{"id":4455,"date":"2017-03-20T00:25:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T04:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/digg-failures-and-learnings\/"},"modified":"2017-03-20T00:25:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T04:25:00","slug":"digg-failures-and-learnings","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/digg-failures-and-learnings\/","title":{"rendered":"Digg: Failures and Learnings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Digg\u2019s mission was simple: create a platform that facilitates a\u00a0democratic process for posting and headlining news content. Instead of relying on traditional media giants to determine the most interesting or important stories, users themselves crowdsourced and up- or downvoted what they wanted to read. In August of 2006, Digg co-founder Kevin Rose was featured on the front cover of BusinessWeek. In a short period of 18 months (the approximate time we\u2019ve been enrolled at HBS), Rose had amassed a respectable $60 million and a large following\u00a0of unique active users for his content aggregation website.[1] Just a few years later in 2011, Digg\u2019s website and technology was sold to Betaworks for just $500,000, less than 0.4% of what it was worth in its heyday. So what the heck happened?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Image 1: Getting an article onto the front page of Digg was the end-all for most users. For a variety of reasons, it was nearly impossible for the average Digg fan.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Undemocratic<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early adopters of Digg had more friends compared to the early majority and thus had a much easier time getting upvotes for their stories. Ordinary users that posted the most important story of the day might receive a few (less than 10) upvotes. On the other hand, a super user like \u201cMrBabyMan\u201d could create a duplicate link a few days later, receive 10,000 upvotes (diggs) and make it to the front page of Digg within 3 hours.[1] Without fixing this problem in the company\u2019s infancy, a vicious cycle emerged: super users made the front page because they had the most friends. Then, they accumulated even more friends because they made the front page. While Digg tried to fix this very central issue, other problems began to emerge as well. For example, Digg lacked a verification system for its users, and so many super users began registering multiple accounts, and used those accounts to upvote their own content.[1] Even though Digg attempted to police this, users found other ways to accomplish the same goal.<\/p>\n

Not personalized<\/strong><\/p>\n

The super user oligarchy issue mentioned earlier was doubly harmful because Digg\u2019s website was not personalized \u2013 every web visitor saw the same articles and the same front page. Readers familiar with Digg alternatives may know that Reddit \u2013 a similar news, blog, and opinion aggregator \u2013 avoided this problem by creating \u201csubreddits\u201d to cater to different readers\u2019 interests ranging anywhere from \u201ccute animals\u201d to \u201cuser-to-user snack exchanges.\u201d[2] Every reader is different. Just as different users experience different Facebooks Newsfeeds and different search results on otherwise identical Google searches, users should be able to look for stories that have been upvoted by a community AND are most relevant to them. Many people blame Digg\u2019s mission creep, and desire to be everything for everyone as their biggest weaknesses. However, their alienation of bloggers, opinion-piece writers, and \u201chow-to\u201d articles actually constrained their ability to reach an even larger readership.<\/p>\n

They Quickly Killed Social Components<\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of the solution to fix the super user problem, Digg prevented users from exchanging messages with their friends. This was probably one of their biggest mistakes. Social messaging and engagement provides an extra layer of stickiness to a site. Without it, the feeling of being a part of a real community dissipates dramatically. Meanwhile the expansion of social networks like Facebook and Twitter created additional conduits for news-sharing with lower barriers to entry \u2013 it only takes 1 to 3 steps to share a news article on Facebook, while it takes 8 steps on Digg.[3]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Image 2: Reddit, a digg competitor, is lauded for staying true to its mission. In 2010, Reddit surpassed Digg in usage metrics [comScore, 2].<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>What could have Digg done differently?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The problem with super users crowding out lesser known participants could have been avoided in other ways. If a duplicate link is posted by a super user after an average Joe has already posted it, Digg could give credit to both users. Additionally, Digg could have personalized each user\u2019s page by doing simple things like asking a new user what subjects they are interested in (e.g. \u2013 gadgets, technology startups, the weather). By serving different stories that are most relevant to individuals, the super user problem would have been less dire. Lastly, I disagree that Digg was killed by mission creep. It is helpful to focus on one hyperlocal segment when there are clear incumbents in the space. However in 2006, a dominant and truly democratic news aggregator was not apparent, and Digg could have chosen to expand to other non-geeky gaming and technology news topics much faster and more effectively. Reddit \u2013 the front page of the internet \u2013 is living proof that more diverse content can win.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/article\/2506833\/web-apps\/elgan–why-digg-failed.html<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/s\/428520\/why-did-reddit-succeed-where-digg-failed\/<\/p>\n

[3] http:\/\/www.speeli.com\/articles\/view\/Why-Digg-failed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A democratic crowd-source-enabled news aggregator once valued at $100+ million goes bust. 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