5 great content discovery sites which aren't Digg

Despite what you may have heard in the last two weeks, Digg is not dead. It is, however, a very different service than when it started. What used to be a great place to find interesting links and hilarious commentary has become, for almost all intents and purposes, a Twitter clone.

Digg isn't about to shut its doors, but I do get the feeling that regular, loyal Diggers are looking to take their custom elsewhere. Judging by the 'Reddit incident' on Monday, where Digg users revolted in favor of Reddit, it looks like a mass exodus might already have begun.

So, if you're a disenfranchised Digger, or if you're just looking for the best of the rest when it comes to social news aggregators and content discovery, take a look at this list of alternatives!




StumbleUpon

In my opinion, StumbleUpon is actually the most similar service to Digg -- at least if you're an end-user, rather than a 'Power Digger'. StumbleUpon is, without a doubt, the best way to discover the Web's hidden gems. In any given 'stumbling' session you can (and will) discover innumerable sites and pictures that make you go 'ooooh'.

The other great thing about StumbleUpon is that it learns from your browsing habits. By simply filling in your interests, and by processing which sites you thumbs-up or thumbs-down, SU tailors what kind of sites you'll be shown while stumbling.

There's also commenting, though they take the form of 'reviews', and there's no meta moderation -- just a raw stream of how much users love or hate a given website.

I've heard tales of people losing whole days to stumbling sessions. It's a little too easy to pop open a new tab and hit the 'stumble' button on the toolbar.

Reddit

Ah, Reddit. It's almost like a rags-to-riches story, with Reddit playing the role of Cinderella and Digg the ugly step-sister. Both services launched around 2005, but Digg has always received all of the riches and glory. Digg's new overhaul could mark the end of its supremacy, but I don't think Reddit is the natural 'next stop' for Diggers.

Reddit is completely different from Digg, but in a good way. You will still find a lot of fun and cool links on its home page, but it's actually more of a forum than anything else. You can post pictures, links or simply begin a discussion thread. Just like Digg, meta moderation is a key aspect of Reddit posts and comments, so funny and insightful commentary always bubbles to the top.

What sets Reddit apart is its huge list of boards (or categories). Check the right-hand list -- and also note how you can tailor your front page to show only the categories you're interested in. I love how each category, no matter how esoteric, has an even mix of text-only discussion and fantastic website links. It's a bit like a meta moderated 4chan...

As a crowning cherry, Reddit is also incredibly lightweight in terms of layout and interface. Page load times are, as a result, very fast.


Slashdot is, in many ways, the father of all modern news aggregators, and is actually a blog. News is submitted by users, and then Slashdot's authors pick and choose which items make it onto the site itself, sometimes adding their own commentary. The comments are where things really kick off, though, with some stories seeing more than 10,000 comments -- and of course, there is meta moderation, so you can choose what kind of comments you want to see; funny, insightful, informative or interesting.

If you like a more 'curated' news source, Slashdot is definitely the one for you. It's often not as 'bleeding edge' as Digg or Reddit, but in many cases, who cares if you hear about a technology breakthrough a day or two later?

Twitter

Don't hurt me! Yes, really, Twitter is a fantastic alternative to Digg.

I think we can all agree that Twitter is by far the best option when it comes to timeliness, but how do you sort the cream from the cruft? Twitter lacks meta moderation, so your best bet is follow twitterers that have already done the filtering for you.

It's pretty damn hard to sort tweeters by quality, but with directories like WeFollow and the lists at Listorious you can hit the ground running. It will be a bit hit and miss, but having the ability to curate your own news stream made from excellent, insightful and timely tweets is unbeatable. Be brutal with your unfollowing -- and follow lots of new people too! -- and you should have a veritable Ganges of cool content to sift through.

And of course, with millions of potential commenters, Twitter can be a goldmine for contemporary commentary too.

Yahoo! Buzz

To finish, I'm including a service that is, basically, old Digg. Yahoo Buzz, launched in 2008 (well before Google Buzz!), is almost completely derived from Digg. From what I can tell, the only real difference is slight editorial control over what appears on the front page.

As you'd suspect from Yahoo, Buzz is slightly more mature than both Digg and Reddit. A lot of the story submitters are just random Yahoo users (and thus, many of the popular stories are written by Yahoo!), but there's plenty of content from across the World Wide Web. You won't find any funny cat pictures or infographics, however!

Yahoo Buzz also has an editor-maintained site called The Buzz Log, which provides a great overview of the world's most important and interesting news.

Finally, there are localized versions of Buzz, with the top stories from UK & Ireland, Brazil, Mexico and so on.

Tags: aggregation, aggregator, alternatives, digg, features, lists, reddit, slashdot, social, stumbleupon, twitter, yahoo, yahoo buzz, YahooBuzz