It is a bit surprising to me that a social news site, Digg.com, rolled dramatic changes to the site causing its user base to retaliate and flee. Companies do major overhauls to their sites all the time, but those are not social networking or community building websites, but rather product sites such as Motorola, Cocola, and Toyota. What we come to learn from Digg, is that doing major overhaul to the site does not register well with dependent user base that use the site for profit or gain. Facebook and others ought to take a note next time they are rolling out any kind of changes. Careful small migrations probably ought to be employed to successfully bring the site from point A to point B…and that is what Digg should have done.
Is it too late for Digg to back pedal and bring its previous version (V3) design and features back? Time will tell, but by the looks of it now, that fire, which once was burnned on Digg, is no longer there. Many sites, such as Mashable, have stopped promoting their articles using the digg button, and replaced it with Facebook Like and Twitter buttons. Competition never sleeps, it closely watches your every step, and at the moment of your stumble they quickly jump on your stake. The more news and blog sites continue to adopt Like and Twitter buttons, Digg’s days may be numbered.
What can Digg do to save itself?
This would be a useless rant and rave post if I wouldn’t offer some kind of a solution or at least give it a shot. What Digg must do is figure out a way to fire up its community. Easy to say, but hard to do. It may take an idea of a size of an asteroid to make that happen. Let me offer something practical instead. Digg ought stop trying to be a social network, because there is a better one already called Facebook, and instead it Digg should use Facebook for its advantage as a promotional tool. Secondly, Digg needs to tune its algorithm so that the same Anti-Fox, Anti-Palin, and Anti Christian articles would not be dominating the front page. And thirdly they might need to start thinking of buying out some of their competitors to fuel growth…or put themselves on sale.
If you have a better idea, you may comment below.