I was one of the first people who followed up on Evan's post in Marketingshift a couple of weeks ago.
"Looks like there's a fire starting at Digg and a lot of people are throwing diggs (errr logs) on the blaze. Evan's post got a lot of diggs and traffic a couple weeks ago and now others are really digging into the data and getting even more traction."
To me, it's obvious that Digg can be rigged. How often Digg is rigged is another question.
Case in point: If all of Know More Media's bloggers (70+) wanted to, we could all register for Digg and then pick a story or two and all vote on it - that would get an instant 70+ votes putting the story near the first page. Any blog network could do the same thing. What about any group of people? Any group could easily rigg Digg.
By the way, no one who I know at KMM, or anywhere else, does anything like what I'm suggesting could be done- but it would not surprise me if some groups communicate with each other and coodinate their Digg posts to get the maximum number of Diggs they can.
What about a company that wants to get traffic to it's product, fast and cheap - just have one story put up and have a lot of employees Digg it - all you need is a couple of hundered diggs to get you massive traffic for a short time at NO COST.
The question is not that Digg is rigged....it is rigged. To me, this is really a question of how often Digg is Rigged. I don't think Digg is rigged as often as it could be - and soon will be.
I guess Digg better start developing some tools to detect networks of rigged Diggs, similar in nature to what Google does with fake AdWords clicks.
I agree, it is very easy to generate sock-puppet accounts and digg a story way, way, way up.
The controversy, I find, is who is actually digging the story.
Stories that are submitted, and I believe, even dugg by people who have very reputable profiles -- top20 diggers, for example, get preferential treatment in terms of their stories.
Their "diggs" are simply worth more.
They require LESS diggs for their stuff to get to the front page.
That's why you always see some stories hit the front page with LESS diggs than other stories.
I think this is a way for Digg to try and combat exactly what you're talking about.
Unfortuantely, it does foster friends digging friends -- and when your friends are powerful (top 20 - 50 diggers), it creates a scenario where the only posts appearing in the front page are the ones submitted by those people!
Great post otherwise,
Cheers
tony @ dji
Posted by: Tony | September 6, 2006 10:00 PM | Permalink to Comment