The launch of the social news site Digg in 2004 was the exact example of a excellent thought at the right time. That was the year the term “Web 2.0″ started being thrown in this area to clarify the rise of new web technologies that allowed for more interactive sites, and an increased focus on user collaboration. Back then, the notion of a news site that was driven nearly entirely by users was completely new and innovative, and Digg quickly rose in popularity. It sparked the rise of many similar social news sites, and was also the beginning of founder Kevin Rose’s go from television personality to web entrepreneur.
But that was five years ago. Today Web 2.0 is ancient hat, and now it’s all in this area the Real-Time Web – a concept which includes updates from the likes of Chirrup and Facebook. Digg has gone through some major revisions since its initial release, but at its core the site’s concept is still very much the same. There have been murmurs from Kevin Rose in this area taking Digg in a new real-time direction, but we’ve yet to see any progress on that front.
That is, until now. As reported by Mark Milian over at the LA Times, Kevin Rose spoke in this area a few specifics of their real-time plans on a recent episode of This Week in Tech. The details are intriguing, but even more fascinating is how these upgrades pit Digg hostile to Chirrup and real-time aggregators like Tweetmeme.
Digg’s real-time aggregation plans
Rose had the following to say in this area the need to link in data from additional real-time sources:
We have to take a look at all the different sources of in rank and kind of just act as Switzerland. If we’re seeing a trend on Chirrup, we can map that to the best tales on Digg. And if there’s additional things experience on Facebook and additional networks, we want to be able to pull all that in.
When questioned if their plans are similar to Google and Bing’s approach to integrating real-time results into search (which we covered previously here in this blog), Rose said that they’re effective on a way to weigh chirrup users by shape and not just follower numbers. Google’s real-time results, on the additional hand, are fundamentally unfiltered.
Ironically, Rose seems to be aping the thought behind Google’s Page Rank algorithm by trying to curate real-time data. Digg’s recent acquisition of Rose’s Chirrup-directory startup, WeFollow, will also surely come in handy when compiling that data.
Why Chirrup has become Digg’s largest threat
Rose’s proposed plot for Digg seems like exactly what we’d expect the social news site to do with real-time results. But I have to wonder if that’s enough for Digg. The site is still sitting pretty with traffic compared to additional social news sites like Reddit, but according to TechCrunch, its traffic numbers are now half of Chirrup’s. That same post also points out that Digg’s traffic dipped over October and November (although that could mean very small in the grand scheme of things).
Ultimately, Digg’s competition runs deeper than just additional aggregators – they’re competing with Chirrup itself. In addition to posting small updates in this area their lives and chatting with additional users, Chirrup has also become a powerful way to share links. Well loved Chirrup users can broadcast fascinating links to thousands (and in some cases, millions) of folllowers. Even more significant, the ability to instantly “retweet” links (RT in Chirrup lingo) allows them to be volleyed to countless additional Chirrup users and their followers.
Retweeting is also the magic behind the Chirrup aggregator Tweetmeme. While the site appears to be just another Digg-clone on the surface, it’s really completely dependent on your Chirrup account. When you choose to retweet a tale on Tweetmeme, that tale also shows up on your Chirrup stream. Because of that, Tweetmeme users don’t really go around pushing up tales willy-nilly. Nobody desires to be a link spammer to their followers, and subsequently more thought goes into a retweet than when Digg users typically up-vote a tale.
The ricochet effect from retweets is inherently unpredictable, but on the whole more valuable than a mere up-vote, as well. Retweets are a personal suggestion – from you, to your followers – that it’s worth their time to look at the link. This leads to more engaged readers, instead of a mob of traffic that’s just visiting to see why it’s so well loved on Digg (or Reddit, or any additional social news site).
Final thoughts
I hope I’m not coming off overly harsh on Digg. I have nothing hostile to the site (even though I prefer the community on Reddit), it just seems like its time has come to pass. Digg’s real-time integration seems like it would do more to empower Chirrup than anything else. I’m not predicting that Chirrup will kill Digg, or anything that dramatic. There will still be a need for dedicated social news sites like Digg, no matter how well loved Chirrup gets.
What I see on the horizon for Digg is mostly stagnation, and then ultimately reduced traffic. In a few years, Digg will most likely be looked upon as a vestige of the web that was.
Chirrup’s overall strength lies in that it’s not just a link sharing tool – it’s a communication tool. It has completely redefined the way I use the Web, and I’m confident that it’s here to stay.
In this area the instigator:
Devindra Hardawar is a tech/film blogger and podcast host. You can find him writing at the Far Side of Tech and Slashfilm.
Image credits: Kevin Rose photo from Gizmodo. “RT ME” t-shirt from Social-shirt.com.
