First off let me state that I love the Digg and Reddit community, they constantly provide stellar content. I try to get involved with them, but it requires too much attention and it isn’t very personal. The amount of material that flows through these sites is, quite frankly, mind boggling.
I prefer Reddit’s approval system versus Digg’s, but I like Digg’s UI, which is much cleaner. I think they should join together to form Diggit. I digress.
I don’t think these sites play well with bloggers, if you notice most of the material on these sites is static, which it has to be i.e. the digg/slashdot/reddit effect. You need either a top shelf server (with decent connectivity), major cached content, or a static page to serve up.
See How to handle thousands of users with your blog
Also I think there are some major drawbacks to such community driven sites like Digg and Reddit. It seems that the content for everybody is derived from such a small portion of users, the top users, or whatever they are. Serious questions of gaming do arise in these sites, but none-the-less I enjoy perusing what they have to offer. Some of the coolest articles I’ve read have been on these sites. Also you don’t really need to contribute to benefit from these sites, which is cool for busy IT people.
See Top 10 Things Webmaster should know about the Digg Effect
Here at this site I’ve seen a little traffic from such sites and sure they bring some good traffic momentarily, but the traffic doesn’t stay. They are here and then gone. I don’t feel sites like these build readership, which is what blogging is all about. Your content will get temporary readers, which is a cool feeling as a blogger, but they won’t stay.
Bloggers should focus on networking with other bloggers, this is what web 2.0 is all about. Stay passionate about what you write and see what other people other saying about your topics! Commenting on blogs can help you think of ideas and maybe even inspire people to write about different things. I’m not the definitive source for what bloggers should be doing, but I hope to offer my unique position on various topics such as blogging. :-p
I think the purpose of this post was basically to say, Bloggers you don’t need to be on Digg or Reddit in order to have success. Blog your heart out.
4 responses so far ↓
1 AhmadAmir // Aug 12, 2007 at 5:52 am
well from your story maybe, maybe it is not to late for me to choose either one because i am just starting to use it. Anyway, thanks for your information.
2 Chanya // Aug 12, 2007 at 9:54 am
Brent: I agree wholeheartedly. Whenever I publish something to Digg or Reddit I always get a few visits but after the post is moved from the “Most Recent” status, I usually don’t see any more traffic. Also, at Digg it’s difficult (for me at least) to determine under what category to submit a post, especially since I don’t have a niche blog. There have been times when I couldn’t find the right category so I didn’t bother posting. Good article.
3 cooper // Aug 12, 2007 at 12:31 pm
This is actually very sensible. It seems as if a lot of new bloggers - if you have ever read the discussion board at blog catalog - seem to think that begging for massive diggs or favors on technorati will in someway make them a good blog.
Digg and Reddit were never meant for every little blogger to post their articles, they actually were never meant for people to post their own stuff at all. The significance of both decrease as bloggers start digging and redditing themselves. I never used digg and rarely use reddit any longer, Their is way too much stuff to wade through and who has time.
I rely on the blogs of those I like to read for my links, that and the regular news and research sources.
4 Bobby Revell // Aug 13, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Hey Brent, I actually like Reddit’s whole setup more than Digg. The problem I see on Digg is you have these members digging 500 articles a day without even reading them; I don’t know what that’s about but it can’t be healthy for their system.
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