these product updates, you saw some of the things we've released recently [Facebook Connect, Diggbar, search], we really want to move Digg into more of a real-time environment." Adelson said during the Townhall. Dupe detection, which has been promised to Digg users at about six previous Townhalls, is also on the way, according to Adelson "in just a few days."

The shout feature on Digg has been the bane of many a Digg user for some time. While originally created to encourage user interaction, it quickly became a hot tool for spammers. Additionally, many folk, including Mariana Peyton, who put the question "When will you resolve/shut down the shout feature and finally solve the power user issue?" to Adelson and Rose tonight, felt it was a tool used by power users to stake their claim on the site and get their submissions to the front page quicker.

While Digg has yet to activate the new share feature, Muhammad Saleem, social media strategist and an active community member on Digg, tonight told ReadWriteWeb he can understand why Digg would want to remove the shout feature. "It's become a way of spamming stories to hundreds of people to amass votes and promote junk," he explained, "so I am definitely in favor of the removal as long as a new, better feature takes its place."

Unfortunately, he doesn't think that a Twitter-share or Facebook-share option would be a better alternative - or even a good replacement for shouts.

The Problem with Shouts

Saleem explained that Digg instituted shouts as a way for people to share stories with each other, assuming (or hoping) that people would share a story or two now and again with 10-12 of their close friends "like Kevin would send stuff to the Digg team, I would shout something to The Drill Down team, etc."

The problem, of course, was that the feature opened the door to a huge spam fest. People started amassing friends by the hundreds, and then shouting their stories to them in an effort to get the Diggs necessary to get to the front page. Most Diggers would tell you that once Digg realized how the system was being abused, they started limiting the feature, or minimizing the impact of the feature by requiring more Diggs (diversity) for stories that were getting votes as a result of shouts.

"Now," according to Saleem, "they need a better mechanism that still enables people to share things without being penalized, and at the same time they need a system that doesn't get abused."

Because the system can still be abused.

According to Reg Saddler, a.k.a Zaibatsu, power users don't use shout. "Shout is superfluous on Digg. You use it to help out others, but you don't really need it to get the word out about your stories."

Saddler, once a power user on Digg, is now making a name for himself on Twitter. According to Twitalyzer, Saddler's 'clout' value stands at 100%. "On Twitter, I can send a tweet out every single hour to my 83K followers and drive traffic to Digg," Saddler pointed out, "If you are a power user and you have a fan base on Twitter, you don't need the shout feature on Digg."

This is not to say he spams his audience with worthless content; quite the opposite, Saddler has a keen eye for breaking news and is happy to share interesting stories with his online friends; Twitter just allows him to do it in real time.

So what's the answer?

Whether Digg offers its users shouts, Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail, they'll likely be faced with many of the same issues.

According to Saleem, the only option that could work is for Digg to come up with more ground rules, but even that is a tall order. "They are leaders in the space, meaning they face issues many others don't face because they're not at the same level; the solutions they need are to problems that haven't existed before for other companies."

So what do you think? Good move on Digg's part or do you have a better solution in mind? We'd love your thoughts.

Disclaimer: The author of this post co-hosts The Drill Down with Reg Saddler and Muhammad Saleem.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_moving_to_real-time_shouts_out_share_on_faceb.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_moving_to_real-time_shouts_out_share_on_faceb.php News Tue, 19 May 2009 22:41:59 -0800 Lidija Davis
Scoopler: Real-Time Meta-Search for Twitter, Digg, Delicious, and Flickr scoopler_logo.pngCurrent real-time search engines generally focus on just searching a single service - and typically, that service is Twitter. Scoopler, however, a Y Combinater-funded startup which launched today after a short private beta, goes far beyond that. Scoopler is a real-time meta-search tool for Twitter, Flickr, Digg, and Delicious, with support for more services to follow in the future. As one would expect, search results from Twitter dominate the real-time stream, though, depending on the topic, the most interesting links often come from delicious or digg.

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]]> Like most of its competitors, Scoopler splits its screen between a stream of real-time results and a list of popular links, videos, and images. As the real-time stream tends to feature a lot of content from Twitter, the 'popular images' section is where you will find most of the content from Flickr. Though, it would be nice if you could filter the real-time stream by service.

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Scoopler also has some interesting features beyond its search functions. When you hover over a link, for example, you can 'peek' at the results without leaving the site, for example, and you can easily share any link right from the results page as well.

Real-time search is clearly where a lot of the action is right now. We have seen specialized services that just search forum posts, for example, and more comprehensive search engines that include real-time features like Yauba. With Twazzup, Tweetmi, Tweetmeme, DailyRt, OneRiot, and many others, the Twitter real-time search market is almost starting to feel over-saturated already.

We'll have to wait and see if Scoopler can come up with enough additional functions to set itself apart from its competition. As it stands today, it is already an interesting competitor in this market, and one of the few real-time meta-search engines that are currently available (though we have heard from a number of other companies that are working on similar products).

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/scoopler_real-time_meta-search_for_twitter_digg_de.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/scoopler_real-time_meta-search_for_twitter_digg_de.php Search Services Fri, 08 May 2009 10:02:24 -0800 Frederic Lardinois
Kevin Rose Talks Digg, Ads, Dead Trees and Cool Hunters adtech_apr_09.pngDigg, which has spent four years trying to level the playing field and democratize media, will soon receive a facelift. According to Kevin Rose, Digg's founder and chief architect, the site, which hasn't changed much since its inception, will be putting a "stake in the ground this year and making some big changes."

Speaking to the Ad:Tech audience in San Francisco today, Rose talked about Digg's future saying ads need to be more interactive, print can't be saved, online publishers are in an incredible position and the importance of power users may be underestimated.

Update: Digg starts rolliing out its own ads

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]]> Rose on Digg and Advertising

Digg's advertising needs have changed. At the beginning, "we had lots of servers falling over," Rose explained. The deal with Microsoft saved the day, allowing Digg to outsource ad sales while continuing to work on the product. However, Digg is now four years old, and banner ads are no longer enough. It's ready to build its own sales team, which currently stands at 2-3 and Rose estimates it could grow to 10-15 over the next year.

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The site will focus on larger ad campaigns, and according to Rose, turn to its users. "If anything, Digg has users that like voting,' Rose explained, "and I would love to see a world that if something is really crappy, it gets destroyed or thrown off the site." Either that, he said, "or we charge people more for crappy ads," he added with a grin.

While he says he can't "guarantee" this type of social advertising will make it to Digg, it's certainly an attractive ideal. Rose explains that Digg is looking at ways that people can engage with ads, "so the second [an ad] goes up, it's not just about click-throughs; it's more about watching and seeing what [people] think."

Social Advertising?

Rose pointed to the Chevy SUV campaign that invited visitors to create and share their own ad copy on video clips. "It's going to happen," Rose said, and "I'm happy to push it and make it happen sooner."

The caveat, of course, is that Rose doesn't want Digg to be a platform where the only discussion involves comments like "that ad sucks." "I'd hope [conversation] would be deeper," he added.

Although he likes the idea of user involvement when it comes to advertising, Rose noted that there are two problems with these forms of social ads; people are generally conservative and scared to expose their brand in that way, also, the tools aren't there to foster discussion.

But, tools could be coming, and they could be coming to Digg. Last week, in an interview with Mike Arrington, Rose explained that Digg is completely revamping its site and expects it will be seen as a "ballsy move" when unveiled.

Rose on Cool Hunters

Rose, who removed the Top Users list from Digg two years ago, today said that they may soon make a reappearance, but in a different form. "We have these amazing users who have an eye for what the masses will enjoy," Rose said, and "it's important to highlight those people because they are valuable."

"In reality, he said, "they take on what is cool - they're very good at finding high quality content that other people will enjoy - and I don't mind [emphasizing] that"

"I think you'll see us expose that data in the future," Rose added, saying you'll likely get to see who the "tastemakers" turn up to be under specific categories.

Note: If you're interested in seeing Digg top users, Social Blade, which is not affiliated with Digg, maintains a list.

Rose on Dead Tree Media

"Dead tree media is...dead," said Rose, who believes we are entering a world of the personal brand, much like Gary Vaynerchuck described [video link].

The landscape has changed. "It's not necessarily about destination site," Rose continued, like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, "it's about the person writing the article." Walt Mossberg, for instance, will continue to grow his audience, regardless of where he is published, and Rose sees that as power. "He can move his fans and readers in any direction."

And with the transformation taking place in the world of media, it's an important distinction.

Asked whether Digg can help save the newspaper industry, Rose gave a quick, but succinct "no." Although Digg can't help save print, Rose believes it can absolutely empower the sites. "We can help them understand where their traffic is coming from and let them know more about their users and what they like." "And if you know what people like, you can serve better quality ads."

Whether you're a blogger working in your basement or a journalist at the New York Times, it makes no difference. If your content is good, it will get noticed by Digg's cool hunters. Yet not every social site can do this. While many have tried, (Reddit, Mixx, Yahoo Buzz etc.), Digg has always been the leader in consistently leveling the media playing field.

Why Digg? Well, we can't quite put our finger on it, but as Rose told Arrington last week, "I just feel that we're heading in a different direction than them." And at ReadWriteWeb, we agree. What do you think?

Update: It appears Digg is already rolling out is own ads, with the ad below appearing tonight, after the site was taken offline for a couple of hours. This comes not 12 hours after Rose gave his keynote at Ad:Tech earlier today.

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Photo Credit: Flickr Affiliate

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/kevin_rose_talks_digg_ads_dead_trees_and_cool_hunt.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/kevin_rose_talks_digg_ads_dead_trees_and_cool_hunt.php Conferences Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:17:26 -0800 Lidija Davis
Digg Demos Optimized Datastreams Any good webmaster knows the cardinal rules of website optimization. Yahoo! wrote them all up years ago on its Developer Network site. And the more of these rules you can adhere to, the faster your site will load for your visitors. But, more and more often as sites turn to using asynchronous technologies like AJAX to make their sites more responsive and act more like applications, the old rules lose their effectiveness.

Today, the website wizards behind Digg have revealed a new technology called MXHR, or Multi-Part XML HTTP Requests, as a method for optimizing delivery of Digg's complex AJAX-enhanced site. The implementation of MXHR is an addition to Digg's User Interface Library, called DUI.Stream. While still in a fairly rough early stage, Digg believes that MXHR will eventually give it a huge boost in un-cached page rendering efficiency.

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]]> There's a couple of problems that Digg has with using traditional optimization techniques. First, the site violates the first rule in a big way, since it uses multiple HTTP connection requests in order to render all parts of the page. Dialog boxes, comments, user icons and more all have to be delivered quickly and with equal priority, and multiple requests was the only way to go until recently.

Second, it can't rely on too much caching to help speed page load times. Digg is a discussion board as much as it is a news site, so caching is a huge problem. Active stories can sometimes have hundreds of new threaded comments being created every minute, and caching would cause huge discrepancies on how much of the conversation each client would actually see from moment to moment.

These issues are what MXHR is designed to optimize. Utilizing DUI.Stream to open only one HTTP connection between server and client, the separate 'page objects' such as dialog boxes, CSS and more can be bundled and sent through the same open connection. By eliminating, in some cases, hundreds of separate HTTP connection requests for a page render, it can approach the rendering speed of a fully-cached page. Plus, this allows the server to control the order in which each page element will be built. This will result in the page appearing almost instantaneously for the user with the the hidden framework being backfilled as needed.

Digg provides two examples of the DUI.Stream library in action, the first being an un-cached text demo, and the second an un-cached image demo. While the first example isn't too amazing, from what we saw the new library performs on par with traditional rendering, the second example with icons is stupidly faster. It's absolutely no contest that MXHR is the clear winner there.

Code is provided in the post for you developer-types out there to play around with along with a GitHub repository of examples. Digg is looking for feedback and suggestions on how to improve on this so please go take a look! We can't wait to see this tech get deployed so that we can have all the bells and whistles of Web 2.0 architecture plus all the speed of a well-optimized site.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_demos_optimized_datastreams.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_demos_optimized_datastreams.php News Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:15:00 -0800 Phil Glockner
Digg Reacts to Critics: Changes the Way the DiggBar Works diggbar_apr_09.jpgWhile we liked Digg's new DiggBar for its features, its release also created quite an uproar in the SEO community. Now, Digg has announced that it will change the way the DiggBar works, which should pacify a lot of Digg's critics. Among other things, the DiggBar will now only appear when users are logged in to Digg, so that content providers will continue to receive full credit from search engines, without Digg's iframe getting in the way. Digg will roll these changes out over the next week or so.

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]]> These changes to the DiggBar's behavior, according to Digg, will also ensure that Digg's short URLs won't be indexed by any of the major search engines. Just last week, Digg's John Quinn told us that the company wasn't planning to use regular permanent redirects, but clearly, the protests over the last few days made Digg change its mind.

For more details about the 'Diggate' controversy, have a look at our earlier coverage of the DiggBar's implications with regards to SEO and copyright.

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Lots of Activity on the DiggBar

Digg also announced that an astonishing 45% of all the activity on Digg is now happening on the DiggBar, and 25% of all DiggBar users are using the toolbar to discover new content by looking at related stories. According to John Quinn, only a very small number of Digg users have disabled the toolbar.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_reacts_to_critics_changes_the_way_the_diggbar_works.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_reacts_to_critics_changes_the_way_the_diggbar_works.php News Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:23:43 -0800 Frederic Lardinois