Primarily beginning as a tech news site for geeks, and evolving into more of a democratic news site, Digg has recently been undergoing additional evolutionary changes with the increase of posts and stories that are hardly regarded as newsworthy.
While it is fair to say that a enormous number of users enjoy the non-news posts that make the front page, there is an element of the Digg Army that is to some extent put off by this development of over inundation.
Essentially, what this means is, different people use Digg for different reasons. While several go there for information and discussions on the latest news (technology or otherwise), there are others who additionally go there for general interest topics that may not necessarily be compartmentalized as news.
For example, take a look at the screenshot below. This shot was taken from the Top in 24 Hours page of Digg on Monday, August 20, 2007 at 7:12 PM CST. Click the picture to see it in full size (link will open in a new tab or window). It is the top five topics with the most diggs within the last 24 hour period:
Out of those five top submissions, only the first in the list could almost be construed as news; though it was more parody than anything else: it was a humorous response to an early story about an individual web designer that was blocking visits from people using Mozilla Firefox. Even so, its newsworthiness is indefinite at best.
The rest in the list are of stories that are not news, and are more connected to general interest. Of course, three of the top five are also image posts. This is yet another signal that Digg needs a picture section.
Okay, so that's only five stories. What about the rest? Let us take a look at the next five:
Only two of the five posts listed are news, the first being MrBabyMan's post on the development of the digital imagery algorithm that is most certainly big news in both software and design. The second is a (albeit humorous) review for the game BioShock. The other three stories are all images, of general interest, and are not newsworthy.
A lot of members of the Digg Army are expressing a lot of frustration at this development. Many are pointing to the need for Digg to spin out its picture section. However, the "not news" syndrome goes further and deeper than just pictures.
There is an easy way to solve this issue. I believe it would look something almost like this:
To some people, it might look like overload, but with Digg expanding and developing such a large user base, there is unquestionably a need for a more meaningful organization of sections:
Home:
This is the new main front page. All popular stories from ALL sections are listed.
News:
The current front page as we know it; but without the general interest stories and with more of a solid focus on news and current affairs.
Web:
The "Not News" section - stories, articles, and posts of general interest.
Videos, Images, and Podcasts:
Pretty self-explanatory.
Some might ask, "How would this work?" My suggestion would be to add one additional question to the link submission page:
Using this method, a general interest story can still fit into categories such as Entertainment or Gaming, but will be delegated to the Web section of Digg, rather than the News section.
Having the site structured this way puts the users in a situation where everyone wins. The newshounds get their daily dosage of what is current. The geeks get their fill of tech news. The [PIC] whores get all the pictures they could ever ogle at. & people like me who love it all get the ultimate main front page. Win-Win.
Speaking of which, here are several other ideas and suggestions to improve Digg:
Other suggestions to improve Digg
Off the top of my head, here are some of the other areas I would love to see development in over at Digg:
Fix The Comments
This is probably the number one complaint on Digg right now, and in all seriousness, why shouldn't it be? The new comment system has many bugs including, but not limited to, script errors, lost comments, session expirations, and so on. It's also difficult to see if your comment has been replied to if you've buried the parent comment. While, in general, the Digg army appreciates the efforts gone into developing a new system, it should be clear by now that it just doesn't work as well as what Kevin Rose and co hoped it would. The comment system over in the Podcast section of Digg however, is almost flawless (couple of bugs here and there), and it boggles the mind as to why it hasn't been adopted across the entire site yet. While Diggers have been very vocal about the new comment system, Rose initially responded with pleas for feedback. Since then, the Diggocracy has been relatively silent about any developments in the comment system department. About time to give us an update, methinks...
Outgoing Clicks vs. Diggs
The Digg Effect transpires frequently to sites that are not able to cope with the amount of hits they are receiving; and one of the most common statements about this by users is when a submission has a small amount of diggs on the front page yet goes down. Though it is not a resolution to the Digg effect, I believe it would be practical for users to see a marker on the story page indicating how many outgoing clicks the story has had. This would give Diggers a better gauge to see the difference between the amount of diggs and the quantity of page views. Unless you run your own site, most people would have no idea as to how enormously different the numbers turn out to be once a story hits the front page.
Picture Section
Having a Picture section at Digg is probably the most suggested idea, second only to getting the comments system fixed. It has been a popular concept among users for some time now, and there has been very little said about it from the people behind the scenes. We know it's most likely coming (Kevin Rose has mentioned as much in a few interviews), but the real question is when? At the moment, the front page of NEWS is being flooded with images and pictures, usually of an AMAZING or humorous nature. It's gotten to the point of oversaturation, where the pictures links are outnumbering the news stories - and this is frustrating many Diggers.
Comment Score
Call it a user's karma, reputation; providence, or standing, one characteristic that Digg is sorely lacking is some kind of "user score system". The ideal technique to develop this would most likely be based on the amount of positive and negative diggs your comments obtain. There have been a few user made tools that have popped up over the last year that have revealed how useful this kind of system could be. As an example, if a user has made only two comments on Digg posts, one with a score of +42 and another with a score of -2, their karma/reputation score would be +40. This would be a clever tool when adding friends, as in it would be advantageous when identifying users positively contributing to Digg as opposed to those who calculatingly troll for negative diggs.
DuggMirror Link
Everyone loves a mirror, especially when a site listed on Digg's front page is being smashed by the Digg Effect. Dugg Mirror, while not affiliated with Digg, has provided an excellent service to users by attempting to cache as many front page stories as possible. That way, if one goes down, they have a mirror there. While my personal opinion always has been that Digg should probably institute its own caching system at some point, I like the concept of them supporting Dugg Mirror. Why not throw a link on a front page article to Dugg Mirror in case the site goes down? Sounds good to me. For those using Firefox, if you're interested, there is an extension available that already does this, and you can find it at this location.
Transparent Burying
Back around the times shortly before and shortly after The Digg Revolt, one of the objections that was driving me batshit insane was made by users when a story would drop from the main page or the upcoming stories list. "It is a conspiracy," some would screech, as others would claim it was some forceful censorship made by Digg. Whilst the administrators evidently delete stories that do not comply with Digg's Terms of Service, the main reason these articles drop off is because of the amount of people that have buried the story. Making burying blatant would be an easy way to combat these issues. Not only should users be able to see the number of people who buried the story; but they should also see (statistically) the main motivations behind why the story was buried. What percentage believed the story was inaccurate? How many people thought it was lame?
Customizable Home Page
Digg has now outgrown itself. It's more than a million users strong, it's gone above and beyond being the small tech news site it once was, and is now featuring so many diverse submissions and posts. Perhaps then, it's time for a customizable home page for users, where someone can go into their profile, and choose (like widgets) what aspects of Digg they want on their home page when they log in. Yes, I know, you can already choose a home page, and choose which stories to filter and so on - but I am thinking on a much more customizable level. Think "My Yahoo" and Google Home, and you'll get a good idea of what it is I'm talking about. I think Digg are stepping towards this direction, especially since the release of the Digg Widgets.
New Sections/Topics
One of my pet irritations at Digg is when I come across something interesting I want to submit, there does not seem to be an adequate category for it. Political News, Political Opinion, and US Elections 2008 should be repositioned into its own group, away from World and Business; simply because there are a lot of members at Digg that just do not get into the whole political debate thing. It's understandable. Religious, spiritual, and philosophical topics often get submitted to Digg as well; so I would imagine it would be advantageous to have a Religion and Philosophy section as well. Being an Aussie, I cannot help but wish for the addition of AFL Footy and Cricket to the sports section. Entertainment could use some development as well; with the inclusion of Books / Literature; or even Web Humor so that amusing submissions that are not news doo not get lumped into the Offbeat News section.
Politics needs a section on its own
As mentioned above, all things related to Politics needs a section on its own. There's a few reasons for this. Firstly, it is frustrating to those searching for non-political US news, World News, and offbeat news to be inundated with political posts. They are overwhelming at times, and often nothing more than blogspam. Secondly, it works the other way also - there are those who are right in the political arena of thought that it makes sense for them to have their own section. Kevin Rose himself has stated that politics has become as popular (if not more so than) as tech news on Digg. It makes sense to me - and it makes it easier to spot Ron Paul spam (nothing against Ron Paul, but some of those posts can be tiring) and Alex Jones blog spam.
Search
Let us face it. Digg's search function sucks. Seriously, it sucks goats. I mean, if you really put their search page underneath a goat, I am sure it would seriously start sucking it. It's that bad. In the past, I have used Google to search for Digg articles, with some better success than at the site itself. Perhaps Kevin Rose and Crew should team up with Google to enhance their search function. If a cesspit like MySpace can work with Google to improve their search function (and no matter how much you loathe MySpace, you have to admit, their searching tools improved considerably after teaming with Google), then imagine the improvements Digg would have. Come on, Kevin, you dropped them as your advertisers; surely you could throw them a bone for this particular area - especially as seeing it is their pioneering field.
More Digg Labs Goodness
I love the visualization tools in Digg Labs because it brings the user a completely different level of experience within Digg itself. However, as great as the current tools are, there have been numerous submissions by members of the Digg Army of Labs-style tools they've made themselves. Here's one example where the world of Digg meets the world of Tetris. There's another great tool for your comment statistics here. The image to the right is a tool looking at Digg in 3D. Oh, and be sure to check out some of the work by Brian Shaler - who has come up with some real badass Digg tools. There is so much tech talent in the site's user base, that it surprises me that Kevin Rose hasn't jumped onto utilizing some of it. Well, okay, there was that API contest - but that's exactly the point I am making: there should be more of these efforts, and I believe that some of the user-created tools should be considered for inclusion in Digg Labs. Maybe a beta section for Digg Tools where users can vote might be an idea?
Expand World News
As mentioned, I am originally from Australia, and constantly thought it would be a great feature if Digg regionalized the World News section so that I could peruse the info on what is going on back home. Clearly, expanding this category on the main submission page would make things a little congested, design-wise. My suggestion would be that if a user selects World News, after clicking on the submit button they would be taken to a second page where they could refine the information for their world news.
For example, if I submitted an article about Oklahoma City, on the second page, I could select: United States → Oklahoma → Oklahoma City
Or if I submitted an article about Perth, Australia, I could select: Australia → Western Australia → Perth
"Second Life" Stories
No, not the game... Quite often, I will see stories that get so many buries that they'll be dropped from the front page or the upcoming stories section. Then that's it. The story's dead after that. I'd like to see them moved to something like a "Digg Purgatory" (or Diggatory if you will) - where these stories (within a 24 hour timeframe just like upcoming stories) have a chance at getting a "second life" at being front paged. Once a story is buried from the front page, users that haven't seen it yet may not get the chance to cast their vote (digg or bury) regarding the story. Having a "Second Life" area would be handy for users new to the story in voting whether to give it the second chance by digging it, or voting to kill it off completely by burying it.
NSFW Button
I think nearly each one of us who navigate through Digg have at one point or another, clicked on a story at work only to find the picture is erotic, politically incorrect, profanely offensive, or bloody and gory. Whichever way, it would not be a nice sight to learn that your boss was standing behind you when you clicked that link. Nothing says, "You're Fired" better than the facial expression of your employer after seeing massive silicon impregnated breasts bouncing up and down ravenously on your flat panel monitor. The unfortunate thing is sometimes submitters basically neglect or forget to add in a NSFW label in their title or description. A convenient addition would be a clickable NSFW button for each story. Based upon how many people click the NSFW button, Digg could then automatically add a label to the title affirming, "Many Diggers have reported that this story may be NSFW".
Digg Alerts
It amazes me that Digg still has not really implemented an optional alert system for users. This would be a handy tool where you could select to be notified via e-mail if someone comments on your story; or if your story is about to hit the home page. You could also subscribe to certain topics on Digg, where you would get alerts if anyone you've befriended has submitted a story to that category. The possibilities are endless, and it would be an effective tool in encouraging even more involvement over at Digg.
Accelerating Stories
The Upcoming Stories list is a fantastic feature at Digg. However, the number of diggs a story gets does not necessarily mean it will consequentially jump to the next page. The "Hot in All Topics" list is a reasonable gauge for what will hit the home page next; but I think this deserves a its own sort option as in the "Show Most Commented" and "Show Most Popular" filters. Call it "Show Accelerating Stories", meaning this filter will give you a list of posts most likely to hit the front page next.
Personalized Profiles
w
Digg Profiles provide limited information at present, so I would imagine at some point, it would be a good idea to enable users to be able to personalize them a bit more. Some people might think this sounds too "MySpace"-like. If you're thinking in that direction, think more like old Facebook. No-one wants Digg to become cramped with awful designs that make the eyes bleed. What I am referring to is the ability to personalize the content of your Digg profile, not the look.
My Top 10
I like making use of the "My #1" function in my profile, and often enjoy checking out my friends' #1 article as well. I think that this feature could be expanded somewhat: make it "My Top 10" and it can be displayed on the right hand side of screen just like the "Hot in all Topics" and the "Top 10 in all topics" lists. Users can modify their top 10 in their profile, and once finished, it will display their list on their profile. In addition, it would be a fun little widget for people to include on their blogs and web sites. Besides, if the front page is anything to go by, there's a lot of people that love Top 10 lists...
Tags
As far as this issue is concerned, the title almost says it all. One feature prevalent at nearly all social bookmarking sites and many Web 2.0 sites is the use of tags - a feature that Digg sorely lacks. This feature really should be implemented, and would provide more meaningful context to stories being submitted - not to mention it would be a helpful addition to the Search function. Time to catch up, Digg - let's start using tags.
Blocking Users
Ever since the comments system was "improved" the whole concept of blocking users has completely changed. Now you only get a Block button when you bury a comment, which is pretty silly. And even then, if you go through a comment thread with a blocked user, their submission will be shown as a buried comment. These new modifications have somewhat discredited and defeated the whole purpose of blocking users to begin with. If I want to block an asshat, it is because I do not want to put up with their retarded shenanigans. The old technique of blocking was far more effective and user-friendly and I would recommend bringing it back.
Top Diggers This Week
A long while back, the list of Top 100 Diggers was removed from Digg in the hopes of avoiding any gaming issues that had been arising at the site (on a side note, a third party site is still maintaining the list here). I was recently thinking of a different concept similar in style that could possibly be helpful to users who aren't getting as many front paged submissions as others. Consider this: a weekly list of the top 10 diggers based upon how many diggs their submissions got - but wait... there's a catch: users can only be featured on the weekly top 10 once a year. This would be a great way to get some up and coming submitters a little more exposure.
Undo
So, you unintentionally buried a comment made by someone that you wanted to digg? No worries, just undo it. Wait, you cannot do that. Come on, Digg. I think we've all done this in the past and it is even worse when you accidentally digg a comment you meant to bury... since all of your friends will see that you dugg some jackass. Give us an undo button for comment digging.
Themes and Skins
Another idea that comes to mind is giving the user the ability to personalize the look of "their" Digg, via skins and themes. I'm sure I am not the only person to think of it - and while it isn't necessarily a feature that could be considered urgent or important, it is one that will give the user base more control over the way they see Digg. Again, it's just a thought and an idea, but one that would probably be a nice addition.
Editing Time for Submissions
One thing I could never grasp in Digg was that you were given a certain amount of allowable time to edit your comments; but not for story submissions. This sucks, predominantly when you make spelling errors in your title or description. The last thing anybody wants is to publish a story that will set off the alarms in the secret headquarters of the Digg Spelling and Grammar Nazis. Editing time for story submissions would genuinely be appreciated by many users.
w
