Digg THIS Kevin Rose - Reddit goes completely open source

Digg has legions of followers. They're quite fanatical. The similar service Reddit doesn't have that type of following.

But how many of the Digg fantatics know how Digg works anyways? There's some type of "algorithm" that controls what hits the homepage. Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson have hinted to that it involves who is digging what, the rate at which the stories are dugg, and we think that it involves something with the space time continium. That and what side of the bed MC Hammer wakes up on.

But nobody really knows but Digg.

Today, the #1 competitor to Digg, Condé Nast's Reddit, says "Screw you guys, we're going transparent". That's not an actual quote, but the company's actions say that in a nutshell.

Condé Nast is opening up Reddit's codebase to developers, your moms and dads, your pet fish, and whoever else has a computing device hooked up to the interwebs.



The race is on to figure out Reddit's algorithm. And when someone figures it out (and then publishes it...as open source communities do with information, yay!), they're providing you with the ability to make add-ons and updates to Reddit.

How hot is that? Hot.

Here's why:

• New tools can be created to interact with Reddit. Bookmarks, AIR apps, etc.
• Their code could actually be improved by people who might have new fresh ideas that don't work for Reddit
• Why the heck not?
  

How scary is that? Scary.

Here's why:

• A lot of Digg's algorithm supposedly exists to fight off "gaming"
• Opening the source of a site for add-ons invites said "gaming"
• If your pet fish can code, we're in trouble

We're going to be following this closely, and so should you. Will this bring Reddit closer to surpassing Digg's legion of Rose-loving followers?

It sure beats a townhall on Ustream.

Be sure to check out the code page on Reddit. Tell us what you'll do to make Reddit better.

[via Mashable]

Tags: digg, jay adelman, JayAdelman, kevin rose, KevinRose, reddit, social news, SocialNews