Upcoming Q&A With Digg
We will be hosting an upcoming interview with the crew behind Digg, and we need your input! This will be a user-generated interview, where will take the best 6-8 questions and send them in to Digg for response. Multiple digg staffers will be contributing, so nows the time to ask away! Please leave your questions in the replies. Later this week or early next week we’ll be sending in the best ones, and the interview will go up shortly after that (it may take a few weeks as the digg crew is busy, but we’ve already got the ok, so this is a definite interview!).
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
When will the Digg API be available?
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
#1a. If a user submits your content and gives it a horrible title and description, you’re currently out of luck. With the most recent round of updates it is now impossible to relist the content with a better title and description as it redirects you to the improper listing. The only way “around” this is to purposefully trick the URL checker by suffixing the URL with fake parameters. How is this fair? Malicious users could theoretically submit content with nearly blank descriptions and effectively blacklist your site out of digg. How will you counter this shortcoming and how can site owners “fight back” against poor listers?
#1b. Are there any plans for allowing users to register as “owners” of a particular URL (similar to how a user can register as the owner of a blog at technorati) and to allow them to “adjust” poorly chosen (or somethime blatantly false) titles and descriptions that link to their content?
#2. There are many “top diggers” who submit a lot of content in general and try to submit a every single bit of content published from a small set of very popular sites in hopes of nailing a few big ones. These extremely popular users have huge friends lists who will dutifully digg anything they submit. According to some of the things I’ve read recently, this sort of behaviour is now penalized. This dings sites for whom these types of users consistently list their content on Digg, causing them to have to fight harder for recognition out of no fault of their own. I know you’ve taken a baby step toward this by removing the “Top Digg Users” list but it still prevalent and widespread. How do you plan to address this shortcoming?
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
International plans?
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
Client’s questions sound very negative and from an outsiders view, rather than someone who uses the site.
#1a - re-submit the darn article
#1b - they aren’t technorari they are a social news site, though newsvine do select import streams from newscientist etc. I can’t see digg going the same way as it’s about what the user’s like.
#2 - ‘baby step’? They’ve added a friends recommendation tool too - more than a baby step.
I’d ask about the Digg API and when they are bringing it to the table, how it could be used (examples). Where they see Digg five years from now, what’s their office environment like - laid back, strict etc. What they think sets them apart from Newsvine and the like - stuff that people don’t ask.
It’s always better to see an interview that isn’t just like every other interview asking the same questions, so hopefully that’s what you’ll be doing AJ
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
Jamie,
#1a. The newest updates have locked down resubmissions so tightly that you *can not* resubmit the site. If the URL matches, it simply does not allow you to resubmit it, it just points you to the article that someone else submitted and you’re done, no chance to resubmit. People can effectively lock out your content with poor titles and description. The only way to get around this is to be purposefully subversive and append URL parameters to trick the URL checking system.
As for my position with Digg, I am probably the furthest thing from an outside. I have been a user and reader for well over a year and I am probably one of the biggest contributors and active participants in the site.
#2. Friends reccomendation aren’t what Im talking about. Digg penalises a story if the same group of people consistently digg together. Prolific submitters have groupies who trail behind them digging everything they submit. This effectively penalises all their submissions. When these prolific submitters take to sitting around and submitting all the content your site produces, all your stories are disadvantaged from the get-go, out of no fault of your own.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
@all - We’ll be looking at all possible questions, but please try to formulate them with as much information and examples as possible (like Clint did). This makes the process of picking the final questions at the end of the week easier, and gives the Digg crew more to work with.
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
How likely is it that you will be going strong and still run by the same people in the next 5 - 10 years? Is selling to another company something that you see in the near future?
Want an avatar? Get a gravatar! • You can link to this comment
Also forgot: What’s it like knowing that everything you do front-end wise is going to have both positive and negative feedback from the hardcore users? Do you take a lot of the feature and design suggestions to heart?