Digg: The Most Efficient Way to Waste Your Time

Digg.com is a social bookmarking website that allows users to submit links with a description to a variety of categories. If users like the submission, they can click the “digg” button, or if they dislike it, they can click the “bury” button. The article discusses how Digg.com democratizes the way we get news. The author cites the advantages as “twofold: You have the ability to voice your opinion about what you believe is newsworthy, and every Web site starts on an even keel.”

While I agree that Digg.com may provide opportunities democratic opportunities for users, I believe the links that make it to the front page are shaped by minority of dedicated users. Before a link makes it to the front page, it must go through a process of approval. First, a submitted link is shown in “unsorted” bin of stories—you can see this area by clicking the “Upcoming Stories” link. The most dedicated users live here, “digging” any interesting links. The second level is “Hot in All Topics” area, a limbo between the “unsorted” bin and the front page, where less active users “digg” stories. If the link has enough “diggs”, it will appear on the front page, where the most passive Digg users live. Now we can identify the most powerful users: the users who filter through the “unsorted” bin of stories. These users are the first ones to narrow down the links and control what the majority of people will see and approve. The type people that the article describes—who just want to know what’s “cool”—will be influenced by the few who sift through the hundreds of stories submitted every day.

Looking at Digg.com from a network exchange point of view, the traditional notion of “betweeness” can be used to find the most powerful users. The power structure is similar to a directional graph of conventional hierarchy, but with a twist. The power of the user who submitted the link is dependent on the level below him. While there are increasing amounts of users as we continue down the hierarchy, users individual power actually decreases because a link will accumulate many “diggs”, and an individual who “buries” a link will not have much effect. The collective power of users, however, increases as we go down the hierarchy. If they all “bury” a link, it may disappear for good. But there might be psychological barriers preventing users from “burying” an article because they expect think their vote will not make the difference. In the end, who does have the most power? Again, it is those users right below the original link submitter. These users have a large “betweeness” value and are at the beginning of a directional graph. These powerful users control the flow of information to everybody else.