Web analytics, web metrics, and how to use them to track and improve conversions

The top 4 Social News Networks (Digg, Reddit, Netscape and Newsvine) are compared by audience demographics, estimated traffic, user interface and interesting features in a post by Alex Iskold  (and edited by Richard MacManus) on Read / Write Web.

For all that work, I'm surprised they did not come up with anything more inciteful than Digg is the biggest of the 4 Social News Networks and it's audience demographics are different that Netscape (see below).

The faceoff chart

	Digg	Netscape	Newsvine	Reddit
Users	325,000	55,000 (estimate)	60,000	32,500 (estimate)
Alexa rank	91	397	3,130	1,020
Alexa daily views (Per million)	450	75	12	45
Google blogsearch links	198,500	46,800	8,230	29,000
# votes on 1st story	996	5	1	1
# votes on 2nd story	266	82	0	0
Focus	Techies	Web savvy /  mainstream	Mainstream	Techies
Categories	Technology, Science, All	Politics, Technology, All	All	None
Profile and history	X	X	X	X
Flexible views	X			X
Friends	X	X	X	X
Comments	X	X	X	X
Comment rating	X	X	X
RSS	X	X	X	X
Related stories		X	X	X
Recommended/ Handpicked		X	X	X
User Interface	- Clean -Simple -Great	- Nice, not great - A bit too packed - Ads are huge - Channels should be a pulldown	- Exceptional user interface!	- Minimalist
Interesting/ Unique features	- Flexible filters Nice use of Ajax Very well designed - Lots of smart little things	- Comments by type - Related stories	- Great demo! - Users contribute content - Lots of smart little things	- Recomm - Personal- ization

I guess the most I got out of the study is Netscape might be able to grow in the future because it appears to appeal to the maintstream audience while Digg does not.

"The question is will the digg model work for mainstream? It might be too plain, which is why Netscape jumped into the game - and this may be why Newsvine has a chance to be successful. But as it stands, and for foreseeable future, Digg rules!".