Links, Links, Links - February 21st, 2009

Here are some interesting links I picked up around the web. Have fun, and have a great weekend, too!

• 10 Ways To Speed Up Torrent Downloads - it's never enough, isn't it?
  
  
• 80+ Updated Tools and Resources for del.icio.us
  
  
• If you haven't seen it yet - Obama Sushi!
  
  
• Google Ocean: Has Atlantis been found off Africa?
  
  
• And... Digg Finally Admits the Auto-Bury Exists - Like we didn't know.
  
  

The King of Digg

Watching The King of Kong really makes you wonder if it's a real documentary or science fiction. You sit there, see the movie, and find it very hard to believe that these are REAL people. An amazing movie, nonetheless.

The King of Digg, however, is a nice salute to the original. However, kind of makes you wonder - why do people still bother with Digg? Get with the program, people - Digg is going down. Hmm, come to think of it, maybe it's a little PR trick by Kevin Rose and his buddies - get Digg back on the right track, perhaps? I don't think that's going to cut it, boys. Try harder.

Is Mixx the Real Digg Killer?

My opinion about Digg isn't a secret. I stopped using it because I think it's an abusive, violent, and boring site.

I tried and tested a few alternatives for Digg, but none was very satisfactory. I love the concept of a social site, where other users show me what's cool and hot on the net - but I couldn't find a site that really works.

Until I have discovered Mixx - probably the real Digg killer that we have been waiting for. According to TechCrunch, "Digg users, including top contributors, are showing an increasing amount of frustration with the Digg community, and many are leaving. Conspiracy theories that Digg auto buries stories with certain topics or linking to certain sites only compounds the problem".

So, I'm not the only one who thinks Digg is riddled with annoyances. Interesting.

Digg has a hard core of followers and zealots, who eagerly protect the site and its owners in any way they can. They attack in comments and they bury articles that point out the weaknesses in Digg.

The real power of the internet lies in the fact that every site has a replacement, and if you annoy and abuse your users long enough, they WILL leave and find another home. Nothing lasts forever - and on the net, nothing hardly lasts more than a few years.

Mixx seems like a very friendly site, with a lot of cool features that digg doesn't have. I agree with most of Link Bait Me's analysis of Mixx - and I think that Digg should be afraid.

It's not about the features or the personalization, although these ARE important elements. It's about the atmosphere and usefulness of the site. If I glimpse upon Digg's homepage, all I see are Apple stories, stupid new-age articles and Bush-bashing stuff. It's always the same. And it's brutal and violent, dominated by angry mobs and users-who-bury-for-no-reason.

I stopped using Digg and I also removed the Digg buttons from my blog. I think we are seeing the beginning of the end here. A lot of users are seeking refuge from Digg's tyranny, and they might have just found it in Mixx.

Why Digg Is Neither Relevant Nor Useful

I'm pretty sure what I write here won't be pleasant to read for some people. But that's OK - life is never perfect.

To start off my rant about Digg, I'll just point out that I have no argument with its success or popularity. I myself have used it on a regular basis - but no more. Digg is one of the net's most popular sites, it has a lot of users who enjoy it daily, and the idea behind it was pretty good to begin with. It's just that something got rotten along the way.

I'm not even talking about the "blog spam" or payed diggers that users are complaining about. I think they are marginal problems. Digg has bigger fish that smell bad.

So, why do I think Digg is irrelevant? Here are my reasons:

1. Slow: I don't mean the site is loading slowly (although that happens a lot, too). I mean to say that Digg is slow on picking up the hot news. If you want to stay updated in current events - like I do - you can't rely on Digg. It takes hours, usually, for am item to gain enough popularity to reach the homepage, and by the time it does, you've already read about it in your favorite news site or RSS feed.
   
   
2. Politics (External): Debating politics is good. Even excellent. It shows that you care about your country's future. The problem is, if you are not from the US - the debates in Digg are really irrelevant for you. Further more, seems like the top Diggs are very one sided and you don't get to see a myriad of opinions like you would expect in a social news site.
   
   
3. Politics (Internal): Digg has a large variety of users. Still, it seems like there are certain groups of users, banded together to help each other digg stories. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it means that it's a hell of a lot harder for a "regular" user to reach the front page. I have seen it many times - a user posts a great link for a great story and gets no Diggs. Hours later, a "power user" posts the same story, gathers his first 30-40 diggs quickly enough, and gets to the homepage of digg. That doesn't make any sense to me. It means the "friends" you collect around you are more important than the content you present. Which means a lot of shitty, old and duplicate stories can get to the homepage simply because a strong user has posted them. Where is the value in that? Which brings me to my next point:
   
   
4. Utterly uninteresting content: Stupid Top-10 lists, Idiotic New-Age advice, and not-very-funny videos are just a tiny example of the things that get to the front page of digg - and no one even knows who wants to read that. It's basically the same stuff over and over again, which gets to the homepage because of the very efficient cliques that help each other "Digg their stuff". Thus, the homepage of digg doesn't really represent the most interesting news according to the users, but instead it shows the news that the top users think are interesting. Kinda like editors in a regular content site, isn't it?
   
   
5. Bad Apple: Way too many news about Apple. In a way that makes you wonder whether there are other hi-tech company in the world. Yeah, OK, we get it - Apple is very co0l. We are just tired of the hype. Sometimes there are 3-4 Apple items in the front page. It makes digg look like a site for Apple freaks. Well, maybe it is.
   
   
6. Angry Mobs: The general atmosphere is the comments section of digg can get really scary. People are downright violent sometimes, and users are getting viciously attacked just for stating an unpopular opinion. Sure, there are trolls everywhere, but in digg they really reign supreme. Not to mention comment burying: it's not that rating is a bad thing - it's because people just can't help themselves. Put a civilized man behind a keyboard and give him anonymity - and you get an evil, stupid monster.

And that's really the bottom line - the assumption that many "editors" are better than one has been proved wrong. One man can be either smart or an idiot. The mob is always stupid and violent - and that's Digg for you.