Open your Wallets, Dugg.mobi is for Sale

This post has been moved here from Socially Given, Enjoy!

There have been many estimates of the value of the social news website Digg.com recently, but has anyone thought to put a price on unofficial versions of mobile digg? Probably not. I recently wrote about seven mobile versions of digg and one of my favorites, Dugg.mobi is actually up for sale. The owner has listed the site for sale several places.

Between the two auction sites, we can piece together that the owner is looking for a price greater than $350 because he is hoping to purchase a new computer. My guess is somewhere near $1000.

The most interesting part of this sale is that the domain name is a Digg.com TOS violation. The site owner however, states that he "Notified digg, they don't care." and "One more thing, up to date, there have been no trademark issues with Digg in any way, we've offered the domain to Digg free of charge, and they turned it down."

It is also worth noting that the site includes adsense within the story listings. Does Digg really not care if people are making money from their feed? While it is currently only making around $1.00 per day, that could very well be more with increased traffic. The advertisements themselves are labeled as such, but are placed next an image in a fashion unallowed by Google. (shown below)

According to Google, "You can definitely place Google ads on pages containing images -- just make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors."

With violations of the Digg TOS and Google Adsense policy, purchase of the site in its current state may be unwise. Even though there has been some activity, no bid worthy of sale has occurred. It would be safe to assume that the site is still up for sale depending on the offer, but no contact information was available in order to clarify.

7 Version of 'Digg Mobile' Compared

This post has been moved here from Socially Given, Enjoy!

Update - It's 7 now.

Many Diggers can't seem to get enough of Digg, myself included. The biggest question for any Digg addict is where can they get their daily fix when they don't have access to their computers. There are actually several different options available depending on your particular needs.

Here they are, in no particular order (besides the official one being displayed first):

Official Digg River - http://diggriver.com/

The official Digg for mobiles works and looks great. Besides the graphics at the top, it is text only keeping the load times low.

Digg Mobile by Mobits - http://mobits.com/digg/

The mobits mobile version of Digg looks a bit different that the official version, but still keeps a graphically light interface to keep load times low. Also has multiple pages instead of loading one long page of news like diggriver does.

Dugg.mobi - http://dugg.mobi/

Dugg.mobi looks great, it utilizes the Digg look well into its interface. Don't be deceived by the Digg it buttons though, clicking them redirects you to the Digg story page. Dugg.mobi did not resize to fit my browser, so that could have implications for your browsing experience. Dugg.mobi shines in that you can sift through certain categories and view just those homepage articles.

Pocket Digg - http://pocketdigg.com/default.htm

Pocketdigg is very light, much like diggriver, but offers several other technology news sources besides digg. These are available at the top of the screen, above what my screenshot included.

Original Signal - Transmitting Digg (for mobiles) - http://digg.originalsignal.com/mobile

Original Signal always seems to make great looking products, and this is no different. It also includes the category that the story came from if you like that sort of thing.

Digg Mobile (beta) - http://www.digg-mobile.blogspot.com/

Not the best thing ever, but it works.

TinyDigg - http://tinydigg.com/

TinyDigg is another minimal view of digg which I really like. It allows for viewing of separate topics instead of only the main Digg feed.

So there you go. 6 different ways to access Digg on a mobile device, for when you don't have access to a computer but absolutely must get your fix of Digg. (Thanks Mr. Funkmonkey for the tip)

Solving the Duplicate Submission Problem

This post has been moved here from Socially Given, Enjoy!

This post is in response to Jay Adelson's (Digg CEO) comment where he states that Digg is open to suggestions for improving current features.

One of the problems with social news that was identified early on was that of duplicate submissions. Duplicate submissions are similar stories from different sources, that get submitted to socially driven news and content sites such as Digg, Netscape, and Reddit.

I often find that there when news breaks, there is a relatively narrow scope of information that is shared through all of the major news sources. In an effort to get a story to the front page, hopeful diggers are able to submit the same basic content from these varied sources because the urls are different. This ultimately leads to a crowding of the queue with more submissions but the same content over and over again.

Instead of sitting around and complaining, I have decided to offer a potential solution:

The Proposal

My original idea allowed users to submit alternative sources to a specific topic. At the time of the post, the hot news story was the plane crash in NY that killed Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle. I created a mockup of what this could look like, after some feedback it was decided that the ability to vote on the sources would be needed:

Recently, Digg implemented something very similar to this in the form of their Podcasting section. While it looks nothing like my mock up, it does include the key component; Digging of separate items withing a central topic. This is an important feature that would really be a positive move forward for Digg if it were implemented to news stories.

First, it organizes like-information together making it easier for Digg's users to read about a topic they care about. For instance, if I care about a particular topic, lets say Saddam Hussein's death penalty verdict, I will be able to watch this item progress as new information is released while getting the news from several sources. (Side note: I feel it is important to read news from several sources to be sure I am getting a more full picture of the entire story)

Second, it allows the multiple sources to be easily grouped much the way Google's News service works. The only difference being that humans decide which sources are worthwhile by digging them.

Much like the new podcasting section, you would be able to comment on the topic as well as the source. This would be a good way to evaluate each source individually as part of a collection of information, rather than just the singular source in itself.

This would also deflate the so-called unfairness that Digg's top users wield. Instead of an effort to get frontpaged, the effort is now to add quality sources and information that inform the Digg community.

4 Quick and Easy steps to Add digg to your Blogger blog

This post has been moved here from Socially Given, Enjoy!

Digg is great. Digg is especially great if you have good content. One of the ways to encourage people to digg the quality content from your website is to add a digg button to it. Basically, the digg button allows registered digg users to digg your content without having to visit digg. Blogger doesn't like javascript much so you need a workaround that basically includes an html page and an iframe. Here is how to do it in 4 easy steps:

I also apologize in advance for not having the code copy/paste-able, I couldn't figure out how to get code to show up in a wordpress post. Maybe someone can enlighten me?

Tools Needed: Text editor, File host, Blogger blog.

Step 1: Using a text editor like notepad add the following to a blank document:

Remember to add the digg url of your story where indicated. This is the code provided by digg, here.

Step 2: Save the file as whatever_you_want.htm But be sure you save it as UTF-8 and that you select all files as the file type instead of! You can really name it anything, I generally try to keep it relevant to the particular post for future reference.

Step 3: Upload it to your file server. If you don't have a file server, upload it to a free google pages account, I use it and it works great.

Step 4: Add this code to you blogger blog post at the top of the text box in the 'edit html' tab:

Remember that you need to enter the url of the htm file you uploaded in step 3. Also, I have the positioning set to the top and right, but you can change that to where you want it where it says 'FLOAT: right'. Please let me know if there are any other methods available, I am interested in learning them. Enjoy and happy digging!

You can see it in action here

Bury as 'Rumor'

Is anybody else sick of unsubstantiated rumor being dugg to the frontpage? It is really starting to get out of hand. Here are a couple recent examples:

iPhone on monday (december, 18)!!! [gizmodo knows it]

Wii For $200? More Colors?

UPDATE!!! I just heard from an inside source close to digg that there will be a 'bury as rumor' option, and possibly a 'bury as rumour' option for our UK friends.

Here is an interesting article that examines the inner working of a good rumor. Check it out. In other news, I challenge someone to submit this with the title "Digg to add 'bury as rumor' option???" for a good dose of irony.

Also, I made up this idea so it is completely untrue, but seriously people, hold blogs accountable to the same scrutiny you would a major newspaper or news channel. I think I will do some research to see how many rumors on digg are actually true. Be back later.

Digg hits 1 Million Submissions!

Just a few days after Digg turned 2 years old, Digg has reached another huge Milestone. One Million stories have now been submitted to digg. A big thank you goes out to Digg, but a BIGGER thanks goes out to all of the submitters submitting awesome stories day after day. For those wondering what the 1,000,000th story might be, click below to check it out!:


Reasons I am sure this is factual:

1. Here is the http://services.digg.com/story/1 for the first story, the second line lists the story id as '1'. Naturally, the One Millionth story would be at: http://services.digg.com/story/1000000

2. When you hover over the digg it button of a story, the story is is listed at the bottom of the browser, like so:

Community?

It’s occurred to be today that there may be something missing in the rush to conquer the hot new social side of the internet. When I think of community, I think of a group of people all working together, unified in a common goal or purpose. One of the major features of a successful community is that people tend to contribute in a variety of ways. For instance, there would be a blacksmith, baker, teacher, trash collector, general store owner, etc… Not everyone is a blacksmith, not everyone is a teacher.

Similarly, in the case of the social content sites I generally cover here, Digg and Netscape, there is little of this going on. Here is the breakdown of each site:

Digg
At Digg, the fragmenting of the community into different jobs probably exists, though on a small scale. Basically, you can choose whatever job you want and try your best at it. In my estimations, not everyone does what is best for the community. Some people submit spam stories, some people bury things inappropriately, some people trash up the comments area, and the majority of people just pass on through Digg just to look.

Netscape
For Netscape, the story is a bit different. As with Digg, you can choose whatever job you want, though there are a smaller number of duties carried out by the general population. Any user can submit, but there are specific users designated to keep the place tidy. The Navigators and Anchors keep the place clean from spam, duplicate stories, and trashy comments.

Given the ~2 year history of the social news arena, it seems as if Netscape has moved toward the traditional community model. This is not to say that Netscape is superior to Digg or anything, because I enjoy both sites, and they obviously appeal to different types of people. What I am saying is that social news seems to be progressing toward a more traditional idea of community.

However, the majority of the population seems to be rather apathetic to helping the common good. When this happens it is necessary to give the individual increased control and more powerful tools for personal use. Hopefully the next generation of sites will give this to us.