WebProNews - Digg

Digg to Get All Twitter This Year?

Chris Crum — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:10:11 +0000

Update: Kevin Rose is now saying that his WeFollow Twitter directory will now be "more closely linked" with Digg as they "experiment with user influence as it applies to the Twitter universe." In a company blog post, he writes:

Over the last four years we’ve been continually evolving our (real-time) user influence calculations at Digg. Behind the scenes we track the types of stories you Digg, when you dugg something pre or post homepage promotion, and how your Digg influences others on the site. While not outwardly visible, many of these factors help us gauge when to put stories on the homepage or recommend them to others.

So what changes on Digg? Well, this won’t impact anything on Digg today, but user influence and the data we collect during this process will play an important role in upcoming versions of Digg.

Original Article 05/18: Digg Founder Kevin Rose says that there are some big changes coming to Digg this year. In an interview from April with Mike Arrington, Rose calls the changes "a ballsy move," but does not give too much away.

"I will say this," he says. "I don’t want to get into specific details about the product, but I believe that it’s time for Digg to get a little bit more real-time in nature. And we need to be a living and breathing site. And you know, that’s an exciting direction for us. I think that’s part of the reason why we rolled out a pretty awesome search. It was kind of us experimenting with some of that."

Rose says that there will be a logo change, and that the site itself will be getting a revamp. I take this to mean that the whole thing will be getting a redesign.

Digg better hope that this goes over well with users, because they have probably seen enough controversy this year after the launch of the DiggBar. This riled up webmasters and the SEO community when it replaced URLs with Digg URLs, though the company eventually made some adjustments to appease them.

With regards to an upcoming real-time version of Digg, Arrington calls "real time" secret code for Twitter. This shouldn't really come as much of a surprise to anyone. This is certainly the trend that social media as a whole seems to be gravitating towards.

Digg Does it Again with Advertising

Chris Crum — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:17:13 +0000

Digg has launched a new kind of ad called "Digg Content Ads," which the company describes as widgets that contain previous Digg homepage stories that are relevant to the industry or company being advertised.

To illustrate how this works, Digg provides an example of Adobe testing the concept with banners that utilize popular government-technology stories from Digg's archive. This is illustrated below:

"At Digg, we think ads will feel more relevant (and thus work better for brands) if they feature the kind of content we look for online," says Digg's Chas Edwards. "One way to do this – one that’s very native to the Digg experience – is to encourage advertisers to re-aggregate stories that have already been popular on Digg. The stories might be about a brand’s products or services, or they might be stories of general interest to that brand’s customers."

Advertisers are not able to promote Digg content that hasn't already been promoted to Digg's homepage organically. This means they will not easily be able to "game" the system. If stories have passed "the age of promotion eligibility," they may be featured in a content ad if they were never promoted, however.

"In other words, Digg Content Ads allow advertisers to re-publish existing stories into ad banners, and give those stories additional exposure within paid media; but they can’t use this approach to artificially boost a story onto Digg’s homepage," explains Edwards.

The content ads represent another interesting way of advertising on Digg that is essentially non-intrusive to users. The model is similar to Digg Ads, which the company launched earlier this year. Those insert sponsored content (clearly marked as such), which users are able to vote up and down just like any other Digg content. They seem to have gone over fairly well with users.

Yahoo is now doing something similar with a new campaign from General Mills. The company is taking existing content from several of its properties and bringing it together to create a targeted user experience that is relevant to the ads being served with it.

The Most Loyal Traffic Comes from Facebook

Chris Crum — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:27:32 +0000

There's no question that search engines can be a tremendous source of traffic. Social networks are also proving to be big traffic generators for a lot of content producers, and Twitter is one of the big ones.

However, it is Facebook and Digg that are driving the most repeat readers according to a study conducted by online ad network Chitika. Traffic is great, but traffic that returns is even better.

The study was based on 33 million unique users across Chitika's publisher network in September. It compared the number of visitors coming from major traffic sources Digg, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Twitter, to the number of times those visitors came back to the referred site. Visitors that went to a site four or more times in one week were considered loyal users.

By a wide margin, Facebook led the pack in providing loyal traffic. 20% of all visitors from Facebook visited the site four or more times per week. Digg was second with slightly over 16%. Digg was followed by search engines: Yahoo, Google, then Bing with 15.89%, 11.84%, and 11.74% respectively. Finally, Twitter came in at 11.08%.

"While Google naturally wins in sheer numbers, if a website owner can drive a thousand people to their site via Google, or they can drive the same number via Facebook, Facebook seems to be the way to go for creating a loyal reader," says Chitika.

The sheer popularity of Facebook and the time spent on the site must play crucial roles in driving repeat traffic. When a user frequently checks for status updates, they are likely to see new posts made from Facebook Pages they are subscribed to. This shows that creating a Facebook page can have a great effect on content publishers.

Twitter has historically been harder for users to manage and keep up with. That may change, however, once the Lists feature reaches the masses.

Twitter Hires User Experience Architect From Digg

Doug Caverly — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:59:44 +0000

People who have been complaining that Twitter's site needs an overhaul should pay attention. Twitter's added someone to its design team, and Mark Trammell, who will start one week from today, hails most recently from Digg.

Some of you may not be jumping up and down right now; it's true that Digg, while functional, isn't exactly a thing of beauty. So here's an important distinction Trammell made in the blog post announcing his move: "I'll be starting a new job with the design team at Twitter building a user research program" (emphasis ours).

It may be that you'll have the chance to say what you want to see, then. Or at least, he might be able to get the site to remain functional more often.

Next, there's Trammell's impressive employment history to consider. He's spent most of two years at Digg, and before that, worked at PayPal. He held a position at the University of Florida for a considerable length of time, and also once handled public affairs for the U.S. Navy. Not many folks have resumes like that.

We'll see what happens. Hat tip goes to MG Siegler.

Digg Nofollow Links: Matt Cutts Approved

Chris Crum — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:53:55 +0000

Yesterday, Digg announced that it was changing the way it handles some links with regards to the nofollow attribute. The point of the changes is to cut down on Digg spam. Digg is now adding rel="nofollow" to any external link that they aren't sure they can "vouch for." This means:

    - External links from comments
    - External links from user profiles
    - External links from story pages "below a certain threshold of popularity"

Google's Matt Cutts posted his feelings on the matter to his blog. "I think this is pretty smart," says Cutts. "Digg isn’t adding nofollow to everything, just the links that they’re less sure about. Once a story looks real to them, I can imagine that they would lift the nofollow."

Cutts also shared a couple of videos he has done where he discusses how Google takes a similar approach, and answers two questions about Nofollow:

You may recall the topic of the first video from an article WebProNews ran about it this week. Cutts specifically talks about Google Knol, and how at first authors receive nofollowed links, but as the authors gain more turst, they sometimes remove the nofollows.

"So [the] new move by Digg is a positive change in my opinion, because Digg decreases the benefit for spammy stories but Digg still helps normal and high-quality stories in the search engines," says Cutts.

Digg said the decision was made after consultation with "leading experts" in the SEO/SEM and link spam fields. The company says it is looking out for content providers and the Digg community.

Digg Makes Changes to Nofollow Policy

Chris Crum — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:07:43 +0000

Digg announced today that it has tweaked its policy on the nofollow attribute on external links.

"We've made a few changes to the way Digg links to external sites that may impact some folks in the SEO community," says Digg's John Quinn. "These changes reduce the incentive to post spammy content (or link spam) to Digg, while still flowing ’search engine juice’ freely to quality content."

Digg is now adding rel="nofollow" to any external link that they aren't sure they can "vouch for." This means:

- External links from comments
- External links from user profiles
- External links from story pages "below a certain threshold of popularity"

"This work was done in consultation with leading experts from the SEO/SEM and link spam fields, in an effort to lookout for the interests of content providers and the Digg community," says Quinn. "As always, we will closely monitor these changes in the wild and iterate based on feedback."

Speaking of Digg and search, Digg also talked a bit today about the search feature they launched earlier this year.

"We're using Apache SOLR/Lucene which helped us scale horizontally and solved many of our relevancy issues as well as enabling discovery of new content through facets," the company said earlier today. "Beyond site search, the rich set of features has allowed us build a platform that enables other features such as Related By Source and Related By Keywords."

There is a podcast available here, which discusses Digg's search feature in more detail.

Digg Elaborates on New Search

Chris Crum — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:14:58 +0000

Update: Digg shared some more details about how its search feature (relaunched earlier this year) works. Sammy on the company blog says:

" We’re using Apache SOLR/Lucene which helped us scale horizontally and solved many of our relevancy issues as well as enabling discovery of new content through facets. Beyond site search, the rich set of features has allowed us build a platform that enables other features such as Related By Source and Related By Keywords."

He also points to a podcast discussing it.

Original Article: Just as Digg was launching the controversial DiggBar, Kevin Rose also announced that the company was readying an improved search feature. We even saw an early screenshot of it about a week ago.

Today, also coinciding with an update about the DiggBar, a post on Digg the Blog is announcing the launch of Digg's new search. Daniel Burka runs down the following new features:

- cut your results by factors like Digg count, topic, time, etc. - This gives you a lot more info about your query and enables you to drill down to your result much more effectively he says.

- Advanced shortcuts - Add +p to your query for only promoted stories, +u for upcoming stories, and +b for buried.

- Common search tricks now work - like putting your query in quotes for exact match or adding a negative sign before terms to remove it from your results

- A graph showing the relative number of search results by month for the past several years for particular queries

- More effective searching of stories from specific domains - domain filter

- More useful RSS feeds - "We’ve always had RSS feeds for searches, but with the new faceting capabilities, this becomes a lot more effective," says Burka. "You could create a feed that gives you stories with over 1000 Diggs about X and Y but never when keyword Z appears."

- Search is now faster

Digg's search has always gotten a lot of knocks, and improvements have been long awaited. It'll be interesting to see how users react to the new changes.

Daniel Burka also notes that the new search will serve as a foundation for future projects. I wonder what that will entail.

When Irrelevant Ads Cost You Money

Chris Crum — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:49:44 +0000

Digg is putting a new spin on targeted advertising. It is always the goal of advertisers to target their ads as well as they can, but when you advertise with Digg, it will cost you if they're not relevant enough.

Digg announced earlier this year that it would be introducing ads. It was hard to tell if users would find this to be a good idea or not, but the concept behind the ads seems quite user friendly. The ads are clearly marked as such, and users get to vote them up or down just like regular Digg content. Digg explains how it works to Digg users:

Your Diggs, buries and clicks influence a quality score that determines how often the ad gets displayed, and ultimately how much the advertiser pays per click. The more you Digg an ad, the less the advertiser will have to pay; the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, eventually pricing it out of the system. The success of this system depends on your participation and feedback, as it will help advertisers to create the best possible experience for the Digg community. Our goal with Digg Ads is to encourage advertisers to create content as compelling as organic Digg stories, and to give you more control over which ads you see on Digg.

Advertisers pay less, the more popular their ad is. The less popular it is, the more they pay. To be successful with Digg's new advertising program, you're really going to have to offer what Digg users want. That means knowing what Digg users really like. So basically, you have to offer some kind of Digg-related product. After all, Digg stories are usually the ones that get dugg the most. I'm kidding (at least half kidding).

Either way, it will pay to really get to know the Digg community before just going for it and advertising your product. Study what kinds of stories are most popular. Get a feel for the kinds of content Diggers like. Then evaluate your product against that. Is it something that is really going to get votes with this crowd? If not, you're going to be better off spending your advertising dollars elsewhere. The less the Digg community likes your ad (or product), the more you're going to have to pay to advertise it there. There's not a whole lot of point to paying more for less enthusiasm.

Digg has begun rolling out the ads and they will appear in rotation in various places around the site. Right now, they're only testing them, so many users will not see them yet.

Digg Sets Record Straight on DiggBar URLs

Chris Crum — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:34:38 +0000

There has been a lot of talk about the DiggBar and its handling of URLs this week, after the company implemented some changes in its service. To clear the air, Digg has addressed the situation.

Digg CEO Jay Adelson issued the following statement on Digg the Blog:

I wanted to clear up some confusion created over the past couple of days surrounding the DiggBar, specifically how Digg short URLs work. As we’ve stated in the past, the DiggBar is meant to streamline the Digg experience and provide our registered users with the opportunity to catch up on comments, related stories and additional source content. Our strategy with Digg short URLs is to facilitate sharing of Digg content, not to be a conventional redirection service.

Last week, we made a change that began directing non-logged in traffic generated from Digg short URLs to Digg story pages where they can view the comments and related content. In response to feedback, all short URLs that were generated *before* today will now behave as they did prior to last week’s change by taking the user directly to the source content. Logged-in Digg users will continue to be directed to the source content with the DiggBar (if they have it turned on). Of course, if the content has never been submitted to Digg, viewers will continue to be sent directly to the source.

The DiggBar seems to have invoked nothing but controversy ever since it was launched. Digg seems to only want to use it to help promote its content, but the problem that people have had with this is that Digg's content is not really Digg's content. The content that appears on Digg of course comes from other sources, and when traffic becomes an issue, you're going to have some angry publishers.

Digg continues to encourage feedback about the product, and seemingly wishes to stay on everybody's good side, but clearly wants some traffic of its own out of the DiggBar. What do you think of how they're handling it?

TweetDeck for iPhone now Available for Download

Jeremy Muncy — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:35:00 +0000

UPDATE: Mashable has just confirmed that TweetDeck for the iPhone will be releasing tonight at 9PM Pacific Time. The app will be available for free at the Apple App Store.

TweetDeck is probably the most famous Twitter desktop app, so it really comes as no surprise that they're now making the jump to the iPhone.

That's right... TweetDeck for the iPhone.

How many of you will make the jump to TweetDeck when it becomes available via the app store? Tell us.

Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.com, got his hands on a beta test of TweetDeck for the iPhone and fell in love.

I can say now that it's going to replace tweetie as my default twitter iphone app.

Features include:
- Column based friend groups! (like TweetDeck desktop)
- TweetDeck desktop syncing (make a change on the iphone and it's reflected back on the PC)
- Facebook toolbar like status updates

Kevin also posted a few screenshots of the iPhone running the app...

So what do you think? Any thinking of jumping on this app when it's released? Tell us.

Digg Wants You To Create More Useful Apps

Chris Crum — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:31:38 +0000

Digg has introduced some new additions to the Digg API today. The company says with these, developers can create increasingly useful and interesting applications using Digg Data.

One of these new additions is a search endpoint, which utilizes the same search functionality that Digg introduced a couple months ago on its site. Users will be able to use advanced shortcuts, common search tricks, and search by source (domain).

Another addition is a series of related stories endpoints, which allow users to find related info for any story that's been dugg. For example, you can find stories that have been dugg by similar users, or stories with similar keywords. There is also an endpoint for favorites.

"These features are just the beginning of some changes that we’re currently working on and plan to introduce in the coming months," says Digg's John Quinn. "These will include endpoints for participating — such as Digging and burying — so that even richer and full featured applications can be created off the Digg platform."

On a related note, Digg also announced that it is reworking its API license. The plan is to give developers more control over apps they develop through the removal of commercial limitations. The license can be viewed here.

StumbleUpon Jumps on the URL-Shortener Bandwagon

Chris Crum — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:57:48 +0000

StumleUpon announced today that it has launched a new URL-shortening service called Su.pr. The twist, however, is that this one is designed to help content creators actually increase their traffic with it. According to StumbleUpon, this is the first such service that does this.

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The growing popularity (which is seemingly dwindling after looking at some recent numbers) has made URL shortening services popular as well. Digg saw this a while back, and released the DiggBar, which not only serves as such a service, but also lends to a classic StumbleUpon-like functionality, allowing users to share and rate stories from the toolbar.

It is no surprise that StumbleUpon would choose to include a URL-shortener in its own portfolio. One knock against the DiggBar was that it was not getting content creators the traffic they were previously getting from Digg stories. It looks like StumbleUpon took note of this.

The company says that with Su.pr, publishers can drive traffic to their content and post across multiple platforms with a single click, all while preserving search ranking and branding.Also like the DiggBar, users can post content to Facebook and Twitter. The company lists the following as benefits to Su.pr:

- More traffic -- Every Su.pr URL exposes content to StumbleUpon's nearly 8 million users and allows publishers to showcase their site's best content alongside each link.

- Better results in less time -- Publishers can identify the optimal times to post (highest likely traffic) and schedule as many posts as they like, for whenever they want.

- One-click posting - With Su.pr, publishers can post to StumbleUpon, Twitter and Facebook with just one click. (More platforms to be added in the future).

- Real-time Analytics - Su.pr provides real-time reports on clicks and traffic, including the number of retweets for each post.

- Custom short URLs - Su.pr users have the option to have their own domain-name in the short URLs (i.e. mysite.com/a2b).

- Redirect friendly -- Publishers can choose to create links that redirect traffic to their own site (301 redirect), preserving their search ranking.

"Su.pr makes it faster and easier to syndicate and measure your content, helping publishers increase their reach and efficiency," said Garrett Camp, StumbleUpon CEO. "And from every Su.pr link, users can discover other great content from that publisher."

Right now, Su.pr is in beta, and is only available on an invitation basis. They are letting a few people in each week to gather feedback and test the service. StumbleUpon says it will be ready for more people in a few days.

Do You Dig the Idea of Ads on Digg?

Chris Crum — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:15:31 +0000

Digg has announced plans to roll out a new advertising platform called Digg Ads. This platform will give users more control over which ads are displayed on the popular site. It's not ready to go just yet. The pilot will be launching in several months, but it will be "an ongoing work in progress."

"We’re still in very early stages of working with advertisers and building the system, but we wanted you to be the first to hear about our plans," says Mike Maser at Digg the Blog.

He says the sponsored content will look and feel like Digg content, but will be clearly marked as sponsored. Picture something similar to the paid search ads we've all grown so accustomed to - only thrown in the middle of listings.

The ads will link to stories, video trailers, and independent product review. "The goal here is to give advertisers a way to present content related to their brands and get immediate input on whether it’s relevant to the Digg audience, or not," says Maser. The ads will apparently be able to be voted up and down just like regular Digg content, and according to the New York Times, this will affect rates.

As mentioned, it will be a work in progress, and that means Digg will be keeping an ear out for any feedback Digg users want to give. We know Digg responds to feedback too after the DiggBar controversy that got webamsters and SEOs worked up. It didn't take too long for Digg to change some things up with that.

Do you think ads on Digg is a good idea? Tell us what you think.

Digg: No Shouting!

Chris Crum — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:14:01 +0000

Usually sites these days are frequently adding new sharing features. Popular social site Digg is actually eliminating some.

Most notably, Digg has decided to remove its "shouts" feature, which allows you users to send "shouts" to their friends when they want them to Digg something. Digg's Jen Burton explains:

As some of you know, shouts have been a controversial feature since their inception and considering the ever-changing landscape of the social web, we’ve elected to remove them in favor of more popular options. We’ve added easier access to sharing via email, Facebook and Twitter. As always, we want to encourage sharing and communication within our community and will continue to look into features that address these needs.

On the homepage you can now mouse over or click on the "share" link to open a dialog box that offers sharing via email, Facebook or Twitter. For example, if you click on the email icon, we'll open a new mail message from your default email client and all you’ll need to do is enter email addresses. If you click on the Twitter icon, we’ll open Twitter in a browser window and populate the update field with the story title and URL (note that you’ll need to be logged in to Twitter at the time).

In addition to shouts, Digg has also removed its "blog this" feature, blaming low usage as the reason.

It is worth noting that Digg has added different ways to share content in recent memory, apart from those mentioned above. The site recently launched its long-awaited integration with Facebook Connect. The controversial DiggBar also has ways to easily share content via Facebook and Twitter.

Google Has Digg on the Brain

Chris Crum — Sat, 09 May 2009 18:26:37 +0000

Google has released a gadget called What's Popular for iGoogle. You may draw some connections between it and a certain site called Digg, and some are speculating that it is even an indication of a broader plan from Google to creep into Digg territory. What would a Google-owned version of Digg mean to you? Tell us.

Google says the What's Popular gadget uses algorithms to find interesting content from a combination of user submissions and trends in aggregated user activity across a variety of Google services, like YouTube and Google Reader.

Users can rate items that they like or dislike by clicking the ratings buttons next to each item. The gadget then looks at what users liked and disliked to adjust the ranking of items.

Users can directly submit URLs, and if they become popular, they can rise to the top of the list. You can associate your Google user name with your submissions, and edit titles and descriptions. You can also keep track of what you have submitted in the "My Adds" section. Yep, that sounds about like Digg.

What Happens if Google Launches it's Own Digg? (What do you think?)

Well, you know how marketers are always struggling to get their content to reach the front page of Digg. And obviously they look for any way possible to get better results in Google, so it's hard to imagine a Digg-like Google service not being constantly spammed. I would guess that with a Digg like site, you would have Digg-like problems as well .

Let's not get ahead of ourselves though. For one, this is only a gadget right now, and there is no indication that getting your content ranked in it will have any effect whatsoever in getting your content ranked in Google itself. But if Google turned this into a full-fledged site, would it be out of the realm of possibility for popular content to appear in Google's universal search results, similar to say, YouTube, which actually has been known to improve search engine rankings? There's also the social media leads to links scenario.

There has long been chatter about "what if Google bought Digg?"

"If you can’t beat them (or don’t feel like putting out the cash to acquire them), then join them," Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal comments about the service.

It is certainly interesting to think about Google running its own version of Digg while seemingly getting more social all around. Recently they have added the ability for Google profiles to be linked to vanity URLs, and have them show up in search results. Friend Connect of course is out there, and a number of other social functions are already residing within your Google account.

Google's whole foray into social media is quite fascinating to me as it unfolds almost from the inside out without many people realizing it is happening. If you ask me, Google already has a leg or two up on other social networks too as it holds the largest brand on the web, and obviously search market share, and searches begin a lot of web sessions, not even taking into consideration the number of people who use Google as their homepage.

Do you think Google will take the What's Popular gadget concept and turn it into a Digg-like site? Share your thoughts with WebProNews readers.

Connecting Digg with Facebook

Chris Crum — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:13:44 +0000

Back when Facebook Connect launched, Digg was among the names mentioned that would be utilizing the feature. Nothing has happened with that (at least publicly) until now. Digg has now gotten connected with Facebook Connect.

Digg: Facebook Connect Demo from Digg Meetups on Vimeo.

Facebook Connect lets third-party sites get integrated with Facebook, allowing Facebook users to invite their friends, as well as publish activities they engage in on the third-party site to their Facebook news feed.

With Digg, this includes diggs, comments, and submissions. So for example, when I am logged into Digg using Facebook Connect, I am presented with the option to publish it to my news feed when I digg a story. It then appears on Facebook looking something like this:

As you can see, it even presents the option for others to digg the item from Facebook. Admittedly, I have not engaged with Facebook Connect from other sites a whole lot, but I can see this particular integration catching on big time. I think Digg will see a nice increase in new users as a result.

"This represents one of the largest and more complex Facebook integrations to date," says Digg Founder Kevin Rose. "Over the past months, we have been working with the Facebook team to establish key standards and best practices, paving the way for future Facebook Connect partners. The team worked through several platform, data portability and scalability issues. We’ve given particular care to what the end-to-end experience look likes like as you enter, merge, or exit one or both services. The preference pages allow you to easily manage everything in one place and you always control the information you share."

To use Facebook Connect with Digg, simply log in to Digg, and you will be presented with the option to log in using FB Connect. You'll always know when the feature is active, because there is a small Facebook icon that appears next to you profile pic at the top of the screen.

StumbleUpon Enhances Web Stumbling

Chris Crum — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:44:44 +0000

A while back, StumbleUpon released web stumbling, which is the ability to use the service without having to download the toolbar that has accompanied it for years. The company has now announced some features that expand upon this. The StumbleUpon Team shares them with WebProNews:

1. Fully Personalized Experience - Now you can expect the same high-quality and personalized recommendations that you receive from your downloaded toolbar. And you can access it from any computer, and from any browser... just visit StumbleUpon.com and login to get a personalized stumbling experience.

2. Web Stumbling syncs with your toolbar activity - Use Web Stumbling to rate, review and share content and all your activities will be saved for you in your profile and will influence your future recommendations. For example, Web Stumbling in Safari or Opera would use ratings given using the Firefox or IE toolbars, and anything you rate will improve your recommendations on any platform.

3. Enhancements to Sharing - When sharing websites while Web Stumbling, you now have the ability to share with several friends at once, post sites directly to your Facebook profile, and even have conversations about the websites you share with your friends.

StumbleUpon recently announced it was breaking away from eBay, which acquired it in 2007. StumbleUpon's Head of Marketing Katie Sween discussed this a bit as well as the new web stumbling features and some other things in the following interview from ad:tech.

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Upon the announcement of the companies' separation, StumbleUpon co-founder Garrett Camp had this to say:

"This change makes it possible for StumbleUpon to continue to innovate and focus on becoming the Web's largest recommendation service."

Innovation is going to be key for StumbleUpon now that it has some direct competition from Digg with the controversial but popular (depending on who you ask) DiggBar.

Integrating Social Media with Email Marketing

Chris Crum — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:59:52 +0000

A recent study from Ball State University, the Email Marketer’s Club and ExactTarget found that only 13% of email marketers are integrating social media into their campaigns. However, 46% of them intend to do so this year.

The study surveyed 351 email marketers and researched the habits of large brands like Carmex, TripAdvisor, and Papa John's. Each of these has been successful in their efforts to include social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Digg in their campaigns.

"While the global reach, rapid adoption and high engagement found in social media have email marketers salivating at the potential these environments offer to engage with customers and prospects, the real challenge is how best to facilitate meaningful interactions," says Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget’s director of research and strategy.

Giving users some variety is probably a smart choice for starters. That's what Carmex does for example.

"We want visitors to share the experience with their friends, but we don’t want to force them to use a channel they are uncomfortable with,” said Paul Woelbing, president of Carma Labs, the maker of Carmex. "By offering visitors choices, we are learning a lot about the dynamics of integrating email, social media and text messaging – namely that they complement each other very well."

Still, users may not be so high on the idea of letting brands into their social media hang out sites. "Consumers are reluctant to invite marketers into social environments, and this is because they don’t want to see the channel overrun with irrelevant commercial messages," says Stewart. "However, marketers who are able to align their messaging with the distinct mindset of consumers engaging in social networks are posting positive results and building a quality following in these environments."

This reminds me of something Hulu CEO Jason Kilar talked about in his keynote at ad:tech. He discussed effective magazine ads, which people don't even realize are ads.

On another related note, there is an interesting aricle at the SimplyCast blog discussing specifically the integration of Facebook into email marketing campaigns. You may find this worth looking at. Also, ExactTarget actually has a social email solution it just unveiled at ad:tech called Social Forward.

Digg Tries to Put DiggBar Controversy to Bed

Chris Crum — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:46:12 +0000

Update: Digg's proposed changes to the DiggBar are now live.

Original Article: Digg made an announcement today regarding the controversial DiggBar, which some people have embraced enthusiastically, while others have shaken their fists at.

Immediately after the DiggBar was launched, some content publishers and search engine marketers started an uproar, voicing concern about Digg stealing traffic and links.

A little bit later, Digg responded saying that Google and SEOs were consulted and Digg adhered to the "leading best practices." Furthermore, Digg said it would be launching additional updates to further address the "Google juice" concerns.

Not everyone was satisfied with that response, and Digg has responded yet again, this time with some changes to how the DiggBar works.

For one, only people logged into Digg will be shown the DiggBar automatically. "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," says Digg's John Quinn. "For registered Digg users receiving the bar, we are also making a few changes to make the process more obvious."

They are also changing the treatment to the behavior of Digg short URLs. Now all anonymous users will be taken directly to publishers content via a permanent 301 redirect with no toolbar, straight to the site. Only logged in Digg users who have not turned it off will see the DiggBar.

Now, maybe the controversy will die down a bit. Quinn also shared some interesting stats regarding the Diggbar:

- 45% of all digging activity is happening on the DiggBar

- 25% of all DiggBar users are discovering new content they otherwise wouldn't have by viewing related stories and content from the same source

- There's been a 10% increase in users sharing short-URLs across Twitter, Facebook, email, and other places

If you're still not familiar with the DiggBar, here is a video showing how it works:

DiggBar from Kevin Rose on Vimeo

Do you think Digg has done the right thing with its latest DiggBar updates? Do you think there was that much cause for concern to begin with? Tell us what you think.

Digg Decides It No Longer Needs Microsoft

Chris Crum — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:16:35 +0000

Back in the summer of '07, Digg and Microsoft announced a partnership that would see Microsoft selling and serving ads on Digg, not unlike Microsoft's deal with Facebook inked the previous year. The deal was to last until the summer of 2010, but Digg has now pulled the plug according to ClickZ.

In January of this year, Jay Adelson announced that some of Digg's major priorities for this year included:

- Rolling out new features to grow and engage the community - Despite the controversy it has attracted, the DiggBar appears to have accomplished this goal.

- Building on advertising infrastructure - The reason that Digg thinks it doesn't need Microsoft any longer.

- Building on successful partnership with Microsoft - Wait a minute....well, plans change.

- Ongoing sponsorship opportunties - ClickZ reports that Digg Chief Revenue Officer Mike Maser says the company's internal sales efforts "will focus on custom, non-IAB inventory combined with standardized banner ads."

Is ditching Microsoft the best way to go for Digg? "To be honest, I can’t quite figure out who this deal hurts the most," says Marketing Pilgrim's Andy Beal. "Yes, it hurts Microsoft to lose an ad partnership that it stole from under the nose of Google, but does Digg know what it’s getting itself into? After all, the company doesn’t exactly seem to have the momentum of Facebook or Twitter–both of which are struggling to find that magic ad revenue formula–and building out your own ad sales force is both risky and expensive."

Some seem to view the termination of the deal as just the norm. "The move is fairly common among sites ramping up their ad-sales efforts; after a couple years growing traffic it often makes sense to partner with an outside sales company to sell advertising inventory before investing in hiring a salesforce," says Rory Maher at paidContent.org. "Once revenue starts coming in the door many publishers see more profit in selling their own ads versus splitting revenue with an exclusive third party for selling their inventory."

In any case, it looks like Digg will continue working with Microsoft on "network reserve" inventory until July, when Digg will completely take the reins.

Trading Diggs for Retweets?

Chris Crum — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:18:11 +0000

For quite some time, marketers and content producers have been seeking more diggs. While some still seek these (and others are less enthusiastic about Digg due to recent changes), we're seeing a lot of people looking for "retweeting" of their content on Twitter.

An interesting post at Performancing asks, "Is Retweet The Next Digg This?" That's a good question. A while back, Twitter was even reported to surpass Digg in traffic for the first time since its launch.

"Twitter has taken on a life of its own. in the early days, their was no way to respond to other people until users came up with the idea to use the @ symbol to designate a reply," writes Performancing's Jeff Chandler. "Now adays, the sharing of information on Twitter has created what is known as a Retweet. This is when someone republishes a message someone else wrote and is used as a means of sharing useful information. Depending on who picks up the message and retweets it, the information can be viewed by thousands of people."

Could some of the tips often used to get more Digg love also be applied to Twitter? I have noticed one similarity. Diggers have always loved to digg stories about Digg. Likewise, Twitterers love to retweet stories about Twitter. Something to think about. Luckily there are still so many questions about how to use Twitter (in general, let alone for marketing purposes) that content producers have an unlimited supply of potential article/blog post (or even tweet) topics.

Another thing that can probably survive the translation from Digg to Twitter is the Telegraph strategy. Many people do this. I call it that because Hitwise studied Telegraph which has been a very popular site on Digg. Telegraph encourages users to Digg their content. Encouraging the Tweeting of your content will likely help your cause. Once your content is Tweeted, if it's good enough, it will get retweets.

Although it's always nice to have other people tweet links to your content and have other people retweet those tweets (sometimes I feel like I'm not even writing in the English language anymore), having your own followers is a good way to gain more tweets and retweets too.

Rich Brooks has a good list of what not to do to have a successful following on Twitter. Among his list are:

- Not using your real name

- Not telling people where you're from

- Not including your URL

- Leaving our bio blank

- Not uploading a photo of yourself or your logo

- Following 2,000 people before posting a single tweet

- Rapidly following and unfollowing people just to get their attention

Finding Twitterers with similar interests and in similar niches to communicate with can also be a good way to get some extra retweets. You'd be more inclined to share something you were interested from someone else right? Chances are others feel the same way. Our own Twellow service is a great way to find likeminded Twitterers. Searching in Twitter itself for topics you cover might find you some new friends as well, who could potentially retweet what you are writing about.

There of course plenty of other ways besides retweets that Twitter can benefit your business. There are more ways to use Twitter search. There are ways to build real links. Large brands and small ones are finding new and unique ways of utilizing the communication tool that is Twitter to attract traffic, conversions, customers, and loyalty.

Got tips for getting retweets? Share.

Digg Speaks About DiggBar and Your Traffic

Chris Crum — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:01:12 +0000

Last week, Digg released the DiggBar, a toolbar that sits at the top of your browser as you view content from Digg. It frames the content not only with the bar itself, but with a custom Digg URL. The following clip demonstrates what it does if you have not encountered it yet.

DiggBar from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

Since the DiggBar was introduced, there has been a great amount of concern that Digg has started hoarding all of the traffic for itself. Some experts have come out and played down the concern. Brent Csutoras for example noted it would only increase traffic. He pointed out the additional sharing features (via Twiter, Facebook, and email) and that content would still receive page views, proper clicks for ads, etc.

Such reasoning has still not been enough to convince some people. Digg has now addressed the issue officially in a company blog post. Digg's John Quinn writes:

Prior to launching the DiggBar, we reached out to Google and SEO experts to ensure we adhered to the leading best practices, as we framed and linked directly to source content via the DiggBar. This process involved gathering feedback from publishers to ensure the execution was as content-provider-friendly as possible. We took several steps to ensure that search engines continue to count the original source, versus registering the DiggBar as new content. We include only links to the source URLs on Digg pages to allow spiders to see the unmodified links to source sites. These links are overwritten to short URLs in JavaScript for users who have this preference.

Quinn says Digg has already launched additional updates this week to further address "search engine juice" concerns. He adds:

We always represent the source URL as the preferred version of the URL to search engines and use the meta noindex tag to keep DiggBar pages out of search indexes. For those of you interested in the technical details, we also include link rel=”canonical” information to indicate that the original URL is the real (canonical) version. Additional URL properties, like PageRank and related signals, are transferred as well. This is recommended by Google, Ask.com, Microsoft and Yahoo!.

Will this information set some minds at ease, or will Digg's word about its practices not be good enough? One thing's for certain - Digg is going to keep a lot of eyeballs on it's own site with the DiggBar as it focuses users' attention on what else they can find on Digg.

Does the DiggBar Steal or Inflate Your Traffic?

Chris Crum — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:10:41 +0000

Last week, Digg unleashed the much-anticipated DiggBar. It's basically a StumbleUpon-like toolbar that sits at the top of your browser as you view content from Digg (and it comes equipped with a URL shortener).

DiggBar from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

While the average Digg user will probably find lots to like about the DiggBar in terms of simply using the features, marketers and webmasters concerned about traffic have not all been so enthused.

There has been a great amount of concern that Digg has started hoarding all of the traffic for itself. After all, viewing a page with the DiggBar keeps that page at a Digg-based URL. The cause for concern might not be so great though.

Mike Arrington at TechCrunch notes, "For most purposes those sites won’t care. The page is still rendered and includes the advertising. The way most internal analytics software works means that page views will still be counted. But some services, like Comscore, won’t necessarily see the visit to the site, and will penalize the domain name."

An article from Brian X. Chen at Wired provides some insight from social media all-star Brent Csutoras, that should set some minds at ease.

As for content providers, Csutoras said the DiggBar will only improve traffic to their sites. He noted that the DiggBar features buttons to share Digg links via Facebook, Twitter and e-mail. He said there also shouldn't be a risk of hijacking traffic: Even though the DiggBar keeps a user at Digg, the content provider's site is displayed in an inline frame, meaning it still receives a page view and the proper ad revenue for each click.

It's understandable that the idea of Digg taking all of your traffic would cause some concern, particularly if you are in the business of making money from your content. But the DiggBar might actually be helping your cause. And let's not forget the amount of exposure your content can get by simply being included in Digg to begin with.

What do you think about the DiggBar? Tell us.

Have you noticed a change in traffic? Good or bad?

Digg Gets Ready For Search Improvement

Chris Crum — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:49:59 +0000

Digg announced the unveiling of its new DiggBar yesterday to much enthusiasm. The toolbar makes Digg a direct competitor with StumbleUpon and TinyURL. You can check that out here:

DiggBar from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

In the same blog post that Kevin Rose announced the DiggBar in, he said to "Also stay tuned for some big changes to Digg search!" Digg has not exactly been known for its search feature, but perhaps that will change.

TechCrunch was able to get a screenshot from Digg showing what the new search will look like. TC's Mike Arrington says, "The new search appears to have much more relevant results, taking into account the popularity of the story as well as the newness for 'best match.' Other simple filters include 'most dugg' and 'newest first.' Compare that to the very old, not very relevant results you get now."

He also notes that the left sidebar features items like aging, number of stories with a certain number of Diggs, and stories broken out by media type, and by topic.

Between this and the DiggBar, it seems like Rose is holding to his new year's resolution of building a better Digg. Perhaps that lost Digg enthusiasm is starting to pick back up.

The DiggBar Cometh

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:34:23 +0000

Remember in late February when a new Digg Toolbar was uncovered via an image on Flickr? It was said to be coming out to take on StumbleUpon and TinyURL (and similar services) at the same time.

Well now we get a closer look at that as Digg prepares to roll out the DiggBar. Kevin Rose posted about it at Digg the Blog today and included the following video, which shows just what it does.

DiggBar from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

According to Rose, the Digg Bar allows users to:

- Digg directly on the destination site: No more awkward toggling between the story page and Digg.

- Easily share stories: You can now create a shortened Digg URL to share on Twitter, Facebook or via email. You can also type digg.com/ before the URL of any page you’re on to create a short URL.

- Access additional analytics: See how many times a story has been viewed.

- View comments while on the story page: Clicking the ‘Comments’ button expands the DiggBar to show the top comment, latest comment, and most controversial without leaving the page.

- Discover related stories: Clicking the ‘Related’ button expands the DiggBar to highlight similar stories.

- See more stories from the same source: Clicking the ‘Source’ button expands the DiggBar to show you more Digg stories from that source site.

- Discover random stories: Click the ‘Random’ button and you’ll be brought to an entirely new, unexpected story.

So basically it is StumbleUpon meets TinyURL meets Digg with even more. I think this toolbar is going to be quite popular. It even gives you direct access to post shortened URLs on Twitter and Facebook. This thing's going to get a lot of use.

It's not available to everyone just yet, but from the sound of it, you won't have to wait much longer if you can't get it yet. Starting today, Digg is rolling out the DiggBar.

Can Digg Restore the Enthusiasm That Made the Site Popular?

Chris Crum — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:51:50 +0000

Update: Digg CEO Jay Adelson says Digg is working on a new search tool. Dan Frommer references a Facebook Status update from Adelson: "Playing with the yet-to-be-released new Digg search...holy crap...Sammy kicked ass on this one. Filled with awesomeness."

Original Article: It used to be when you read about Digg, it was full of enthusiasm. In 2009, it seems like the majority of Digg discussion carries an attitude that is less thrilled.

Since the beginning of the year, unique visitors have been declining for the first time since a short period last summer according to data from Compete. That's not to say it won't bounce right back like it has in the past, but gripes continue to circulate throughout the web.

In reality, Digg-griping is nothing new. Users have frequently complained for quite some time about power users dominating, and power users have complained about being punished for being loyal. Digg just can't win. All companies know that they can't please everyone though.

But it doesn't help when lists like this one from Soshable.com indicate that nearly half of all Digg front page stories come from the same group of sites:

Gerald Weber at Search Engine Journal also talks about Digg secretly auto burying certain user submissions and then removing personal links from personal profiles, making the site less social. Shortly after they added the links back, but it was just enough to create some far-from-needed negative buzz.

The year is still early and Digg has big plans.

Kevin Rose included "build a better Digg" on his list of New Year's resolutions. In January, Digg CEO Jay Adelson announced the following priorities for the year:

- Rolling out new features to grow and engage our community

- Building on our advertising infrastructure

- Building on our successful partnership with Microsoft

- Ongoing sponsorship opportunities

- Ongoing publisher and trade partnerships

An enhanced toolbar is also on the way that could challenge StumbleUpon and even TinyURL, a popular service in the Twitterverse. It will be interesting to see if the Digg enthusiasm returns.

Digg to Take On StumbleUpon and TinyURL?

Chris Crum — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:44:45 +0000

Twitterer Veronica Belmont had discovered a Flickr page with an alleged upcoming toolbar from Digg that would potentially rival StumbleUpon.

TechCrunch claims to have tracked down a beta tester and talks about some features. According to that article, the toolbar will include abilities for the user to:

- Digg the page you're on
- Bury the page you're on
- See how many diggs a page has received
- See links for related pages
- See more pages from the source that have been dugg a lot or marked as "up and coming"
- Go to random pages that have been dugg, much like StumbleUpon's key feature

This could spell bad news for StumbleUpon. Here's what the unique visitors look like for Digg and StumbleUpon according to Compete:

Of course the majority of StumbleUpon's use surely comes from its toolbar. If Digg invades this territory, StumbleUpon may need to counter with something new of its own.

Sidenote: Digg and StumbleUpon are both starting to crack down on their communities, which could also have an impact on the usage of each one for better or worse. Brent Csutoras and Chris Bennett discuss this and other happenings in social media in this interview with Abby Johnson from the recent SMX West show:

More WebProNews Videos

But that's not all for the Digg toolbar. Apparently it comes equipped with TinyURL-like functionality too. Eric Schonfeld writes:

Now, here where it gets interesting. For each page, the toolbar creates a shortened URL similar to TinyURL or bit.ly that starts instead with http://digg.com/. . . followed by a six-character code such as “http://digg.com/d1gVha.” When you share a page via Twitter or Facebook, it is that shortened URL which is used. And in fact, for the beta testers, the toolbar can be wrapped around any page simply by sticking “http://digg.com/” in front of any URL, which then gets converted into a shortened version. This technique works for pages that have never been Dugg as well. I could see this feature eventually showing up as part of a browser add-on so that Digg URL’s could be created with one click.

If Digg releases this toolbar, it could inflict some major damage to other sites. Just think of all the shortened URL Tweeting. I guess it's all part of Kevin Rose's resolution to build a better Digg.

Update: A spokesperson for Digg tells me that the toolbar is on the way, but they cannot give further details at this point.

Facebook, YouTube, Digg & SynthaSite Leaders to Make World Better

Chris Crum — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:03:40 +0000

The World Economic Forum announced selections for its Young Global Leaders. This group consists of business, government, academia, media, non-profit organizations and arts leaders from different regions around the world. Among the selections were a number of Silicon Valley leaders including Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Chad Hurley of YouTube, and Kevin Rose of Digg (not to mention non-techies like Tiger Woods and Jessica Biel).

Vinny Lingham the CEO of Synthasite (who recently came into $20 million in funding) was also selected, and took the time to answer a few questions about the group and what it hopes to accomplish.

Chris Crum: What was the process by which you were selected by the World Economic Forum?

Vinny Lingham: Application and selection is a three step process — nomination, short list and final selection:

1. This year almost 5,000 candidates from around the world were nominated to the Forum of YGL based on the following criteria:

- He/she is 40 years of age or younger at the time of nomination.

- He/she has a recognized record of extraordinary achievement and a proven track record of substantial leadership experience. Typically, this means 5-15 years of outstanding professional work experience and a clear indication of playing a substantial leadership role for the rest of his or her career.

- He/she has demonstrated a commitment to serve society at large through exceptional contributions, and have a global perspective.

- He/she must have an impeccable record in the public eye and good standing in his/her community, as well as show great self-awareness and a desire for learning.

- Candidates from the business sector must be responsible for the full operation of a qualifying corporation or division and must hold one of the following titles: President, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director, Managing Partner or Publisher, or equivalent of any of the above. If the company is a Member or Partner of the World Economic Forum, the candidate requires the approval of the CEO or Chairman of the Board of the respective company.

- Companies, organizations and entities can only nominate one candidate from the qualifying company every two years.

2. Candidates were evaluated by Heidrick & Struggles, recognized as one of the world's leading executive search firms.

3. As a final step, candidates were screened by the WEF Selection Committee. This year the 31-person selection committee was chaired by H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

A full list of committee members can be found here.

CC: What will your role be in the organization?

VL: My acceptance on this forum is brand new so specific roles are still being defined.

As a group, our activities and agenda will focus on the three pillars of the YGL community – community building, generating insight and undertaking collective action. We’ll have regular events throughout the year including the YGL Summits, which provide an opportunity for us to meet, share ideas and discuss ways to collectively shape the future. Within the YGL Forum there are different task forces focused on the biggest global challenges facing our generation – health, education, the environment, global governance and security, and development and poverty.

This is a three-year commitment that I’m excited to dive into. I’ll be participating in the summits and events and, of course, actively contributing to online discussions throughout my tenure. I will keep you posted as my role is further defined.

CC: What ways will this allow you to contribute to making the world a better place?

VL: One of my proudest achievements is the ability to inspire other entrepreneurs in South Africa and the U.S. to start businesses and assist in job creation. Joining this Forum brings that capability to a global scale.

CC: Will you be collaborating directly with other members (like Zuckerberg, Kevin Rose, etc)?

VL: Individual roles are yet to be determined and we’re all trying to figure out which task forces we’ll best be able to serve. I’m sure our paths will cross on this Forum in one way or another.

CC: Please tell me anything else about the World Economic Forum and Young Global Leaders you'd like to share.

I’m thrilled to be part of the Young Global Leaders. It’s a great honor. I’m looking forward to contributing my unique perspective to the community and learning from the insights and expertise of others in the forum.

Thanks to Vinny for taking the time to answer a few questions. I would imagine his plate is quite full. A full list of the Young Global Leaders selections can be found here (pdf).

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