In their blog post today, Digg announced that they are going to use some of the technology that they developed in their improved search function to find stories that are either the exact same story fromt he same site with different URLs or similar stories from different sources that are basically saying the same thing.

A minor point in all of this is that they have moved the duplicate detection to the front of the submission process rather than being the last step. This is a nice feature for those who spend a good deal of time crafting the right headline, description, and selecting the right category only to find out later that the story or some form of it had already been submitted.

(more…)

With that said, #FollowFriday has become cumbersome and at times annoying.  What started off as an incredible idea has turned into a race for many.  There are those who recommend hundreds, even thousands of users every week. While I will not presume the intentions of those who do this, it can be assumed that at least some are doing it in hopes of receiving #FollowFriday recommendations back from those they recommend.

This week, I’m skipping it.

I’ll be back next week, I’m sure, but this week I will not recommend anyone. There are so many worthy of recommendations, but I would love to see it return to what it once was.

(more…)

But…

There are times when a submission is good enough to be featured on the front page but wasn’t submitted by a user with the social capital to get it the attention it deserves.  Case in point:

There is no question that the Digg community took a liking to the video.  There is no question that the video had been submitted at least 3 times before (probably more than that). The way that Digg is set now, technically speaking, this is a dupe and should (A) not have been submitted, (B) the submitters after the first person should have simply Dugg the original submission, and (C) the other submissions should not have made the front page.

Thank goodness that the dupe system isn’t perfect or Susan Boyle’s amazing performance would not have had over 6K diggs with tens of thousands of users enjoying the video. Still, the underlying negatives associated with duping stories outweigh the benefits of having strong content hit the front page. Is there a solution that can discourage dupes, give credit to the original submitter, and focus on content as much as possible?

Yes.

(more…)

]]> http://socialnewswatch.com/resubmit-digg/feed/ http://socialnewswatch.com/digg-dupes/ http://socialnewswatch.com/digg-dupes/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:11:50 +0000 JD Rucker http://socialnewswatch.com/digg-dupes/ Digg.com has implemented some pretty profound changes without making a peep (other than a teaser mention in a blog post last year).  They have addressed most of the problems with exact duplicate submissions, once a gaping hole in their promotion style as well as their credibility.

The Digg blog mentioned 4 months ago that:

“We’re also working on a new system that will, among other things, allow us to track users who abusively submit duplicate content.”

Abusive duping is one thing, but Digg has also implemented a change to fix accidental or simultaneous duplication of story submissions.

The two changes noticed so far are:

(more…)

]]> http://socialnewswatch.com/digg-dupes/feed/ http://socialnewswatch.com/top-twitter-users/ http://socialnewswatch.com/top-twitter-users/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:52:13 +0000 JD Rucker http://socialnewswatch.com/top-twitter-users/ As Twitter hits its stride and emerges as a juggernaut in social media, the top users on the site are distancing themselves from the pack.  The race to 1,000,000 followers will be achieved in a few months by some accounts.  With such strong followings, many new or inactive Twitter users may not think that there are top accounts that will follow them back.

On the contrary, there are many. In fact, many users with tens of thousands of followers will follow just about everyone back.  Some use tools to automatically follow anyone who follows them. Others actually go through and manually add their new followers. Regardless of the method, these 237 accounts will most likely follow you back, even if you’re a Twitter newbie.

(image source: ProBlogger’s excellent article about growing your Twitter presence)

(more…)

]]> http://socialnewswatch.com/top-twitter-users/feed/ http://socialnewswatch.com/digg-xkcd/ http://socialnewswatch.com/digg-xkcd/#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:49:19 +0000 JD Rucker http://socialnewswatch.com/digg-xkcd/ XKCD will hit the front page of Digg.  Every time.  No exceptions.

The often brilliant webcomic XKCD is published on particular days and at particular times during the week.  The clockwork nature of the posts is followed by several Digg users because every post will hit the front page.  The chances of a Kevin Rose submission missing the front page is higher than the chances of XKCD missing.

As a result, every post is submitted multiple times within seconds after it goes live.  Because Digg does not “lock out” submissions once they are started, everyone who starts submitting before the first one is completed will be able to continue their submission.

(more…)

]]> http://socialnewswatch.com/digg-xkcd/feed/ http://socialnewswatch.com/mrbabyman-ltgenpanda-and-several-others-talk-about-digg/ http://socialnewswatch.com/mrbabyman-ltgenpanda-and-several-others-talk-about-digg/#comments Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:18:03 +0000 JD Rucker http://socialnewswatch.com/mrbabyman-ltgenpanda-and-several-others-talk-about-digg/ With Andy Sorcini, MrBabyMan on Digg, away from his home studio for Friday nights’ The Drill Down show, he graciously allowed me to pop in and have an impromptu “Drill Up” show.  We were able to interview and have a discussion with several Digg users including MrBabyMan, MSaleem, LouieBaur, Brainnovate, and Tched.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was getting LtGenPanda, the enigmatic new user who has really taken the Digg from page by storm with instant success.  Also joining us was former Digg powerhouse OptimusPrime01 as we had 3 hours of fun and informative discussions.  You can check it out here:

Live TV : Ustream

Learn more about Digg on Social News Watch.

]]> http://socialnewswatch.com/mrbabyman-ltgenpanda-and-several-others-talk-about-digg/feed/ http://socialnewswatch.com/social-media-advertising/ http://socialnewswatch.com/social-media-advertising/#comments Sun, 04 Jan 2009 14:06:10 +0000 JD Rucker http://socialnewswatch.com/social-media-advertising/ It was hard.  For as long as I can remember, I have not been one who clicks on banner ads.  Heck, in most cases, I don’t even see them (thank you FF).

A friend of mine who is an avid reader turned me onto Audible.com to download audio books.  With recent articles in BusinessWeek and TechCrunch about the financial woe’s they’re having at Digg, I remembered seeing an Audible ad on Digg and thought, why not?

I’m going to be signing up for the service anyway.  Why not throw a bone to the site that consumes a ton of my time?

The results weren’t good:

These things happen.  I sent an email to Digg pointing out the issue and waited.  It is now 4 days later.  I surfed Digg, doing my thing, checking every time I went to a new page to see if my target ad had found me.  It eventually did, but still, it didn’t work. (more…)

]]> http://socialnewswatch.com/social-media-advertising/feed/ http://socialnewswatch.com/2009-predictions/ http://socialnewswatch.com/2009-predictions/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:27:10 +0000 JD Rucker http://socialnewswatch.com/2009-predictions/ In so many ways, 2008 was a predictable year.  When the year began, the economy was heading in the wrong direction, while Twitter was being born into “wow, this is way cool.”  The Republican Party was one political faux pas after another, while smart phones were going from luxury to necessity with each new glorious app and feature.

Google was at its peak with no place to go but down.  The automotive industry was already feeling like a step-child before they became an orphan.  The Dark Knight was phenomenal while Speed Racer was phenomenally bad.

None of these things were surprises, but there were a few unexpected happenings.  Gas peaked (for now) and bottomed out just in time for holiday travel.  The Detroit Lions were worse than anyone thought a team in 2008 could be.  John McCain fought back from obscurity within his own party to win the nomination, then threw us a VP curveball that flew over the catcher, over the ump, and on towards the talkshow circuit.

2009 seems to be starting with quite a bit more uncertainty.  How will it end up?  Nobody knows, of course, but at least we can speculate.  I would like comments, please, with your predictions of what 2009 will be.  Here are a few to get it started: (more…)

]]> http://socialnewswatch.com/2009-predictions/feed/ http://socialnewswatch.com/twitter-followers/ http://socialnewswatch.com/twitter-followers/#comments Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:34:01 +0000 JD Rucker http://socialnewswatch.com/twitter-followers/ If there was ever a doubt before, all doubt has been erased by this screenshot:

OK, it’s cheesy, but hey, so am I.  That magic number is already passed, but you can see where I sit right now.

Read more about Twitter on Social News Watch.

]]> http://socialnewswatch.com/twitter-followers/feed/