Will Digg 3.0 bury the Digg effect?

Vishnu Mahmud a writer for CNet Asia has posted an interesting article with the heading "Will diversity drown digg?".

I have to agree with Vishnu. However, I would of had preferred a title that is something like "Will Digg 3.0 bury the Digg effect?" The reason that I say this is because now the site is so diversed, it does not have the same market as it had before for stories that reach to the front page. Before when stories makes it to the front page, we know it is going to get the real exposure that is should. Now in many different categories, users will have to go look for them to find the articles. Users themself are spread out instead of being in the tech sector. There were times when digg's front page stories used to get over 500 diggs. Now I see stories that are in the one hundreds. Is this due to the diversity?

Like Vishnu said, many of us tech people enjoyed the site before. That does not mean that we don't enjoy it now but it just that it doesn't feel like home anymore. The site does not cater only for tech news. What is the different between yahoo, man and google news and now digg 3.0?

To answer Vishnu's question on " But what happens if the demographics change?", I think just like any other democratic world, if the voters change then the representative changes. Here the representative being the news that makes it to the front page will significantly change. Imaging there are more sports or entertainment fans in the world and they all fall in love with digg! You will see more entertainment news than technology news. Even if there is a balance, then the won't be a fair balance for the real stories to stay on the front page for long. This will dilute the digg effect. There will no longer be a digg effect because the stories won't last long on the front page.

At this point we just have to wait and see. Like Vishnu said, will the entertainers, the conservatives or some organized group take over digg?

Comments

[Joseph]

If the demographics change, Digg management will just split them up, like google.ca and google.cn. We will never even see the other diggs.

If more sports people come, then the sports sections will fill up, but we will still have high quality tech content.

[Manning]

Great read as always. You are right. They are spreading their users over a large pie than before. No more home for techies.

[David M]

I have to admit that I do feel like it is diluted. The buzz is not there anymore.

Slashdot and reddit may take on this advantage.

David

[PreZ]

I believe digg now has more users than ever. Now it will take more diggs to get a story to the top which is good for everyone.

[Bypass]

cool