Comments on: Are social news sites like Digg useful anymore?

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:14:17 +0000

I don't think social news is useless I think the main representatives *of* social news, the ones that previously or originally defined the genre, have evolved into something else but haven't shaken the *label* social news.

By: TwitterCritic and FriendFeed’s “show best of” show best of the rise of the smart people networks ¦ Online Media Cultist

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:21:29 +0000

[...] content aggregation can come in the form of social news sites, though I’ve recently mused whether Digg is as useful as it used to be. For me, Techmeme is an absolute goldmine of smart [...]

By: TwitterCritic and FriendFeed’s “show best of” show best of the rise of the smart people networks ¦ Online Media Cultist

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:21:29 +0000

[...] content aggregation can come in the form of social news sites, though I’ve recently mused whether Digg is as useful as it used to be. For me, Techmeme is an absolute goldmine of smart [...]

By: vdegeorge

vdegeorge — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:16:21 +0000

Digg lags so far behind my FriendFeed that it's hardly useful to me.

By: Eric Berlin

Eric Berlin — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:02:30 +0000

I agree bigeasy, and in the end usefulness for a social media platform comes down to the community itself, with features and design and functionality merely helping to support and facilitate media sharing and communication.

I keep hearing about mixx — may have to look at Digg vs. Mixx and report my findings …

By: Eric Berlin

Eric Berlin — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:59:56 +0000

Reilly, there are some but as you note none that have really stood out from the pack as yet. It'll happen one of these days, I'd think !

By: YouYap.com

YouYap.com — Mon, 19 May 2008 04:05:36 +0000

it cool website. i like it so much, i am cloning it http://www.youyap.com

By: Link Sharing: 5/17/08 » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest

Link Sharing: 5/17/08 » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest — Sat, 17 May 2008 16:30:05 +0000

[...] Are Social Sites Like Digg Even Useful Anymore? Eric checks out the top stories on Digg, Reddit, Techmeme, and Memorandum. I’d say Digg and Reddit have shifted from “useful” to “entertaining”. [...]

By: bigeasy

bigeasy — Sat, 17 May 2008 03:22:02 +0000

I think the answer to the question depends on the site. I don't find Digg to be particularly useful or even fun for that matter.

However, I have a much different take on Mixx, which has rapidly become one of my favorite sites. There are hundreds of articles and blog posts out there by reformed Diggers about why Mixx is a superior site, so I'll decline to go into too much detail as to why.

The short version is that Mixx offers superior features (groups, breaking news and tags, just to name a few). A brief review a comment thread from a random front-page submission on either site demonstrates the superiority of Mixx's community relative to chaotic war-zone that Digg comment threads usually become.

The point is, some sites are useful and some aren't. I don't think that any broad statements as to the usefulness of such sites can be applied to the genre as a whole.

By: Reilly

Reilly — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:17:42 +0000

Good point. At some point there's just detritus overload.

I agree with the notion that social news sites should become more vertical, but some of the early attempts at that have been slow going. I happen to like cars a lot and most of the social news sites for cars have been useless. Other than Digg/Reddit (which are somewhat horizontal, but as we know basically internet culture stuff), are there any truly vertical news sites?