Digg's Turn To Game the Users?
In social media circles it's been said many times that digg.com was fodder for a select number of power users and other members looking to game the system and that publishers were secretly paying others to steer traffic to their websites.
Now it looks like digg.com's latest bug filled upgrade; 'digg 4' has turned the tables on the power users and gamers simultaneously. However, in digg's continued quest for social and financial viability they've apparently disenfranchised most of their user base in the process.
One problem seems to lie in the fact that Digg removed a variety of popular aspects from diggv3, which in turn triggered outrage from the vibrant digg community (never quiet about what it likes and dislikes), which quickly struck back, spamming the site with submissions and cyber-chanting, 'Kevin Rose, Do the Right Thing'
Secondly, many users feel that digg has sold them out to to curry favor from publishers and other financial interests and forgetting whose back the golden pyramid was built on. Blood makes poor mortar.
to quote Digg User : MrBabyMan (a long time core level member of digg) recently summed it up nicely:
@KevinRose @Digg_Community
"Please don't let individual content curation die out for the sake of RSS auto-fed publisher accounts. I've been telling the Digg team this since I was invited to Digg HQ to test the V4 alpha earlier this year. Publisher accounts are currently dominating Digg's front page. I completely understand the financial need to engage publishers, but without the individual-user posts that, in my opinion, made Digg a unique destination for original content, the new Digg has no more relevance than a Popurls or an Alltop (sorry, Guy), merely repeating (relinking) what everyone else is linking."
Digg is also encouraging a dangerous trend on mainstream publishers' part. If mainstream publishers know their accounts carry more weight on Digg than the average individual user, it encourages them to linkjack (or outright steal) popular content previously submitted by individual users, knowing that Digg is more likely to drive traffic to their (ad-supported) sites via their publisher account than from individual user accounts. [While linkjacking is not a violation of Digg's TOU, it is (or at least used to be) discouraged by Digg's community guidelines.] This is effectively creating an online publishing culture where major publishers are "wal-Mart-izing" smaller, individual bloggers out of existence.
My concern is, that if Digg solely exists now to serve mainstream publishers, then it may as well be a publisher-to-publisher service, as the appeal for the individual user to visit the site will have been replaced by a constant stream of ad-supported marketing."
Calling the Kettle Black
This would be considerable soul searching if they were actually talking about how they screwed up their own website. They're not. This is an edited spoof... They're actually dishing on Facebook Places.
If Kevin Rose and Co. truly implement changes to accommodate the users and back up their promises with action... respectfully and earnestly take into account the hard work of their loyal user base (for over half a decade) my feeling is digg will flourish and take it's rightful place amongst the social media stars.
If not... imo... Digg will fail and hit the dusty trail
Bottom Line
Digg can procure all the publisher love the world has to offer, but if they alienate the users... their future is fucked.
when you see just how many things had potential on the Internet, only to be rendered useless by some jerk," Montreal consultant and 
Girl."
