Let me be clear: I hate Digg. Two years ago it was a Ron Paul clearinghouse and a place where you could see the word “amazing” totally abused; now it’s more of a… something. I don’t even know anymore.
Now we’re on the fourth iteration of the site, and I just don’t understand what’s going on. I understand that they’re trying to make the site far more socially based, but forcing users into that just seems wrong. The first time I logged in it gave me a list of popular people and asked me if I wanted to follow them. If the site is just a bunch of people following each other, then I already have that – in Google Reader, Facebook, etc. To me, Digg is a place to sort of capture what’s big and what’s upcoming on the Internet right now by seeing a collection of what everyone is looking at, not just a few people. And maybe I’m missing it, but what happened to the Upcoming section? How do articles make it to the front page – do you need to have enough friends to digg an article so that it gets up there? I hope that’s not it, ’cause that seems backwards.
Kevin Rose updated his blog with a list of changes, and some of them I find really interesting. Their solution to the bury brigades was just to remove the bury functionality altogether. Seems a bit heavy handed, to be honest; surely there’s a better solution out there. I noticed they removed the “made public {time} ago” text from the listings, but it sounds like that was a bug. I sure hope so; that was one of the ways I figured out what I had and hadn’t read. When you’re logged in and you go to digg.com, it takes you to My News, which is just what the people you’re following have shared. There’s more of that forced social network, and I hope they put in an option to change the default landing page.
On the flip side, I think everyone’s being a little overdramatic. The site design, as a whole, is considerably better, I think. It’s more streamline and actually makes sense. But beyond aesthetics, people who complained about Reddit nonstop are now closing their Digg accounts and going over there because it’s better. Meanwhile, Reddit can be just as horrendous; right now, the main page is all links to images about this Prop 19 thing.
Every time a major site gets a facelift people always whine. How many Facebook protest groups were started when they went to their current layout? People will never be happy. With Digg, though, it seems a little worse. Kind of a shame too; where am I going to go to find out what’s hot on the Internet now?
Great insight. Relieved I’m on the same side as you.