Diggers digging their own hole?
Monday, January 28, 2008
With social news networks like Digg around for some time now, the interesting realities of human behavior on these types of sites are being revealed.
Last week, Founder Kevin Rose announced that a new algorithm would take control over Digg, changing the way stories make their way to becoming popular on the network.
Leaving complexities aside, the basic idea is that from now on, the diversity of people digging stories will be taken into consideration in deeming which articles are catapulted to the top of Digg and which are buried in its depths.
For prominent Diggers, this change might mean a sudden fall from grace. Apparently, there is a group of them that has invested such an avid participation in the site, that they, in principal, control it.
This means that the “popular” stories we read are really not popular by true definition. Rather, the Diggers in this specific and relatively small group are the ones who deem articles to be “popular.”
Obviously, news of the changed algorithm caused an uproar among these Diggers. After all, no one likes to be stripped of their power, no matter how mediocre it might be.
Fortunately, Digg founders did not ignore their devoted fans despite their dictatorship-style tactics. Rather than admonishing them for turning Digg into their own personal platform, Kevin Rose and his fellow Digg leaders talked things out with some of these high profile Diggers, who were charging them with abandonment.
This scenario is an interesting two-sided coin. On the one side, these dedicated Diggers are the pulse of Digg. On the flipside, though, those who visit on a less frequent basis might feel - and some apparently do (see comments) - that Digg is a pointless endeavor. This sentiment discourages recurrent use of the program, stripping it of hits, which equal value.
It seems that morale has won this round. However, in time, I predict that we will see more of these types of situations. The basic elements of human behavior are inherent no matter if we are interacting in the real or in a virtual world. In a social group, there will always be those who take charge, while the majority remains largely apathetic.Labels: digg, Internet, social media, Web 2.0
And they’re off
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
With the primaries well on their way, we are beginning to see the real impact social media is having on the voter turnouts as well as the actual votes cast. For reference sake, I will note that on Facebook, Obama has an overwhelming lead with 61% of participants of the US Politics feature supporting him. Clinton has just 18%, and Edwards comes in 3rd with 10%.
On the Republican side, surprisingly, Ron Paul is the front runner with 37%. The support for the other candidates is split fairly evenly. In order, Huckabee is 2nd with 19%, Romney 3rd with 14% and McCain 4th with 11%.
Facebook doesn’t break down these figures further, for example, indicating the median age of supporters. However, it can be safely assumed that the majority of these folks are in their 20s and 30s and, thus, represent a voice younger than that captured by the polls conducted by CNN and other traditional news organizations.
With that said, the argument can be made that social media is having a relatively big impact for Democrats. In Iowa last week, where Obama was victorious, young people came out in record numbers. According to Time, “[t]urnout among the youngest slice of the electorate more than doubled from 2004.”
The same was true in New Hampshire yesterday. In a press release today about the state’s voter turnout, the presence of youth - deemed as adults under 30 - increased 25% from 2004, from just 18% to 43%.
An article from MTV.com about Clinton’s win in NH broke down the numbers. In Iowa, just 10% of Democrats aged 17-24 voted for her, while 57% voted for Obama. In New Hampshire, 22% of 18-24 year olds supported Clinton, but an astounding 60% rallied for Obama.
So how did Clinton manage to win in New Hampshire? While young voters are taking the most active role in history in the primaries, so is the rest of the population! In that same article, strong support from women, 46% to be exact, was cited as the reason for her win in NH. Apparently, women in Iowa don’t care much for other women.
Perhaps what’s even more telling about the success of social media in these elections is CBS’ announced plans this week to partner with Digg on coverage pertaining to the campaigns. It’s a you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours kind of deal. CBSNew.com will feature stories rated highly on Digg on their site and Digg will feature articles from CBSNews.com.
It’s nice to know that when all is said and done in November, our country is already well on its way to creating real change. Through the integration of social media, apathy is quickly becoming very passé.Labels: 2008 elections, digg, Facebook, new media, politics, social media, Web 2.0
Let’s Digg into it
Friday, May 04, 2007
Digg faced a Google-esque controversy this week when Chester Millisock, a 24 year old programmer, was banned from the Digg community for posting a quasi-known encryption on how to illegally copy high definition DVDs and then reregistered and bumped the code up for millions of viewers to take note. When Digg tried to intervene, users were outraged, citing freedom of speech as Millisock’s right - as well as their own - to post and view the information. At first, I was proud of Digg for standing up to the big bad corporate giants. This ethical dilemma of technology cracking the entertainment industry is getting old. Yes, technology is moving forward, and yes, if you want your salaries to remain in the six figures, media moguls, you must move with and beyond it. But then I found out that the information in question is apparently illegal to publish. BusinessWeek’s Catherine Holahan’s article on the issue, explains that this code has been circling for years and in 2000, publishing it was declared illegal in the Universal City Studios vs. Reimierds case. So, Digg is clearly breaking the law by displaying the information. At 1pm on May 1st, Jay Adelson, Digg CEO, blogged to this point by stating, quite rationally, that whether users “agree or disagree with the policies of the intellectual property holders and consortiums, in order for Digg to survive, it must abide by the law.” His common sense left users so unsatisfied that at 9pm on that same day, Kevin Rose, Digg Founder, presented an alternative stance, which was the clear favorite "We hear you,” Kevin blogged, “and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying." That is a bold statement to make in a world where Viacom is suing Google for what some might argue is a similar complaint. Then again, can a company that relies so heavily on its users afford to take the opposite stance? Digg lawyers thought so, but their advice was obviously not heeded. Instead, Kevin rose – pun intended – to this PR crisis communications occasion by positioning Digg as strictly pro user. His risk implies that he has ample faith that the power of the people will prevail should – maybe more like when – Digg goes to court. Or maybe Kevin realized that he could not risk a boycott and that they need the audience Digg has built up to keep those ad dollars flowing. I wonder what investors Greylock and Omidyar have to say about this. Will Diggers stand by their fearless leader or will the law prevail? We will have to stay tuned. Labels: digg, pr
Redefining Our Role
Friday, March 30, 2007
This week two magazines were laid to rest. On Monday, the announcement came from Time Inc that Life Magazine will have its last issue on April 20th. Then, on Wednesday, Meredith Corp. announced that it will no longer be printing Child Magazine. As if to console both publications’ dwindling audiences, Time and Meredith promised to reincarnate the magazines online. The photo archive of Life magazine will live on in its new online format and Child will co-exist among American Baby, Family Circle and Parents in Meredith’s upcoming parenting-and-family portal. The death of print is no longer a projection, it is upon us and so the ultimate question for us becomes: how do we practice our craft in a world without print? Can we pitch a blogger in the way we have grown accustomed to pitching journalists? Will there be a few authoritative news websites or will we each find our own preference for news and entertainment? These questions can only be answered in time. However, while print may be dying, public relations is in store for a transformation. During this period of flux, we have the power to sculpt our role and approach to this emerging online news world. Now is the time to cultivate relationships with influential bloggers and to follow sites like Digg and The Huffington Post. It is also likely that traditional forms of media will live on in the online realm. The New York Times, USA Today and others may remain strong players in a space in which standalone blogs are not required to prescribe to journalistic ethics on which we have come to rely. However, Time has taught us that this logic does not always follow. Life Magazine is a journalistic icon. Who would have predicted its death in its heyday? Another critical element is the way companies communicate with the public. Already, many CEOs are blogging. In the future, a company’s messaging will have to be even more dynamic. Crisis communications, for example, will account for a wider array of situations that previously may not have been relevant because of the time gap between a crisis and the news picking it up. With the internet, there is no time gap; news is delivered instantly. Blogs -- and the many other resources that will undoubtedly surface -- become enormous assets for companies because they allow instant response. In addition, they provide companies with the opportunity to voice their messages consistently, making their reactions during a crisis more appropriate and meaningful. While no one can be sure what media will look like in five or ten years, we can be certain that public relations will be a large piece of this shifting puzzle. Labels: blog, crisis communications, digg, pr
The Importance of Wikipedia
Friday, March 09, 2007
We all use this vast repository of human knowledge from time to time. There's no denying it. So shouldn't the 10th most visited site on the Internet provide authority to all of the other websites that made it so popular? Jimmy Wales no longer thinks so, even though the Wikipedia community does. How important is Wikipedia? Enough to attract the attention of universities who refuse to call it a legitimate source and senators who want to ban it in public libraries (either intentionally or out of ignorance through overarching laws). Yet for all of these naysayers, it is still an authoritative place to post mostly un-biased information and refer back to it. Newcomers to the Internet may not realize it, but Wikipedia was a fix for one of the longstanding problems of the Open Directory Project (which was never really open in the first place). In addition to providing encyclopedic tidbits, you can also link to relevant articles and external sites. As the Internet has grown exponentially in size, it has shown how much we lack a truly open directory. Search engines are great for finding websites based on keywords, but not if you want a hierarchical view to discover things on your own. What happens if you know nothing about a particular category? You can't search on keywords, so you need to do old fashioned research. Without an online Dewey decimal system, we only have Wikipedia. So there's no reason that links from this great amalgamation of knowledge should not be authoritative. When everyone in the world links to Wikipedia articles making it the 10th most visited website in the world, it seems unfair that links back to the real world no longer provide the same authority back. Especially when we've seen the alternative in the Open Directory Project that relies on mysterious editors who rarely log in to approve or decline your submissions. In reality, it was about as closed of a system as the Yahoo Directory. If Netscape had done something with ODP instead of trying to copy Digg's interface, they could have renewed interest in one of their most influential properties. But they didn't. So I, like so many others, have helped to build up Wikipedia with my time, research, and monetary donation. I know Mr. Wales is concerned with spam, as we all should be. However, I think he underestimates the Wikipedia braintrust who has done quite well at keeping this to a minimum so far. As the Foundation slowly learns how to deal with anonymity, it should begin to embrace its authority, not run from it. That's the Wikipedia I want to support, at least. Labels: digg, seo, Wikipedia
Long Tails and Wise Crowds: Some Pre-qualification Necessary
Sunday, July 16, 2006
So, I'm just getting into James Surowiecki's book, The Wisdom of Crowds. I know I'm a Johnny-come-lately to blogging about this book, but as I encounter the pre-qualifications of what makes a crowd smart, I keep coming running into similarities to what makes a market have a long tail. With The Long Tail, the qualifiers are increasingly simple means of production, distribution and filters, turning making the supply-side virtually infinite. Because online shopping is striving to become a mere 25% of all commerce, long tail markets are still the exception and not the rule. Admittedly, it will be becoming more so over time, because improving technology dictates improving supply-side capabilities. But today, the long tail is mostly an eBusiness phenomenon.
Similarly, the absolutely counterintuitive notions of the wise crowd are predicated on a diverse sampling of people. If the crowd is too homogeneous, such as everyone being smart, the crowd actually gets stupider, because cohesion and bias sets in. James refers to the bad decisions leading up to the Bay of Pigs invasion as an example. The same people who thought up the idea were the ones consulted on whether they thought it could work, and vital facts were left out of the decision making process had they used a larger sampling of people, such as the intelligence branch of the CIA or the Cuban desk of the State Department. So, just because you have a crowd and an independent voting mechanism doesn't mean you have superior predictive or decision making capabilities.
And that has been on my mind recently, thinking about Digg. Digg has many of the things going for it that one would think necessary to create a Wikipedia-like phenomenon. There was a debate recently of whether Digg was better than The New York Times, and could one day have a larger audience and influence. This brought me back to making Digg part of my daily read, least I get left out. I quickly took it off again, realizing the signal-to-noise ratio was excessive for the finite time I was willing to allocate. Linux stories, no matter how small, are considered front page material by the Digg audience, while actual newsworthy stories, even in technology, faced a difficult challenge in rising to the top.
It was with this perspective that I watched with interest as Jason Calacanis helped AOL launch the new Digg-like Netscape, but with Anchor picks. I thought, OK, here's where the wisdom of the crowd could be brought to bear on news, but without the anti-Microsoft Geek agenda bias. Not because of the Anchors, but rather because of the broader and more diverse sampling of audience a site like Netscape could bring to bear on the problem. It's too early to draw any conclusions, and I certainly wouldn't replace the Yahoo top-headline RSS news feed on my mobile phone with the Netscape feed yet. But the fact that technology news is getting mixed right in with politics and natural disasters is an interesting sign. Considering it's the Time Warner conglomerate behind this, I think they could have given the endeavor an even better chance by picking a more news-oriented domain from their portfolio, like Time.com. It may have less traffic (according to Alexa), but it's probably a better audience for this sort of experiment. Now, that would have made news, and really tested the viability of the new news dynamic.
So, my summer reading list also includes Inside the Tornado and The Tipping Point, two books which I know are all about pre-qualification. Not every company finds themselves inside the tornado having to deal with hypergrowth. And since the bust, it's even fewer. But still, it does happen, such as with MySpace. And Connors may have such a case in HitTail--only time will tell. But I'm VERY interested in those pre-qualifications that the Tornado book deals with.
Similarly with The Tipping Point, not every industry undergoes rapid change analogous to the outbreak of an epidemic. It's only when such-and-such conditions are met (the pre-qualifications) that you reach a point of no return. It may take overcoming much initial resistance before a process is set irrevocably in motion. I revert back to the Google example. Google taking over the world was not inevitable in its early days as seems intuitively obvious today. DogPile and Mamma seemed MUCH better than Google to the casual observer in those early days. A lot of people had to be convinced to look closer before dismissing this minimalist colorform-esque site. What exactly were the pre-qualifying factors that ALLOWED Google to overcome and reach the tipping point? I need to know.
So my final point is that these generalizations about disruptions to the shape of business, culture and our lives always seem to require pre-qualification, which has something of a dampening effect. If every new business concept were as transforming as the hype accompanying the launch and the book's success, then society would be getting transformed and re-transformed at a more rapid pace. In the face of books like The Long Tail, The Tipping Point, Crossing the Chasm and others of that ilk, I'm constantly in conflict over how much I buy into the pontifications of business guru, and recently deceased, Peter Drucker. I REALLY believe most of what Drucker has to say about the underlying tenants of business, success and change. And in the end, I think Peter Drucker was right about most things: you might say about the first 20% of things that make 80% of the difference. And you'll really appreciate the irony of that statement if you're a longtailer.Labels: blog, digg, The Long Tail
Getting Your Site Indexed in One Month
Thursday, July 06, 2006
So, the HitTail domain was registered only 1 month ago. Yet, it is already at the top of Google on some limited keywords, such as longtail marketing. Sure, it's obscure, but obscure keywords that actually are searched-on and convert are exactly the point of HitTailing. But maybe more significant is the fact that today is July 6th, and the HitTail domain only became active on June 6th. And yet, we're included, and indeed at the top of results, on many Google searches already. This flies in the face of conventional SEO wisdom, that you should expect up to a 6-month waiting period, especially on brand new domain names. What's going on here?
I'm particularly interested, because a story got pushed to the front page of Digg yesterday about getting your site indexed before you launch. The Digg crowd immediately lambasted the poster for putting up common sense information, being self-promotional, and generally spamming Digg. This is in marked contrast to the over 700 diggs the story received by the time I read it. There seems to be some disparity between the information that general Diggers value, vs. those who take the time to post comments. Because they're at a "democratic" news site (not really), they seem to already be interested in new ways of propagating news. Yet any story even touching on alternative online marketing methods, especially SEO, results in the geek game of pile-on the spammer. It appears that spam is only permissible if your agenda is the furthering of the Linux cause, in which case no story is too small (I got Debian running on my wristwatch, etc.)
One particularly unenlightened commenter had this to say:
"Hmmm. Maybe the highly intelligent person responsible for this article needs to find out about the Google Age-Delay feature. This prevents any new domain name being indexed and listed with any authority in the first 6 months of going live. This is to prevent domain spammers from using multiple domains to span a single site, or to create so many links between "fake" domains that the google PageRank is spammed into providing BS rankings. So - no - this doesn't work with Google unless your domain is already 6 months old - by which time it will be well and truly indexed. Kinda stupid really.
It's like these SEO companies that charge $70,000 to do a job which takes one guy about 2 days work, and none of it technical. [Deleted] useless. And the people who hire them: [deleted]." This commenter's notions are so incorrect, I don't know where to start. First off, brand new domains can receive top Google rankings in under 1 month. We've proven and documented that. Whatever "age delay" feature there may be in Google is merely a dampening effect to slow down the influence of suddenly appearing sites. It follows the same "crawl-to-crawl" iterative process documented in their patent applications from last year, meaning that brand new sites are diluted in their influence merely by virtue of not having built up any momentum.
There was some fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) introduced based on the large number of chances wrought by the updates nicknamed Jagger, then BigDaddy. But the core principles of BackRub are still as intact today as they were during the earliest days of Google behind the walls of Stanford. We know that through constant monitoring. The commenter's opinions are some speculative notions that were espoused around the time of these updates to explain why so many people were having difficulty getting new domains indexed. We had the same issue, and overcame it in the 6-month period the user stated. But the 6-month delay rule can not be used as a generalization.
A website's inclusion and positive standings in the results can be jump-started by sudden worldwide organic linking to a site in a way that is impossible to fake, such as happened with HitTail. I'm sure this is Google's way of not excluding sites that become significant suddenly in a very short timeframe. Were Google to not include such sites, it would itself appear not relevant. The Google default search is in itself a news source driven by the wisdom of crowds. And the crowd can accelerate relevancy and natural inclusion.
The point the commenter makes about 2-days of work for one person to do non-technical work... well, I'd like to see the commenter fix such a site with 10,000+ pages run by enterprise content management systems that never had search friendliness as a criteria in the first place. This is often the case. In fact, in addition to the sites being hopelessly broken from a search perspective, the organizations themselves are often riddled with politics--particularly between the marketing and the IT people. SEO is highly technical, sometimes requiring coding and implementing completely new "presentation layers" in existing systems, and sometimes requiring rapid and intelligent tagging of thousands of resources. On top of the technical projects, there is an equal amount of finesse in building consensus among all the stakeholders, so that the projects actually can get done.
Domains can be registered and brought to the top of Google results in under a month. It's easiest to do this when the website itself is graced with sudden worldwide popularity, and the inevitable globally dispersed organic linking that accompanies such popularity. It is also easiest to accomplish when the targeted keywords are not of the most competitive sort, but rather are long tail keywords, such as those recommended by HitTail. If you're looking for the edge in online marketing, ignore the conventional wisdom, especially if it's coming from Digg commenters. And that's a generalization you can count on.Labels: digg, Google, HitTail, HitTail Plus, seo
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