Digg is an indexing service that conglomerates and ranks articles based on visitors voting for them. Most bloggers love to see their stuff in Digg because it increases the chance that people will read their material, and if the website advertises, more traffic means more bucks.
However, one blogger at a website called Violent Acres just unleashed a tirade against Digg and her own visitors for voting for her ridiculously unimportant posts, the result being little throwaway posts about her brother and Christmas shopping wound up high on the Digg homepage.
Not Everything I Write Deserves to be on Digg is both amusing and revealing about the nature of post positioning in the blogosphere.
On January 5th, I wrote a short blurb where I called the Venus Vibrance razor blade a stupid Christmas present. The entire thing was roughly a paragraph long and it was completely devoid of interesting commentary. Unless, of course, you think my thoughts on toiletries are particularly revolutionary or insightful. And if you do? Please kill yourself. We don’t need you. But, my point is, not only was this paragraph about the Venus Vibrance Razor blade submitted to digg, but 13 of the stupidest people who ever walked the planet dugg it.
So the best material is not necessarily featured at Digg, but the same can be said for other search engines which base post “relevance” largely on the number of other websites which link to your blog. Whether it is voting by visitors, or voting through links by blogs to your blog, the system is rigged for the larger blogs.
Larger blogs will get more visits, and therefore more Digg votes. And they will get more links to sloppy material. And believe me, they post just as much crap as anyone else and many post more crap as they become obsessed with perpetuating their ranking with large numbers of posts about whatever they can find in the news.
That said, I can’t envision a better system, but the cards are stacked in the blogosphere against small blogs with excellent writers and exceptional material.
[tags]digg, violent+acres, blog+relevance, search+engines, website[/tags]
January 25th, 2007 at 4:04 am
like ours!
Of course, once everyone finds out how great we are here, we’ll be in the top as well! And we’ll all be famous - and rich… well at least famous … alright - we’ll just have fun!
January 25th, 2007 at 4:08 am
Actually, case in point: my pig post. Fun, not very intellectual, but some of those “dumb” posts are the ones that get the most visitors. Why get bored with a post about Dick Cheney and all the meetings he had with Scooter Libby when you can read about lisab’s Ferragamo boots? Her boots are a lot more fun - as are her posts!
Lisab - any posts about razors that you got for Christmas?
Also, we need to bring DUKE!!! over here too - her posts are a blast as well - OK guys, lets face it - we women have posts that are way more fun! (Ouch! I hate it when I cut myself shaving! - multi tasking - ya know?)
January 25th, 2007 at 8:14 am
[...] This is exactly why I’m not a Digg fan. It feels like the tabloid of the Internet: mostly a time-waster, based solely on the whims and fetishes of its readers. Sites are arbitrarily ranked up and down. It’s a great way to drive traffic, but isn’t it traffic-for-traffics sake? The Violent Acres incident is prompting similar reactions from other bloggers. [...]
January 25th, 2007 at 9:26 am
No Diggity - thanks for stopping by! We’ll all be blog-famous some day!
January 25th, 2007 at 11:21 am
MBT - You are wayyy funny talking to a trackback ping! You can click thru his/her link and see where he referenced us on their blog. Nice post over there too!
And we’re getting fairly up there in links and blog relevance ourselves. Consider this my populist post for the year, like heroic Bill O’Reilly I’m lookin’ out for the people.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
That chick was probably catching hell from the brother because she made such a big deal over his crappy Christmas present. Now (potentially) the whole world knows he’s a cheap bastard that passes out razors to his family at Christmas.
He could have picked up a 4 pk of douches and some underarm deodorant and made a personal hygiene gift basket for her. It’s all on the same isle at Wal-Mart.
Well, I guess he’d be too cheap to buy the basket though.
January 25th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
This is mere navel contemplation. People who spend their time posting on blogs have no idea how ridiculous they look.