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Screenshot tour: a first look at the new Digg V4 alpha -- smarter, faster, more personalized
First, it's just like frickin' Twitter. Seriously, the first step, after logging in, is choosing a bunch of Digg accounts to follow. The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, Kotaku -- and so on.
You then have the choice of linking your Twitter, Facebook and Google accounts to Digg. Twitter and Facebook weren't working when I tried, but from what I can tell it just auto-follows anyone that uses both Digg and one of the other services. Maybe it also outputs your recent Diggs to your Facebook and Twitter streams? And BUZZ?!
Once that's done, you're shown the main new feature of Digg V4: My News. Based on who you follow, a personalised News Feed (...) will be generated for you. It's basically the old Top News page, but it only displays stuff that your friends (or 'liked' corporate accounts) have Dugg.
It's obvious that Digg wants to become your homepage, or portal. If you choose to follow news sources, My News could easily become your go-to site to find all of the latest and most interesting news. It feels a lot like Twitter, but with built-in moderation.
Of course, Facebook's new Open Graph Search is basically the same thing... but still!
Comments
15
Subscribe to commentsEric B.Jul 1st 2010 8:28AM
Facebook will buy Digg in 2010. The new Digg is nothing more than an aggregation of Facebook "likes." Facebook will turn it into their Like aggregation.
JamusJul 1st 2010 11:03AM
I was thinking along the same lines. I just don't know how much longer they can hold out no matter how much they change their look.
Sebastian AnthonyJul 1st 2010 12:31PM
Well, you can't have EVERY site built into Facebook...
Well, you _could_, but... I'd rather have some choice in where I surf :P
Thomas HoustonJul 1st 2010 9:37AM
Been playing around with the alpha a bit, and it's radically different from the current digg. Going to be interesting to see how the digg community takes to it...
ChedstoneJul 1st 2010 10:34AM
Nice! Hopefully I'll get my invite soon too.
daniel.olearyJul 1st 2010 10:38AM
I made a YouTube video that walks through the new features for the lazy people that don't like reading. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBz-CyrVPYo
Sebastian AnthonyJul 1st 2010 12:29PM
Neat! Thanks for sharing.
(I have a better radio voice.)
JoshJul 1st 2010 11:22AM
I still see little point to it, and going by the response to my last comment on Digg about the upcoming changes (130+/2- last time I looked), quite a few people agree with me.
We all have a Facebook, even if all we do is use the Wall and commenting features (well, except for the 30 people who participated in the Delete Your Facebook day). A lot of people (far less than Facebook, but still substantial) have a Twitter. Even fewer people have Digg and less and less are using it each and every day (their daily unique views are in freefall last time I looked). Digg needs to innovate, not copy.
That said, being able to follow sources like this could make it more like Google Reader than anything for people. A web-based RSS reader that shows you content based on what is popular and from select sources. Not a bad idea, but not the way Digg needed to go.
Sebastian AnthonyJul 1st 2010 12:34PM
What direction would you have it go?
As you say, it's a lot like a Google Reader now -- though I'd say the format is better for communication, interaction and ultimately making 'friends'.
I'd say it's better than Twitter too, and probably better than Facebook in its current form.
I think Digg will probably just remain a high-quality Internet filter. I don't think it has the capacity to grow.
JoshJul 1st 2010 4:59PM
Regardless of what is 'better', Twitter and Facebook have the two largest established userbases out there. If Digg is hoping to stop their freefall in pageviews as well as cash (they are losing money like crazy right now), becoming a blend of a few popular sites and basically doing what other sites already do, they're in trouble.
The entire point of Digg right now is to discover new articles. Their only two competitors, really, are Reddit and StumbleUpon. Now, they want to -share- new articles like Facebook and Twitter, with a small emphasis on a Reader like feature. I just do not see how this is good for Digg. This isn't going to stop them from falling as it won't draw any new users in.
Thomas HoustonJul 1st 2010 12:15PM
Adding links, though, seems significantly faster.
Sebastian AnthonyJul 1st 2010 12:36PM
Ya! None of that shitty hoop-jumping rigmarole.
Thomas HoustonJul 1st 2010 12:41PM
it's infuriatingly slow now. have you seen any talk of an improved bookmarklet?
Also, wonderful to see the digg bar is gone.
Sebastian AnthonyJul 1st 2010 12:49PM
Well, there's the ol' 'just put http://digg.com/ in front' bookmarklet:
http://about.digg.com/diggbar
But... no, no new bookmarklet on the alpha site... not yet!
I actually missed out all the 'settings' pages, whoops. There's a nice feature to auto-digg anything from a given RSS feed...
John WiseJul 4th 2010 10:55AM
Don't get me wrong but Digg is run by idiots and that's really how I see it. And I don't see why the shareholders should take it easy on them.
Problem A: An uninspiring leadership which simply wanted to be paid monthly.
Kevin Rose has been missing in action for forever. And now he comes back to rescue Digg and wants to be the knight in shining armour? Yea doesn't work that way. Take for example, Sergey Brin. The guy has drive and he is pumping out products one after another. Look at Bill Gates. He had a hit or two but he didn't stop to party. How about Steve Jobs? These people succeeded because they were involved in day to day business. Kevin was never involved. He was doing a podcast that no one cared about. Really what was he thinking? And the thing that was really wrong with Digg was its leadership, Jay Adelson. I mean you call DiggBar an innovation? The way I see it is that, Digg leadership simply wanted to be paid monthly. And that's it. They wanted an easy life with a fat pay cheque every month. And that’s what they got. You're in the content business for god sake and that too 'news' business where there is no shortage of content. And all you got to show for is a DiggBar with some visualizations? Is this what innovation looks like? I mean are we on the same page here?
Problem B: It’s not the design stupid. It’s the market you should be after.
Digg was never interested in the news market or content market. They made a uni-direction bet where people from across the globe would gather to 'share' news and that's it. That's a very limited and narrow vision for your product. Digg leadership never established themselves as the market leaders. They thought they were the leaders but they never were. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to start branching out, and I don`t mean rev3 videos here. rev3 was a childish idea no matter which way you cut it. Digg is in the news business and it requires you to stay relevant and Digg simply isn't relevant anymore. They had the chance and they squandered it. As a matter of fact they’ve squandered every opportunity. They came up with an idea to interview politician and famous people. Now that was worth some juice but I presume, they simply saw the number and thought, “Nope this can’t work.” Wrong. That was a good idea and instead of making it a feature of Digg, they got rid of it.
Problem C: Now what to do? Hey we can design the future again.
Sebastian your assessment that Digg doesn't have the capacity to grow is correct. Why? It’s because the leadership at Digg approach all problems with a very filtered and narrow vision. I don`t believe they know that there is such a thing as ‘thinking big’. Rather than branching out and looking for ways to expand themselves, Digg is perfectly happy providing top 10 comic strips for the day. No one is interested in licensing rev3 content or any RocketBoom stuff because it’s stupid for the most part. High-Tech is a fast pace industry. You can be the leader today and bozo the clown the next day. That’s one reason why every company wants to hire young talent and would do anything to get them. Diggs approach that a simple redesign will make its problems go away is absurd. And the lack of creativity shows in the redesign. They’ve lowered the standards to copy-pasting rather than innovating.
Diggs needs to grow and spread out rather than limit itself. And I don’t mean make another iPhone app, or Android app or WinMo app. Those things are part of natural progression. They need to control the content or they’ll be irrelevant.