Few Days back, Digg v4 was rolled out for public & as everyone expected, a huge backlash was followed. Majority of the Digg users want their old v3 Digg back, saying it was much better.
In order to protest Digg’s new system, many users changed their profile images into anti-Digg messages & started upvoting stories from their competitor, Reddit on the site. These stories were being submitted to Digg by Reddit itself through the new auto-submission system that is a core part of Digg v4. If you had visited Digg recently, you could have seen it yourself. Most of the Top News in all Categories were links from Reddit.
In Numbers
Digg vs Reddit According to StatCounter (Click on it to view Full Size Image)
Talking about Reddit, since long, It has been seen as a very small community with an ugly design. But time has changed & in the Month of July, compared to Digg’s 200 Million Pageviews, Reddit witnessed 300 Million Pageviews, that is 40% more, thanks to several thousand people from Digg who have now moved to Reddit.
In Comments
If numbers aren’t enough to show Reddit’s dominance, the user comments on Digg would be enough to show Diggers’ Anger:
- AWESOME! MORE REDDIT ARTICLES IN TOP NEWS! Kevin, why don’t you just redirect the whole site to Reddit?
- Digg will change its news submission engine back to version 3. Until then I’m gone. Goodbye.
- While a pain in the ass, anybody, if they really cared to, could get content to the front page. Just get 100 of your facebook friends to digg your submission up & you had a decent shot. Looking at the front page now, I haven’t seen a single story from an actual user. In fact, since the v4, I haven’t seen one “real” article.
- You’re right, corps in the past would just pay people like MrBabyMan to get s**t to the front page. But geez, look at the front page now (ignore the reddit stories). It’s mashable. It’s engadget. It’s huffpo. Not a single user submitted article. Again, I’ll wait around for a few days to see if things get better. But if I want to see what’s going on at engadget, I’ll just go there directly!
- look im really happy for you digg, but reddit is one of the best social news sites of all time!
- The Digg is dead! Long live the Digg! uh I mean Reddit!
Why its Happening?
To be fair, people tend to hate new things that completely revamp the experience but it’s rarely a deathknell (see: Facebook). The Digg admins are probably thinking they can weather the storm & people will get used to it. However, they’re ignoring the fact that this change hasn’t just altered the experience, it completely destroyed the quality. I come to digg & see a blank screen saying “you haven’t added any feeds”. That can’t be considered a good design. Sure, I can add feeds, but it separates “stuff I like” from “stuff I might like but I’ve never heard of the site before“. It’s horrible, poor implementation that feels like (& probably is) a site designed by a committee that said “ooh, we can add friends, people like friends, right?” without thinking through how that process would work.
According to most of the Digg Users, & myself too, feel that Digg v3 was much better.
It has become kinda like Twitter where you follow people & see their stuff in your stream. After spending a week on Digg, I have 15 followers, whats the point in it when the new system gives exposure only to users with more followers? If I wanted a “Twitterlike” or “Facebookey” type experience I’d be on those sites instead
Reddit’s Gain?
If this continues on, Reddit can see a greater surge in its community size from several Digg refugees who will come to Reddit. People say that Reddit is Ugly and Boring. But actually it isn’t,. I’ve been a Redditor since a couple of month & its fun to be there. Most of the time I’m browsing Apple, Android, Internet sections. The Category Pages are filled with interesting new Apps & news, not like Digg v4 where you can only find stories from Mashable, Engadget, BBC, Wired etc.
Its hard to say at the momment if Reddit can be the next big thing in Social Media because things can change suddenly, who knows.
By the way, here’s a Funny Pic on How Digg v4 Went Down : http://i.imgur.com/8VcHr.jpg
Also Read, 4 Things that Digg V4 Should Consider Changing by my friend, Harsh.
What do you feel about this change? Do you think It will continue forever leading to Digg’s decline or you like the change and think the protest will fade away in a couple of days?
