Would someone read a Digg Clone that was a combination of links from folks whom they trusted, we think they would. If you look at it, Techmeme works on basically the same kind of concept, we trust them to find the best and brightest amongst all the blogs on the internet. Dave Winer comes up with the idea that the next step is multiple smaller sites, invite only, to contribute interesting articles to various smaller communities of interest using a Digg Clone.
We have already done this, Yasvs.com is the site where we keep all the things we think are interesting, but we also have open enrollment, and a deep distrust of folks who try to use the site for SEO or flogging products. They usually get spam killed in a heartbeat, and their articles deleted.
Dave points out that Digg is a victim of its own growth, and that as the audiences got bigger, the site got more irrelevant, and basically hit the lowest common denominator as it got more popular. While Mixx is looking like the next best thing to Digg, there is something to be said about having a smaller community of interest.
I wonder if we could start a Digg-like community with the readers of Scripting News. The numbers are small, relative to Digg, it would be just like the old days, maybe 250 active participants. I was describing the idea to Fred Wilson this morning, and offered that his blog might host such a community. Or we could do a Digg-like community with 25 people by invitation, some you’ve heard of, some you haven’t. All would be voracious news junkies. They would be empowered to add articles, comment on them, vote them up or down. I would invite Scoble, Fred Wilson, Steve Rubel, Amyloo, Jim Posner, Lawrence Lee and (I’m sure I’ll think of many more). We’d count on the judgement of these people to find us interesting news items, and be fair in deciding their relevance. Source: Scripting.com
I think Dave will find out that the idea is good, in beta in a number of places, and mostly because of the dissatisfaction of the larger social book marking sites. While Yasvs is not unique, it is a step already taken in a process that Dave is seriously considering.
From us, Dave it is a good idea, and you know where things are, you don’t have to wade through the top 100 funny cat pictures to get to anything relevant, and best of all, you and your gang can vote on things that are important to you. In general though, advertising will pay the bills at 100 visitors a day with about 800 page reads, and you can set this all up for about 100 dollars a year. The social software is free too, use Pligg, it is easy to customize and install. Find a good hosting provider, and watch out for people who will try to use the system for their own spammy needs.
Been done, been there, it is a good idea; we would write about it and most likely praise it.
4 comments ↓
I’d say that “machine” aggregators like techmeme or techwatching are fundamentally different from “human” aggregators like digg. In one case, you’re trust is placed in an algorithm; in the other, in a community. Each trust transaction has different expectations - I don’t expect to see the same stories in Digg/Tech as I would on techmeme, for instance. The question is whether there’s enough return for human curators to manage niche verticals, or whether niche verticals will stay exclusively the domain of the algorithm.
Rod, the problem I personally have with Digg and the reason why I built out yasvs was the pain involved with Digg, I want to do things in a certain way, and I want to collect cool stories as I go along. So rather than wasting time with Digg, built my own. Newscorp is essentially doing the same thing with feeds and advertising. We did it with links, dave winer might do it, but then who knows.
Digg features prominently in techmeme as they often have that as a link when they can find no other links.
I would think that human curators would have to manage the niche, especially if they wanted to keep things on track, the machine is not smart enough yet.
I always thought it was kind of goofy that TechMeme included Digg, which I left out of my own venture. The point of Techmeme initially (as I understood it) was that the bloggers indexed were essentially the curators - by voting for stories with the links they put in their own posts. TechMeme got away from this, IMHO, but shifting too much to MSM coverage from CNET and the WSJ, as well as press releases, digg-stories, and the like… the aggregator became much more more algorithmic, ditching the human component that the site enjoyed when its index was principally bloggers.
So - I’m willing to bet that there’s some middle ground to be found along the continuum somewhere…
[…] We wrote earlier: From us, Dave it is a good idea, and you know where things are, you don’t have to wade through the top 100 funny cat pictures to get to anything relevant, and best of all, you and your gang can vote on things that are important to you. In general though, advertising will pay the bills at 100 visitors a day with about 800 page reads, and you can set this all up for about 100 dollars a year. The social software is free too, use Pligg, it is easy to customize and install. Find a good hosting provider, and watch out for people who will try to use the system for their own spammy needs. Source: Techwag […]
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