Have You Reddit? Digg This
By Cohen, Steven M
Library Stuff Revisited Four feeds come into my Google Reader that help me keep up-to-date on the most popular topics on the Web. Two are subject-specific, and the others are a free-for-all that sometimes make me want to shake my head in disgust, exhaustion, and hilarity (the latter reason is why I still subscribe to them).
The content of these feeds is sent by those who have read something interesting and have given it a thumbs up with a click of the mouse (111 explain that in a few paragraphs), or they have linked to it on their blogs (again, in a few paragraphs). Sometimes, I receive a few gems, and, at other times, I get ugly, useless rocks, but I can’t deny that I’m still more current on events than before.
How It Works
The theory behind the “wisdom of crowds,” popularized by James Surowiecki in his book of the same title (see www .randomhouse.com/ features/wisdomof crowds), is that large groups are smarter than the smartest person within that group under certain conditions. When I look at the four feeds that keep me more current than any lone blog or newspaper, I see the wisdom of crowds in action. In fact, if these sites had been around when Surowiecki was researching his book, I’m sure he would have included them. But that’s enough about theory; here’s how the feeds make it happen.
Techmeme (www.techmeme.com) follows different types of technology bloggers, figures out which is the most popular story of the moment, and then ranks the stories. Gabe Rivera, the site’s creator, describes his site as such on the main page:
At this moment, the next big story in technology may reside on a blog you’ve never heard of or a news site you don’t have time to scan. So I built a software agent to surface these links in real time and the result is Techmeme, the site you’re visiting now.
Coverage is driven by a mix of industry insiders, passionate independents, and established journalists. So Techmeme gets the story no matter where it appears, and often days before it hits major sites.
Focusing on Hot Topics
Techmeme looks at a subject from the viewpoints of different people, aggregates the blog posts for the individuals, and displays the results in order of popularity. It has been well-established that bloggers are able to break news faster than mainstream media, and Techmeme assists in bringing this news to light. The Web culture changes so quickly, and what’s hot one minute may be old news the next. The Techmeme feed has been in my arsenal for a while now, and it consistently pushes useful news to me. For those who are interested in politics, Rivera has built memeorandum (www.memeorandum.com) with the same concepts in mind. Lately, I have been interested in politics, and I only think I am up-to-date when I read the content that memeorandum has sent. By linking to the popular items of the day, “crowd” bloggers tell me the important happenings in technology and politics. Sure, there isn’t much serendipity when relying on the Techmeme products. That can be left to Digg and reddit, two other feeds in my Google Reader.
Deciding What Is Popular
Digg (www.digg .com) and reddit (www.reddit.com) want readers of the site to determine what is popular, and the users do this by voting on what they like. Voting on these sites is equivalent to clicking on an icon (there is a limit to one vote per user). The most popular “Diggs” and “reddits” will be displayed more prominently on their respective sites. These sites are using crowd wisdom to push content to users who may not have had the chance to get attention and are attempting to be democratic in their terms of service (I say attempt as there has been much discussion on possible gaming of both systems). Recently, Digg was also the target of user backlash because the site deleted content that users had added to the site (see http://blog.digg.com/7p=73). Digg has since reversed its decision (http:// blog.digg.com/?p=74). That said, while it’s possible that these voting sites can be both gamed and manipulated by their creators, the content that comes out of the most popular voted-on content is truly helpful in keeping me current.
Digg is a bit more sophisticated because the content is broken down into categories. For example, one can follow the most popular “Diggs” in the politics section (www.digg.com/politics) or Sports (www.digg.com/view/sports). If you have time, you may also want to check out Digg Spy (www.digg.com/spy), a listing of what is being “Dugg” in real time. While Digg is a popular site, it has been known to take down servers of content that have made it to the front page.
reddit will also provide category pages from time to time, but this site rarely tells its users about it (see http:// obama.reddit.com for a page geared toward Barack Obama or http:// science .reddit.com for science). Both sites let users comment on the links that appear on the site, bringing in yet another level of participation. Techmeme doesn’t allow comments, but that doesn’t make it better or worse than Digg or reddit, just different.
In the world of Web 2.0, social participation is important to the success of any tool (see MySpace, Facebook, and LibraryThing). For those who are looking for “stuff (there really aren’t any other words to describe the amount of wide-ranging content that comes from the four aforementioned sites) that is popular around the Web, look no further than Techmeme, memeorandum, Digg, and reddit.
Steven M. Cohen is senior librarian at Law Library Management, Inc. in New York. He is the creator of Library Stuff, a bio g published by Information Today, Inc. His email is stevenmcohen@gmail.com. Send your comments about this column to itletters@infotoday.com.
Copyright Information Today, Inc. Jun 2007
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