Social Dose

The decline and fall of a  major social networking site isn’t something you read about every day. But if you’re witnessing it first hand in what is only the second decade of the nascent global Intertubes, it can be quite an experience.

“This is why I love Digg” swoons another acne-faced Digger after reading a mind numbingly moronic Digg thread dedicated to phalluses and peckers, which in turn was created in response to user comments to an equally idiotic yet somewhat humorous submission about how the Florida capitol building apparently looks phallic (complete with flanking testicle-domes). Why someone would love Digg for demonstrating the abysmal intellect of its members who openly celebrate their idiocy may be beyond most casual observers.

If age-old, regurgitated lame penis jokes is the primary reason why we too should love Digg then please, leave us out. The pathetic decline of Digg has been quite a spectacle for all those interested in social networking and social bookmarking, but this one really takes the cake. Mr. Rose, read and weep.

Horray! Reddit made it to the front page of arch-rival Digg. Again. In what seems like a not too surprising occurence once every couple of weeks or so, Digg seems to “emulate” arch social bookmarking rival yet again. This time, its a Youtube video about glass and scotch tape. This was posted on Reddit on 22 July 2009.

The exact same video made it to the front page of Digg on 23 July 2009, the very next day. Deja vu anyone?

This is hardly surprising, as the favourite pastime for Digg power users seems to be scavenging day-old Reddit content and posting it on Digg to get rave reviews by 16 year old virgins. Digg is rapidly becoming the Fox News of social bookmarking. Unoriginal, run of the mill, mass consumed. That’s Digg for ya.

Original Reddit Link

Unoriginal Digg Link

A pattern seems to be emerging that appears to be more than just plain coincidence. Important socioeconomic news tends to appear on Digg a full day after it appears on the front page of Reddit. Case in point: Dubai’s Slave Society, an article in the UK newspaper The Independent about Dubai’s appalling human rights problems. (Reddit: The dark side of Dubai)

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Social bookmarking behemoth Digg has launched a sizzling hot service-extending application called DiggBar. As can be inferred by the name, the service extends Digg functions beyond the website to a toolbar. But it is not a Firefox extension, an Internet Explorer accelerator or a Wordpress plugin. No.

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On April Fool’s day visitors to Reddit were treated to an atrocious mockup of Digg complete with a Digg-font rendered logo named “Reddigg”. Many who had the misfortune of going to the massively popular social bookmarking website on this day could not believe their eyes, presuming at first that they had landed at competitor Digg instead. Upon closer scrutiny, however, the true reality of Reddigg dawned upon many avid Redditors.

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Part 1

In the epic cyberwars between social bookmarking titans Digg and Reddit, each has carved a specific market niche and has managed to garner a massive following of those looking for the latest news fix. Both social networking services have their own major strengths, but with regards to at least one very important quality indicator, Reddit takes the clear lead.

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