I like the graphic associated with the post in Google Operating System - The Unlikely Integration Between Google News and Digg - it's hard to see where Digg would be used to re-rank Google News once Google acquires Digg.

More likely, the real reason Google is buying Digg is ….to interface it with Google's organic search results - though you'd think, in true Google fashion, if they were going after Digg's success they'd just copy/clone Digg instead of buying it.

Perhaps there is a patent issue involved here - or something that limits what Google can do with it's new Search Interface - Future of Search Engine Optimization - Google’s New Search Interface.

BTW, I wrote about …some other news the other day and I'd like everyone who reads this blog to also subscribe to www.theanalyticsguru.com RSS Feed, for the reasons I outlined in that post.

I found an interesting study of how stories get spread on Digg - it's rare to see someone that put together this much data - I tried to get the keyword tool to work, but it didn't for me - Link Attraction Factors: Getting Dugg and Going Viral (the post is on Read/WriteWeb).

 "…So I decided to study this effect: what types of stories get lots of links after going popular? I created a database of 33,000 of the 39,000 stories that made Digg's homepage in 2007 and, using Yahoo!'s API, I tracked how many external links each URL had pointing to it. Then I analyzed a number of factors that could influence the number of links a story gets and wrote a report with my findings.

 

Maybe it's just a slow server - or a lot of people hitting it to download the white paper  

I'll also try to write something about this on The Analytics Guru later today.

I meant to write about the Digg Song that I heard on TechCrunch, sung my a young singer, Digg, The Song introduced me to Kina Grannis (who I subscribed using YouTube).

Actually, the Digg Song sounds really good (but I'm not a music expert, but more of someone who knows and appreciates visual art) - still, a nice sound is .. a nice sound and I like what I see (and hear):

Here's the words from the Digg Song:

"..When I’m feeling lazy, at school or when I work
I sneak to my computer, and then I like to shirk
I don’t go online shopping, I don’t email with my mom
I open up my browser, and go to digg-dot-com

Chorus: Gotta digg, gotta digg, gotta digg
Gotta make this story big!
Did you hear that awful sound?
Another server’s down!

I always dig up Apple, and I bury Microsoft
But when I said I was a girl, all the diggers scoffed
And when I see those stories about Senator Ron Paul
I don’t even RTFA; I just digg them all!

Chorus: Gotta digg, gotta digg, gotta digg
Gotta make this story big!
Did you hear that awful sound?
Another server’s down!

The fanboys can be tiresome, they always are outspoken
And if you’re listening Kevin Rose, the comment system’s broken!
I know digg isn’t perfect, but be thankful for what we’ve got
It’s just like daddy always says: “At least it’s not Slashdot!!!”
Chorus: Gotta digg, gotta digg, gotta digg
Gotta make this story big!
Did you hear that awful sound?
Another server’s down!"

Hot Diggity Dog! Another Fire Sale… with Digg is up for sale again?  According to VentureBeat….., as reported by MarketingPilgrim - it is….darn, what happened to the billion dollar valuation they were looking for last year?  According to VentureBeat's Eric Eldon:

"…It’s been a little more than a month since the last rumors surfaced about social news site Digg trying to sell itself for at least $300 million.

A reliable source just confirmed the company’s plans, noting the company has hired Allen & Company, a tiny but influential private investment firm, to help broker a deal. The asking price is still $300 million, the source said.

This will come as no surprise. Rumors of a sale have been rampant for months, although until now we hear co-founder Jay Adelson has been trying to muster up interest in a sale. This is the first time Digg has hired a bank to shop the deal, we’re told.

Valleywag reported the $300 million rumor last month. Separately, it reported Digg chief executive Jay Adelson’s attendance at Allen & Company’s annual Sun Valley, Idaho get-together of the rich and famous, noting the company might be looking to find a buyer among one of the many media company executives in attendance."

I think it makes sense to sell now - 300 million in your hands is better than 1 billion you'd maybe never get.  Besides the fact, the Digg model is being copied and there have been rumors of people leaving Digg and using alternatives.  It seems to me that Digg is probably not going to get any more popular than it already is - so maybe it's time to just sell and move on to the next venture.

Seems like more and  more sites are springing up with Digg like interfaces - Dell is doing it and now a site called HomeHugg does it with houses.  I can't seem to get it to work for any areas near where I live - but it's a beta, after all.

According to the marketing material on the homepage of HomeHugg:

"….HomeHugg is a community of Home Buyers, Realtors and Lenders that help each other discover, save and share their favorite homes for sale or rent in their community. The members of HomeHugg are able to add homes, comment on homes, map their favorites and share them with their family and friends. "

I would not mind seeing a Digg like interface for house plans as well - at least then you'd get feedback to know what people are responding to.

Could it be that the "new marketing" is really inclusive of enthused endorsers on Digg and Reddit than Search Engine rankings both Organic and Paid?  Yes.  I believe that's the case but endorsement via individuals and online communities can't be your only business model.

What if the Architects had done that…focused less on spending 10K a month on PPC that gave almost no plans sold and gone after fostering a community of people who wanted these architectual house plans?   What would have happened then?  Well, if it was a community of home builders and the architects had done it well enough there could have been hundreds of sales a month at a fraction of the cost - but none of them think that way. 

Why?  Because enthusiasts have to genuinely believe your product or service is better.  You can try to buy the services of online enthusiasts but it always backfires in the end.  People really need to believe your stuff is better - they they will talk about.  But if your stuff is not better - and you just trying to sell "widgets" that everyone else is selling - forget it.  It's not going to work.

The new marketing requires a complete retrofit - the stuff that used to work is becoming less and less effective as people want quality - want reality, what to trust - and they'll go on online endorsements via online communities if they believe in the endorser.

I tried to do some analysis on some of the top influencers using Ad Labs Demo tools - those were the only tools that would pick up any information on their actual URLs - the rest work on the domain level which won't be of help here.

I think it's kinda scary where this may all end up someday (IE: put in a name of someone and get a demographic profile OR specify what your looking for and get a list of people - but much more sophisticated then dating sites, which try to do the same thing but for a different purpose).

I'm temped to think of the case of Fanster.com and Henry Wang; according to the WSJ article:

"….One site that says it has a lot to thank Henry Wang for is Famster.com. Similar to MySpace.com but aimed primarily at families, Famster allows people to set up their own sites to keep track of everything from photos to family trees and blog entries. When it went live on August 7 of last year, the site says it had only a trickle of visitors.

Five days later, Mr. Wang posted a link to it on Digg, with the comment, "I can't believe that this site isn't widely known, even with all its features: share photos, stream videos, create a blog, upload files, keep track of RSS feeds… all in Flash? and for free? Ridiculous." More than 1,700 users voted on the link, driving traffic to Famster up to 50,000 unique visitors per day during the week it was on Digg's home page. "I was in awe," says Bryan Opfer, the site's chief technology officer."

In the new marketing - you may need to find someone who is an influencer - or become one yourself by participating vigorously in online communities - and then suggesting things that the community might be interested in …..and if those things are genuinely better, traffic and sales can result.

I don't have this all worked out - but my mind is working in this direction more than getting Search, which I think has lost much of it's effectiveness as a driver of traffic, in my opinion.

I know, I'm saying this just as SEO and SEM have become mainstream, and that's precisely why I'm saying it.  I'd rather work on the fringe than do what everyone else is doing (figure out where the crowd is going and head in the opposite direction).

Anyway, the WSJ article on the Wizards of Buzz is full of really good information - and I'd go in this direction, combining it with the Eisenberg's Persuasive Architecture.  I have a copy of one of their books I'm still reviewing and I'll write up more as I'm ready.

By the way, Jason Calacanius has a lot to say about the WSJ article on the Wizards of Buzz.  I included his entire post below - to add on to mine:

"… "Jurgensen, John"
date Jan 26, 2007 4:51 PM
subject Re: question from WSJ

> How would you describe the role played by top-ranked users?

The top users on sites like digg and Netscape are putting in four to eight hours a day. They are certainly not just "users" at this point. They are more akin to freelancers, editors, or researchers. The term I most like to use is "cool hunters."

They are also just like the editors-at-large at magazines who look for cool stories to cover.

> There's been a lot of debate about top users having a disproportionate influence on what
> gets featured…do you think that's currently the case? If so, what are the ramifications?

I wouldn't say disproportionate influence, I would say appropriate influence. They are putting in the most time, they find the stories first, and they know the most people in the community. It only makes sense that the people who invest the most time and effort get the most benefit.

> What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of featuring top-user lists and
> leaderboards? Does the risk of a popularity contest outweigh their benefits as a
> discovery tool for users?

People would not participate in these systems if they were not transparent and if there was a not a recognition system in place. The two top reasons people participate in these systems are recognition and affiliation–in that order.

You take away the leaderboard and you take away the recognition. It would kill the fun of the game for most people. That being said, we found that women are less concerned about their rank and much more interested in the relationships they are building–go figure.

> How would you describe the pressure and influence of marketers, especially as it
> relates to this top-user pool?"

I read the article at the Wall Street Journal - care of TechCrunch's Digg Rock Stars post - and was surprised at the variety of influencers, from a 12 year boy, Adam Fuhrer (on one end) to Cliff Worthington, a 45 year old English Teacher in Osaka, Japan.

How the WSJ determined the top "Diggers" by influence?  Semantic Analysis and posting activity (the right way) using a platform called "Dapper".

"…To find the key influencers, The Wall Street Journal analyzed more than 25,000 submissions across six major sites. With the help of Dapper, a company that designs software to track information published on the Web, this analysis sifted through snapshots of the sites' home pages every 30 minutes over three weeks. The data included which users posted the submissions and the number of votes each received from fellow users. We then contacted scores of individual users to find which ones are tracked by the wider community."

I had heard of Dapper before, but never used it.  I just looked at the 5 minute Demo and I'm wondering if it's similar to the new Yahoo! Pipes - not sure.  But at any rate, the Wall Street Journal got the top Diggers based on their posting behavior and topic analysis - more than just the list of top Diggers that now dissipeared from Digg (last week).  Here's what the WSJ found:

"…Though it can take hundreds or thousands of votes to make it onto the hot list at these sites, the Journal's analysis found that a substantial number of submissions originated with a handful of users. At Digg, which has 900,000 registered users, 30 people were responsible for submitting one-third of postings on the home page. At Netscape.com, a single user named "STONERS" — in real life, computer programmer Ed Southwood of Dayton, Ohio — was behind fully 217 stories over the two-week period, or 13% of all stories that reached the most popular list. (Netscape, which gained fame with its namesake browser, is now owned by Time Warner's AOL unit and operates a news site.)"

"….Last week, Digg took a more dramatic step, pulling down the user rankings that had served as a prod to people on the site to post their best findings. "It became a target for those trying to manipulate the system," Mr. Adelson says."

And then the WSJ goes on to profile the 30 Top Diggers and you can read about it in the WSJ article - but I want to highlight further research I've done on the profile of those same Top Diggers using QuantCast and AdLabs - and I may spend a couple of posts on this - don't know where it will take me - but my Web Analyst curiosity is engaged.

First, let's take the first Digger in the WSJ article -

PAMELA DREW/"Pamela Drew"

POSTS ON: Newsvine
WHO SHE IS: A mother of three in New York
HOW SHE DOES IT: She spends at least two hours a day looking for stories about genetically modified foods, which she says isn't covered enough in the media. Her opinionated articles have fueled her reputation; 272 of her postings have been particularly well-received.

Put that url in Quantcast and here's what I get!   Not much on her url - but all the urls of influencer's on NewsVine!

newsvine.com	100.0%
newsguru.newsvine.com	14.6%
disembedded.newsvine.com	2.2%
ispy.newsvine.com	2.2%
djin.newsvine.com	1.7%
rase.newsvine.com	1.7%
ryanmeehan.newsvine.com	1.5%
rossgram.newsvine.com	1.4%
paperdragon.newsvine.com	1.4%
killfile.newsvine.com	1.3%
stacym.newsvine.com	1.2%
forex.newsvine.com	1.1%
stevenwandrews.newsvine.com	1.1%
kevinb66.newsvine.com	1.0%
ryanbooker.newsvine.com	1.0%
thelevithorntonexperience.newsvine.com	0.8%
thehardmiddle.newsvine.com	0.8%
ardith.newsvine.com	0.7%
chaosesper.newsvine.com	0.7%
barry253.newsvine.com	0.7%
primarysources.newsvine.com	0.6%

When I started looking at these urls (above); particularly NewsGuru.newsvine.com I got a pump of Brittney Spears filth - but people must like it:  These were the keywords that made NewsGuru popular.

britneys crotch shots	7,652
britneys crotch	5,551
britney spears crotch pic	4,667
crotch shots	3,785
britney spears crotch shots	2,903
britney spears crotch pictures	2,207
britney spears crotch	1,860
britney	1,131
sams club	520
britney spears	510
ebay	245
myspace	200
myspace.com	173
google	141

Now, I'm not saying Pamala Drew has anything in common with Newsguru - but it's amazing what you can pick up with some free tools - and if that power is harnessed - I bet there's all kinds of things you can do with it - as the Top Diggers are doing now, weather they realize it or not ….. see below:

"….An English teacher in Osaka, Japan, he mentioned the box projects on a popular Web site called Digg.com<
font style="background-color: #ffff00">. Soon, supplies of the rivets needed to make them sold out at MrMcGroovys.com.

"It would have taken me a year to sell that many rivets," says Andy McGrew, owner of Mr. McGroovy's, which offers free blueprints for the homemade pirate ships and other projects.

See what I mean …. the new influeners wield enormous power - the power has been put in the hands of the enthusiasts. 

Just think of what I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a former architectural client of mine  doubled search engine traffic, doubled paid traffic, and yet their sales had only gone up a little bit.  A deep dive into current client with a similar customer based showed an interesting point and I covered it near the bottom of the post titled More Buzz on Google's Personalized Search Results:

"…Recently, I did a deep dive in the customer base of a client and found it was mostly DIRECT (no search engine referral) from local Real Estate agencies or Developers.   Search probably had almost nothing to do with acquisition of these clients - it was all about the BRAND.

Before we worry about Personalized Search …. maybe we ought to look first to see we even have the right advertising and marketing vehicle, because PPC does not really suit many of the businesses that are using it (because they can't get enough traffic any other way).

In the case of my client, advertising and contacting professional associations would probably yield a lot better results, and perhaps, vertical search advertising in building and construction directories, or even Pet and Dating sites, might yield better results."

I'll follow up more on the top influencers Digg in the next couple of posts.

You know what,  I don't know if it will make any real difference - but the perception that top diggers have manipulated Digg have finally been responded to, according to Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim.

"….Kevin Rose has just announced that Digg is scrapping the Top Diggers list, believing the move will take away the perception that just a few hundred Diggers control the majority of the 5,000 submissions each day."

"…..It’s clear that Rose is reacting to the ever increasing reports that top Diggers are being approached to submit stories for money, but I’m not convinced this move will fix the problem. Whether you give the label or not, there are still many Diggers that wield a lot of power on Digg, and so, you may end up just pissing them off."

Let's see what happens.  Personally, I don't think Digg can sustain it's popularity long term.  And without doing something like this Digg would go down a lot faster, but I don't think it's going to make that much of a difference.  But maybe I'll be wrong about this one.

People come up with all kinds of names for common phenomena  like the "Digg Effect" - if you get a spike of traffic from Digg you'll get some of that traffic, maybe 10%, as regular visitors who'll subscribe to your RSS feed, etc.

I had a spike in late May, got around 4000 visitors in 2 hours from a post I did comparing the Digg to the NY Times in terms of pageviews.   Not one comment came out of it - and FeedBurner did not really have a way to tell me if I picked up any subscribers because of a traffic spike like that.

The chart above comes from Darren Rowse and he mentions an uptick of RSS Subscribers that happens every time there's a Digg Spike. 

"…Every time I get dugg I notice a leap in my RSS subscriber count. The first few times a site gets on Digg this is often bigger than subsequent diggings (after a few times I guess those who are interested in your topic will have already been subscribed) but there is a noticeable bump in subscribers each time."

I don't have access to the FeedBurner account for this blog or else I'd try to tell if this is true.  It sounds like this is what should be happening - if I got 4000 visitors in 2 hours - it's reasonable that at least 1% (40) will become subscribers.  But I can't prove it-that this happened.

Maybe FeedBurner's newer metrics will allow more segmentation - I've been given access to the beta but it requires putting additional JavaScript on sites (which, in most cases, I can't do since I don't control the web template for Webmetricsguru.com, Artnewyorkcity.com or Smartmobs.com - in fact the only place I can do it is now-seo.blogspot.com - but I don't post there very often).

Some new features as Digg according to TechCrunch - I'm looking at them as I write this.  I haven't been looking at Digg that much lately but I like what I see - esp with voting on Podcasts.