digg posts

Digg's homepage will display trending stories for user voting

by Jay Hathaway Nov 5th 2009

How can a Digg story make the front page without making the front page? Digg is about to show you, by placing some highly-active stories on the homepage for 10 minutes at a time before they have enough diggs to be there. By putting these trending stories up front, Digg intends to have a higher volume of users digg or bury them, as a sort of filter to decide what belongs on that coveted high-traffic front page.

"Activity," in terms of getting a story to trend, doesn't just mean diggs. It also means comments, favorites and shares. Because these trends will be gone in 10 minutes if they don't survive the voting process, Digg has started a Twitter account to announce new trends and give more users a change to vote on them. Stories will only show basic information, to cut down on bias in the voting.

Let's have a little vote of our own: do you think putting Digg trends on the homepage is a good idea?

Tags: digg, front page, FrontPage, homepage, trends, voting

Filed under: Macintosh, Social Software

Realmac buys EventBox social networking app, calls it Socialite

by Jay Hathaway Oct 6th 2009

Eventbox, an all-in-one social networking app with Twitter, Flickr, Google Reader and Digg support (and more), impressed me when I reviewed it last year. Now it's been acquired by UK-based Realmac software, makers of LittleSnapper and Rapidweaver (and, full disclosure, home to Download Squad's Nik Fletcher). So, to acknowledge its new developers, Eventbox is also getting a new name: Socialite.

Socialite 1.0 launches in November, and existing Eventbox users will be able to get new, free licenses. RealMac hasn't announced any firm plans in terms of features, but Socialite will continue to support all the services it does now. A brand-new license for Socialite will run you $20.

Tags: digg, eventbox, facebook, google reader, GoogleReader, realmac, social networking, socialite, SocialNetworking, twitter

Filed under: Internet, Social Software

Tweetmixx helps you see what's hot on Twitter

by John Burke Sep 23rd 2009

As Twitter becomes more popular, it's become increasingly difficult to stay on top of links, content and stuff you're friends and followers are sharing. Made from the same guys behing Mixx, a Digg-style website that features user submitted content that you can vote on, Tweetmixx is designed to make it much easier to share and view links and content found in tweets.

After logging in with your Twitter username and password, you'll immediately be presented with a cool list of links found in your friends' tweets. See comments on them, view hot trends and even post and share directly from Tweetmixx. You can even specify interests that will help filter stuff you're interested in seeing.

Tags: digg, filter, links, mixx, sharing, trends, tweetmixx, Twitter

Filed under: News, Microsoft, Browsers

YouTube and Digg help speed up the slow death of IE6

by Jay Hathaway Jul 20th 2009

As browsers and web standards evolve, Internet Explorer 6 becomes a great and greater liability to web designers. Making sites compatible with the dilapidated browser has taken up countless working hours, and led to several calls to get rid of it or stop supporting it altogether. It seems some progress is finally being made, though, with YouTube ending IE6 support and Digg discussing doing the same. If other high-traffic sites follow suit, perhaps business will stop forcing employees to use horribly outdated browser.

Digg was considering adding a message encouraging IE6 users to upgrade their browsers, but ultimately decided against it, after finding that a huge number of IE6 users had to use the browser at work, or didn't have admin access on their machines to install something better. YouTube, on the other hand, gives IE6 users prominent links to each of the three biggest modern browsers (Firefox, IE8 and Chrome). YouTube hasn't released any statistics yet, but IE6 users only accounted for a single-digit percentage of Digg's traffic. If other high profiles sites decide they're sick of spending time and money to support 5% of their visitors, IE6 might finally get to rest in peace.

Tags: digg, ie6, internet-explorer-6, microsoft, youtube

Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

Diggbar links now land on Digg instead of original sources

by Jay Hathaway Jul 19th 2009

Digg users recently noticed some interesting new behavior related to Digg's shortURL service, the Diggbar: instead of shortlinks going directly to their destinations, logged-out users who click them will now land on the corresponding Digg.com page. Sure, that's a lot of new traffic for Digg, but it's problematic because the change was never announced, and users who generate Digg links might not know where they're pointing.

Some folks are reasonably upset about the change, including Mashable's Pete Cashmore, who posted the headline, "Digg Just Hijacked Your Twitter Links." Mashable got confirmation from a Digg representative that the change wasn't a glitch, but was working as intended. After the Mashable post went up, though, Digg's Kevin Rose posted on Twitter that he had been on vacation and was not aware of the change. This story is still developing, but I suspect it will end with Digg going back to its old way of handling short links.

Tags: controversy, digg, diggbar, redirect, shorturl, tinyurl

Filed under: Business, Social Software, web 2.0

Digg's latest business move: digg it, or bury it?

by Jay Hathaway Jun 4th 2009

Digg recently introduced a new advertising program that allows its advertisers to buy ads on the front page that look like stories and appear in the regular Digg "river" of content. The catch is that the ads can be dugg or buried, and the results will affect how much it costs the advertisers to keep running their content. Comments from Digg users on the new system are already split, so let's take a look at the pros and cons.

PRO:

This is great! If I see an ad I don't like, I can bury it. It's satisfying to have some control over the kind of advertising I see on a site, and this will lead to the most annoying ads and advertisers getting buried right off the site. Plus, seeing ads that fit in with the Digg layout is more tolerable than traditional banners or animated garbage.

CON:

Are you kidding? Not only will the ads pollute the river and be confusing to casual users, but Digg wants me to do the work of deciding which ads are the best and worst? Sounds like a scheme to attract more advertisers. I mean, who wouldn't want to buy ads that millions of users will not only see, but interact with by voting? If I bury something, it's already too late: I've seen the ad. Plus, these cheapskate advertisers won't even have to pay a designer.Ridiculous.

What do you think, Download Squad readers? Are the new Digg ads going to be a winner, or fall flat?

Tags: ads, digg

Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

Digg gets rid of shouts, turns to Facebook and Twitter

by Jay Hathaway May 27th 2009

In a video Town Hall last week, the folks at Digg announced they were going to take a new approach to sharing Digg stories. That change started with the removal of the "shout" feature, used to promote your Digg posts to friends on the site. Instead of shouts, Digg now has sharing options including email, Twitter and Facebook.

I see a few likely effects of this. First, Digg will be able to draw in more traffic from these other popular social sites, rather than just promoting stories to people who are already active Diggers. Second, becoming a power user won't be as much a matter of collecting contacts on Digg. This might go a long way toward making it a more Internet-wide enterprise, and spreading the power around on Digg. I think the main effect will come from adding Twitter and Facebook links, not from removing shouts, which weren't the most effective tool on the site to begin with.

[via Appscout]

Tags: digg, facebook, sharing, shout, twitter

Filed under: Internet, Google, Social Software

Is Google trying to out-Digg Digg?

by Lee Mathews Apr 27th 2009

On Saturday, Mashable's Ben Parr noticed the same new iGoogle gadget I did: What's Popular. He also asked the same question as me: did Google just roll out its own version of Digg?

While the short answer is no, it's easy to see why people would think they did.

Have a site to share? Submit it as a "pop." Like a post? Vote it up and you'll see the pop count increase instantly. Plenty of other sites offer that kind of functionality so why not Google? After all, they've been trying it out in search results for quite some time.

There are fundamental differences, though. Google's service can also figure out certain popular items all on its own, thanks to the massive amount of metrics big G pulls in from all over the internet. Search, Reader, Analytics, GMail, YouTube - they're all providing Google with background data that can be used to compute popular items as well.

Tags: digg, google

Filed under: Web services, web 2.0, Mobile, Web

Smub.it: easy mobile sharing for Facebook, Delicious, Digg and more

by Jay Hathaway Apr 27th 2009

There are plenty of web services out there that let you share across multiple networks, but Smub.it is taking a different, more mobile approach. By using a bookmarklet, or typing http://smub.it in front of any URL, you can share on Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Twitter and more, from both desktop and mobile browsers.

Smub.it practically begs be used on the iPhone, but other phones shouldn't have trouble accessing it, either. It doesn't depend entirely on other services, either: you can bookmark something on Smub itself. Although there are other services with more features and similar functionality, none of them have the same streamlined, easy-to-use mobile version that Smub does. It's worth a look.

[via Mashable]

Tags: bookmarks, delicious, digg, facebook, reddit, share, smub, smub.it, twitter

Filed under: News, Web services, web 2.0

Digg gives in to DiggBar complaints

by Jay Hathaway Apr 15th 2009

After widespread complaints about Digg's new URL-shortener/toolbar, the DiggBar, Digg has responded and agreed to change the way the DiggBar behaves to address the problems people had with it. Number one on the list was the way the DiggBar framed other sites and used Digg's new URLs for everything, never revealing the URL of the actual destination site. Number 2 was the problem of DiggBar URLs turning up in search results and bookmarking services, sometimes ahead of the original domain. Creators of original content were understandably peeved.

Here's how Digg plans to address the problem, according a post from their official blog:

1. New treatment to the behavior of Digg short URLs. All anonymous users, on or off Digg will be taken directly to the publishers content via a permanent redirect (301), no toolbar, straight to the site. Logged in users that have not opted out will continue to see the DiggBar (200). These changes ensure that content providers receive full search engine 'juice' or credit for all links on and off Digg. They also ensure that Digg short URLs won't appear in the indexes of any major search engines.
2. Because we want to ensure the best user experience, the DiggBar will soon only be shown to you when you are logged into Digg. While the vast majority of Digg users find the DiggBar valuable (only a very small number of users have disabled the feature or hit close with any frequency) we understand that many folks were confused when opting out. We want you to be able to have the option to permanently disable the DiggBar with ease. For registered Digg users receiving the bar, we are also making a few changes to make the process more obvious.

Certainly, some people would rather the DiggBar disappear altogether, but these two moves make sure that people who don't like it can opt out, and people who do like it can opt in. More importantly, they make sure the DiggBar isn't some kind of uncouth relic from the late 90's. I'm not sure why they ever thought people would be ok with blatant framing of other websites in the first place, but at least they're fixing the problem now.

[via Daring Fireball]

Tags: complaints, digg, diggbar, url-shortener

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Browsers

Hate Diggbar? Kill it with a userscript

by Lee Mathews Apr 8th 2009

There have been more than a few gripes about Digg's new iFrame toolbar. They're stealing content. It interferes with SEO. They're selling ads on other people's content.

If you share those gripes and would like to permanently bury the bar, there are already two userscripts available to do just that. Both DiggBar Killer and Anti Diggbar get the job done. While neither actually blocks the bar completely, both scripts will quickly redirect you to the unshortened, original URL of the item you want to view.

They'll get the job done for now, but it's probably safe to assume that some disgruntled coder is already working on a way to bypass the shortened Digg links completely and send you on your way completely Diggbar-free.

If you're a Digg member, you can also turn off the bar when opening links by changing a setting on your viewing preferences (pictured above).

Tags: digg, diggbar, greasemonkey, userscripts

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Digg's new Diggbar will destroy other short url services

by Lee Mathews Apr 2nd 2009

Everyone knows about the power of Digg. We've seen it first hand many times here at DLS with waves of Digg faithful pouring in when a hot story hits the feed. Today, they've taken the gloves off and come out swinging at other short URL and social sharing services with the new Diggbar.

Apart from making it easy to submit items to Digg, the toolbar also integrates with Facebook and Twitter and can send links via email. There's nothing to install, just a simple bookmarklet that should work with any web browser. Click it and the page reloads with the Diggbar perched on top, ready to submit the page to Digg and share stats on previously dugg items.

A short URL is automatically created for the page, and the Diggbar has one big advantage over other competitors like TinyURL, bit.ly, and Is.gd: name recognition. There's no doubt that the service will benefit from not only from Digg's popluarity, but also from Kevin Rose's massive Twitter following and general "star power."

No need to visit Digg to view comments, either. Just click the button and they'll appear between the bar and the page itself. The bar also includes buttons to visit a random site or check out related Digg submissions.

As if that weren't enough, Thwirl integration is coming. Once it's live, users will be able to use Digg as their default short URL service. Since the features have been made available via Digg's API, developers of other apps can start taking advantage of it as well.

Maybe you don't think Diggbar will destroy the others, but there's no denying it'll make some serious noise.

[via Digg Blog]

Tags: bookmarklet, digg, diggbar, shortener, tinyurl, twhirl, url

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

StumbleUpon to offer short URLs with su.pr

by Lee Mathews Mar 13th 2009

Hot on the heels of Digg's new short URL feature StumbleUpon's founder has announced - albeit somewhat cryptically - that they may be working on their own truncation tool. "su.pr is coming," reads the Twitter update, though the link currently redirects to StumbleUpon.com.

The moves definitely make sense for both sites. With so many Twitter users sharing links via shortened URLs, it presents an excellent opportunity for Digg and StumbleUpon to drive more traffic back to their sites.

It remains to be seen if su.pr will stand out from the pack - there are so many good truncators available already that StumbleUpon will need to offer something unique. Of course, simply adding a button to their wildly popular toolbar is a good place to start.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: digg, short-url, stumbleupon, su.pr, truncator

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Web

Digg could take on StumbleUpon, TinyURL with new toolbar

by Brad Linder Feb 27th 2009

It looks like Digg is working on a StumbleUpon-like toolbar that lets users digg, bury, or find related stories while surfing the web. Veronica Belmont first spotted a screenshot of the toolbar on Flickr, and it looks like the folks at TechCrunch managed to track down some additional information about it.

If that info is correct, here's how it works. Users will see a toolbar the toolbar pop up on their screens. The toolbar shows up in an i-frame, which means it's not browser specific and you can make it go away at any time just by hitting the X button.

When you visit pages that have already been submitted to Digg, you'll see the number of votes it has received. Or you can submit the page you're currently on. You can also bury stories or see related stories.

The toolbar will also create a shortened URL for any page you're visiting, beginning with digg.com... You can then share this shortened URL via email, Twitter, Facebook, or other services much the same way you would with TinyURL.

The Digg toolbar is not available to the general public at this point. And for all we know, the whole thing could just be a hoax. But it certainly seems like something Digg could and/or should offer in the future.

Tags: digg, digg-toolbar, stumbleupon, tinyurl, toolbar

Filed under: News, web 2.0

Newsified gives your favorite social news sites a new look

by Jay Hathaway Nov 17th 2008

Newsified is a simple, but brilliant, idea. Take your favorite social news sites, the ones you normally read on the web or through RSS, and lay them out like ... a newspaper. It's an old-school approach that actually proves really useful when it comes to deep sites like Metafilter and Digg. You only see a small percentage of the popular content on the front pages of these sites, but Newsified gives a broader view at a glance.

Newsified pages exist for 6 sites so far: Digg, Reddit, Metafilter, Mixx, Delicious and YouTube. It takes the most popular front-page content from those sites and puts it in a prominent position at the top of the page. Then, as you read down, you'll see the deeper content that you might have missed, laid out in convenient capsule form for your consumption. It's a quick, fun way to read news. In fact, I like the concept so much that I'm giving it a try as my homepage this week.

Tags: delicious, digg, homepage, metafilter, news, Newsified, newsreader, reddit, social-news, youtube

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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