"It's a trap. When you download it runs a validation check to see if you are running a pirated version of photoshop. Which then logs your ip back to Adobe HQ who then mark the ip address in the automated billing system. You will recieve [sic] a fine for $500 in the next 2 to 5 working days. Congratulations" -- luke16

The problem, though, that's not true. The book download is just a PDF file; it doesn't run a version check on Photoshop, it doesn't log your IP address, and SitePoint has no relationship with Adobe. Nonetheless, enough Digg users bought into luke16's active imagination that the story was buried.

"So anyone else in the digg community who might be interested in a full, print-quality Photoshop book -- sorry, you miss out," wrote Tilley. "All because some goose decided to throw around some unsubstantiated claim about the legitimacy of our giveaway. What's worse is that everyone believed him!"

Crowd Rules

SitePoint's experience is an example of herd behavior or groupthink, where the Digg group acted blindly on poor information, without rationally thinking it through. This is a problem with the wisdom of crowds concept: if unchecked, rather than coming to the best conclusion based on the wisdom of the group, a crowd can come to the worst conclusion based on dumbness that spreads from a single bad node.

Last year, we laid out a set of rules to get the most out of a crowd. It might be a good idea to revisit those here:

1. Crowds should operate within constraints. To harness the collective intelligence of crowds, there need to be rules in place to maintain order.
2. Not everything can be democratic. Sometimes a decision needs to be made, and having a core team (or single person) make the ultimate decision can provide the guidance necessary to get things done and prevent crazy ideas and groupthink from wreaking havoc on your product.
3. Crowds must retain their individuality. Encourage your group to disagree, and try not to let any members of the group disproportionately influence the rest.
4. Crowds are better at vetting content than creating it. It is important to note that in most of the above projects, the group merely votes on the final product; they do not actually create it.

Digg's problem lies in the third point -- members were able to quickly spread undue influence on the group via poor information that caused undesired results before that information could be properly vetted by the group for accuracy. Eventually, more reasoned commenters on Digg shot down luke16's paranoid conspiracy theory, but by that time it was too late, the story had already been buried.

Digg probably gets it right far more often than it gets it wrong, but SitePoint's experience is a lesson in the dangers of letting a crowd run wild. Any site that relies on a crowd to organize information should be wary of things like this happening.

Since then, SitePoint has experienced tremendous growth in their Marketplace, and expects to see $60 million worth of web sites for sale this year. How many of those will actually sell is another matter altogether, but sales were up 290% last month to $1.2 million in declared sales out of about $5 million listed (i.e., the total asking price of all sites listed in April). The site's Premium Sites section (reserve of $10,000+) has seen an approximately 20% sell through rate since January.

The Marketplace, which also includes sections for selling domains, templates, scripts and software, and other services, now accounts for 35% of SitePoint's traffic, eclipsing their very large forums in popularity. SitePoint's forums have 250,000 members and 3-4k simultaneous users at all times, so that's saying something. SitePoint actually just recently launched a new forum for the discussion of selling web sites.

How many of the sites being sold on SitePoint are web apps or web 2.0 mashups is hard to tell -- my guess is not all that many. Most of the sites up for sale on the SitePoint Marketplace are niche content plays, ecommerce sites, or web discussion forums. But the occasional web 2.0 startup does cross their pages. SitePoint will never be the place to sell very large ticket sites (it's doubtful that you'll see Google trawling the SitePoint Marketplace looking for an acquisition -- though that's where TechCrunch picked up InviteShare last summer), but it is a good exit option for smaller, "me-too" startups, mashups, or niche social networks.

Full disclosure: For four years I was a volunteer moderator at SitePoint's Forums, and also moderated sales in the Marketplace section, where I helped to create many of the original buyer/seller guidelines. I am no longer involved with the site.

"Right now, if you want images, you have two options. You could hire an artist (expensive, difficult, and time-consuming) or you could surf microstock sites (cheap, but frustrating and time-consuming). Pixish seeks to be a middle path," writes Pixish founder and CEO Powazek.

Powazek compares Pixish to Threadless, which uses the wisdom of crowds to design t-shirts, with the key difference being that Pixish members can create open submission calls for any visual product or need. But a better parallel would be design contest sites. There are a number of them, but one of the biggest and most well-known is SitePoint's Contest area (which is in the process of being spun off and rebranded as 99Designs.com).

Similar to Pixish, SitePoint facilitates open calls for design jobs where designers submit work. Unlike Pixish, SitePoint requires that winning designers are compensated with cash. Which approach will work? I know from experience as a volunteer moderator at SitePoint that the design contest approach is often the target of criticism from people who believe that spec work is detrimental to designers. I personally disagree, and know plenty of designers who use spec work like design contests to gain real world experience, build their portfolios, and have also found long term clients by participating in sites like SitePoint's Contest area... but I digress.

I think it is likely that sites like SitePoint's will likely attract more professional designers, while Pixish will attract people who do art and design for fun. For someone who is trying to pay the bills with design work, competing for copies of a magazine might not be the best way to spend their time. But for someone who does design as a hobby, it might be a fun way to hone their craft.

Full disclosure: I recently sold a design contest site that I co-founded in 2005 called GFXContests.com and remain a volunteer moderator on SitePoint's forums (moderators of which also moderate the contests area).