
How Reddit Kicked Digg’s Ass - cartab
http://vospe.com/2010/09/16/how-reddit-kicked-diggs-ass/
======
jakevoytko
Reddit kicked Digg's ass because Reddit is designed as a feedback loop that
benefits all users. Digg only rewards elite users.

Look at a random Reddit submission. If it survives the first minute, it makes
some user's frontpage. If it is "good," it gets votes and is seen by more
people. If the username is popular, it gets upvoted faster. But it turns out
this is not necessary for success - I have submitted successful articles
without any possible benefit of name recognition, or help from friends.

Reddit's comment section is a great feedback loop: Reddit is designed for
discussion, and discussion is great at generating more discussion. Large
comment threads form on popular articles, even if they're only lightly
inspired by the article or vapid. You must check your recent comments to
defend yourself, since the risk is high that someone will strongly and
persuasively disagree with you. After all, it's Reddit. Good comments get
trophies. Really good comments make /r/bestof.

In contrast, Digg is a feedback loop that benefits the best users. Within a
few years of Digg's launch (especially after they dropped the technology-only
focus), it was almost impossible to get an article on the frontpage without a
friend network, or the blessing of a poweruser. The various sections of Digg
were littered with hundreds of high-quality articles with two Diggs. To
successfully submit articles to Digg, you needed to focus energy on gaining a
network and voting on articles that they submit, and using this network to
gain a larger network. The last time I was there, the comments section was
also a nightmare. It is designed for single-use comments, and not for
discussion. At one point they introduced nested comments, but it seems like
they've either done away with it, or don't have enough comments to nest.

The best website designs act as feedback loops. Reddit has polished theirs.

~~~
joshfinnie
It is funny, because I agree with your statement. But I never thought of
Reddit as made for discussion. Maybe I miss out, but I always have a terrible
time following the comments on Reddit (granted I don't even try on Digg and
comparing Reddit to HN might be apples to oranges). The comments are usually
confusing and non-beneficial to me.

~~~
dpritchett
I get great mileage out of this "hide replies to comments" bookmarklet - it
allows me to quickly read the best-rated comments that reply directly to the
article. If a comment is thought-provoking I'll click through to see what
discussion it's spawned.

<http://gist.github.com/582630>

~~~
there
i know from reading reddit often that there are frequently highly-rated
comments as replies that are several levels deep, and possibly have nothing to
do with the original top-level reply.

i recommend sorting comments by "best", and then just cranking up your minimum
score rating in your preferences so that comments under, say, 10 will not get
shown.

------
jlgbecom
I used to read digg way back when, but someone alerted me to the whole
situation and I watched it crumble, and it was... spectacular. It was like a
cyberpunk novel. People didn't just move to reddit, they moved to reddit, and
then salted the earth behind them.

------
pvg
Title should probably be 'How Digg's fuckup benefited Reddit'

~~~
smudgy
I agree, It has nothing to do with Reddit. It's all about how Digg managed, as
if by miracle, to scuttle its own boat in a few hours.

Digg didn't feel like Digg anymore after the change so I looked for something
that felt like digg and found Reddit. It's obviously not the same and there
are things that almost make it unbearable (I love the analogy that Reddit is
4chan lite) but I'll stick around there until something better comes around.

~~~
dRother
It has a lot to do with Reddit in that Reddit was available, better, and
already fairly well known. It's not like the article could possibly go "How
Digg's Whatever Benefited Mixx.com". Reddit was basically standing there ready
to soak up Digg users once masses of them stuck their heads up for long enough
to notice that Digg isn't really that entertaining or informative, and other
sites may suit them better.

------
Revisor
Will the wave of users coming from Digg be useful participants?

Will there be any paid gaming of Reddit?

Will Reddit turn into a sewer as it grows, as did Digg?

~~~
InclinedPlane
I've visited reddit a fair number of times and haven't found much use for it
over other sites. The comments on reddit are typically about as valuable as
those on 4chan with the modification that they are on average less
entertaining and also contain fewer pictures of genitalia (on average).

~~~
lhnz
Visit /r/DepthHub and its subreddits or even /r/TrueReddit. It's not bad if
you don't visit the most popular parts of the site.

~~~
pavs
People who generally comment on reddit's childish comments based on their time
on the main reddits and rarely visits the meat of reddit, which are the
specific and targeted sub-reddit, are fly-by users. They never truly
experienced reddit.

------
hugh3
I don't know if the person responsible for this vospe.com site is someone
here, but it's really bad design.

1\. It crashed my browser the first time I tried to look at it (Firefox 3.5.12
on mac)

2\. It broke the normal functionality of my up and down scroll keys...
apparently I press down to scroll down a little and it goes all the way down
to the comments section.

3\. That grey box hovering at the top and blocking out some of the text is
just plain obnoxious.

~~~
retube
2) Yes. 3) Yes.

Really annoying.

------
goalieca
Glad to see that dried meat sales went up.

edit: I'm also quite impressed with reddit's professionalism. It also appears
that reddit is back to being reddit. The digg users have been assimilated.

------
jsz0
I just looked at Digg for the first time in a few weeks and the snapshot of
front page articles is actually pretty good. They may take a hit in the short
term with the raging power users who hate change but most of Digg's traffic is
comprised of people who don't even login to the site much less spend hours a
day on it voting things up/down. For most users all that matters is good
content and the old system was failing them.

------
scorpion032
tl;dr: Reddit didn't have to do anything. Just wait for digg to kick its own.

More like how a bowler gets a wicket in cricket. Bowl consistent line and
length and wait for the batsman to err.

------
kragen
Maybe my article from a couple of years ago about the relative merits of
Reddit and Digg may be relevant: [http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-
tol/2008-January...](http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-
tol/2008-January/000878.html)

It doesn't really explain why Digg has been more popular for the following two
years. Or does it?

~~~
bena
To be fair though, you could get a similar reddit experience by subscribing
only to subreddits you find interesting.

For example, I never go to reddit.com. I go to programming.reddit.com, the
subreddit for programming related articles.

------
djhworld
I lost interest in Digg a few years ago, most of the posts seem to be lists or
funny images or just totally banal.

Also there's some bizarre political movements that seem to move throughout
Digg, that largely seems to sit on the right wing side of the spectrum

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estacado
The site scrolled to the end of page when i clicked the down arrow. Bad
design!

------
agotterer
What do you think will happen to Digg? Will the "core / elite" users all jump
ship? But does Diggs new offering have a chance with the "mainstream crowd"
(who may or may not yet know about the site)?

------
adlep
It is kind of sad to see what has happened to Digg. It uses to be a simple
site with a simple purpose and an elegant design. They have now morph it into
a hybrid of some sort.

------
asmosoinio
Anyone have another link to the video? It's loading really slow for me.

~~~
asmosoinio
I assume it's working for other people? I only get a few seconds of video
after few minutes waiting, and then "Connection lost"...

------
pathik
Digg kicked its own arse. Reddit was just around at the right time.

------
cartab
<http://digg.com/news/technology/how_reddit_kicked_digg_s_ass>

Let's get this on diggs front page.

