I think I’ve almost had it on Digg. Im going to remove it completely from my Google Reader. You know what? I’m also going to submit this article to Digg and see what happens!
Why? Well I recently posted about being sick of the duplicate article problem on Digg – the same articles kept coming up over and over again. That’s not just the only reason I’m quitting Digg. It becoming more and more common to see the most stupid articles on the front page off Digg. I would often sit there and read it and go “What?! How on earth could an article like this get 1000 diggs!”.
The Answer? Well some of the time it’s ‘Digg Fraud’. Its not as bad as Click Fraud, but its getting there! There are many start-ups out there that are now charging Advertisers who want to get Digged on Digg – and not only that, they allow you to get Digged by paying Digg users money to digg their articles!
Have a look at subvertandprofit.com. Quite simple idea really – Advertisers, pay $1 per digg. If you are a Digg user – well they will pay you 50 cents if you digg an article which they ask you to digg. The company makes a 50 cent profit.
Subvert and Profit say “…We allow advertisers to purchase actions on social networks… they are 50 to 100 times more cost effective than conventional Internet advertising.”.
Its not just Subvert and Profit, here is a listing of sites that will actually pay YOU to digg articles
http://subvertandprofit.com/
http://www.usersubmitter.com/
http://payperpost.com/
I’m sure there are many more, I just couldn’t be bothered looking…
Quite simple really – it sounds stupid doesn’t it?
So does it really work? Can you get pay money and get digged? I did some research, and you know what? The sad thing is – its actually working!
There was this guy who wanted conduct the experiment. He submitted a really stupid article to digg and then paid for it to get digged. He even posted about it on Digg confessing (that has got over 4,000 diggs) he paid $1 per Digg to see what would happen:
“Two hours went by, and I got another digg. Then, suddenly, diggs began to accumulate like bugs on a windshield — smack, smack, a couple every 10 minutes. After four and a half hours, I had 19 diggs. My web logs showed I had no new hits on my site through Digg, however, offering evidence that the diggs had come from people who hadn’t bothered to investigate my blog.”
“When I woke up in the morning, my story had been awarded the “became popular” tag and had 121 diggs. U/S had done what it promised: The company had helped me buy my way into Digg popularity, and my site traffic had gone way up — overnight, I’d been hammered with so many hits that the diggers had to set up a mirror.”
What to see the result? Check out the article. On writing this its got over 300 diggs! The person that paid for the diggs, said he wanted to submit the dullest article possible and see how many diggs it got – well it worked. Some of the users comments;
“I can’t believe how many Diggs this is getting. This must be a sign of the end of days.”
“For all those wondering how this crap got to the front page: http://digg.com/tech_news/I_Bought_Votes_on_Digg”
“nothing attracts a crown like a crowd. digg is sooooooo stupid. it merely gives stupid people a feeling of power for branding other people’s stuff bad (over their head) or stupid (like them).”
“maaaan, how stupid you gotta be to digg this ****”
“ow the hell, did this get to the front page…..” “we all know now…. $1 a digg is why!”
…and MANY MORE!!
See the evidence? Decide for yourself… Digg started off well – and now quite frankly – its a joke.
This, alongside the duplicate article problem which Digg still hasn’t done much about is leading me to give up on Digg. I hope other people reading this who agree will also do the same.
Interested to see other peoples comments….
6 Responses for "Why I’m giving up on Digg – and I think you should too"
Some of the “power users” at Digg are working round the clock. Now guess what they do for a living, if your can.
Take a look at websites getting millions of hits each year (from Digg), hits that tranmute into piles of money.
Some of the owners of those sites are masters of promotion. Do they buy their votes from power users, I do wonder? Are those owners power users, too?
Who knows?
Some of the so-called “power users†might, in fact, be businesses that sell their “power votes”. (In the blog, top of page, such businesses are mentioned.)
Maybe some of the power users don’t exist in flesh and blood? Maybe their names and identities are false?
The fact that such things CAN be done suggests that Digg is flawed. Digg is honest, I believe. But maybe that’s just me.
Money makes the world go round. Always follow the money.
People who truly hate free thought will hiss and moan about this page.
Overlook their heinous noise. An army of one could beat them.
why was this posted on Digg?
Hey, Sherif:
I you print my prior comment, do me a favor and correct the SECOND sentence that I wrote. It should read:
“Now guess what they do for a living, if your can.”
Thanks.
Army of Two
@Army of Two – Yeah you are so true… It really comes back down to Money…
@JoshuaTree – Because I want to get digged! ROFL
I gave up on Digg at the end of last year. But it wasn’t due to the paid to Digg thing. Many feeds I watch are far from impartial. But that’s not what I’m interested in. I’m looking for an efficient mechanism for keeping abreast of new developments. But Digg’s tags are too dis-organised to be useful and hence you end up with too much noise and not enough relevant links. The true measure of a systems usefulness is how efficiently you can find what you need and Digg has become increasingly inefficient.
First off I believe http://payperpost.com/ is to pay per blog post NOT Diggs on Digg.com
Do you know any other Digg Submitters than http://subvertandprofit.com/ and http://www.usersubmitter.com/?
http://subvertandprofit.com/ is NOT open yet
and http://www.usersubmitter.com/ is CLOSED!
Warmly,
JP
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