Reddit has largely supplanted Digg as the go-to watering hole for social news, avoiding the sort of sudden moves that could have spooked its users. It's not a formula for Facebook-like riches, but it's better than crashing and burning. Both have very loyal audiences, and neither has done anything terribly aggressive to try to grow them in years. It's worth noting that two of the most successful news aggregators out there, the Drudge Report and Fark, have been all but unchanged for years. Know your level. Not listening to its users was Digg's cardinal sin, but if there was a deeper failing underlying that, it was overreach. If the Olive Garden changes its pizza recipe and people don't like the new ones, it can ride out the waves. Digg, on the other hand, really only did one thing: aggregated news stories and let users vote on them. It could afford, therefore, to tinker with photos, or the news feed, or its messaging function, knowing that no single change would lead to a walkout. "With Facebook, so many more people use it for so many different things," says Daniel Honigman, director of digital strategy at LoSasso Integrated Marketing and another former power-Digger. But that doesn't mean Digg could afford to show the same level of nonchalance. Arrington is right about one thing: Facebook has managed, over and over again, to implement some change it wanted to make in the face of resistance from its users. The less you do, the more important it is to do it right. "When you put the need to become profitable over the core purpose of the site, you're going to lose your community," says Sorcini.
When Facebook started worrying that faddish social readers were filling users' news feeds with articles and videos they weren't interested in, it slammed on the brakes, even though it meant discomfiting publishers who were counting on the readers as a major new traffic source. You would think social companies would have learned a lesson from the demise of MySpace, which drove away its audience with a user experience that felt cluttered, spammy and over-monetized. Suddenly, what had been a quirky forum for user-submitted stories was overflowing with generic content no actual human had uploaded. The most reviled aspect of V4 was the way it allowed partner publishers to auto-submit articles to the site via RSS feed. (Rose didn't respond to a request for comment.) Muhammad Saleem says he blames Digg co-founder Kevin Rose "for not listening to his community," and also blames TechCrunch editor in chief Michael Arrington for "egging him on with moronic bullshit" like this piece urging him to ignore all community feedback and stick to his vision. Sorcini's prediction proved accurate, of course. "There were no changes made from the private alpha to launching V4 publicly," says Vernon. Apparently the Diggers were invited to give them a feeling that they were part of the process, but not actually to be part of the process. "I flatly told them that if they launched this version of Digg, the regular usership would abandon the site," says Sorcini. Sorcini and Vernon both participated and gave their feedback. Lip service doesn't count. In 2010, when the Digg team was preparing its "Version 4" makeover, it invited a number of top Diggers to be part of a private beta test. "They just did so many things that showed their complete disregard for the community." "It was the only major social site that had no means of communication on the actual site," says Vernon.
At times it seemed to be going out of its way to antagonize its superfans - as when it got rid of Shouts, which many community members used for talking to each other, in 2009. There's no way around that except to finesse it. Users who feel responsible for success can be your most fervent champions, but they're also likely to feel aggrieved when their concerns aren't prioritized.Įvery company that tries to evolve from a niche product with a cultish following to a mass-market offering has to contend with resistance from its core. A fanatical user base is a mixed blessing. You've gotta dance with the one that brung you. In their view, here are the lessons to draw from Digg's demise. Babyman" Sorcini and Amy Vernon spent hours on the site in 20, reading and voting on news, interacting with other community members and competing to improve their rankings by getting more stories onto the front page.
To identify where Digg went off the rails, I talked to the folks who knew it most intimately: its power Diggers.
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