The social network site, digg was oncenicknamed the “Slashdot killer”. Since arriving on the internet, the site/service competed and overwhelmed Slashdot.com. Prior to being overwhelmed by digg, Slashdot was the leader for technology based news on the internet. How did the new start-up known as digg overwhelm the established Slashdot?

The two companies took different approaches to how they presented their news stories. Slashdot used an editorial board to decide which news items were most worthy of attention, whereas, Digg allows the public to vote on stories and news items. Digg users rate news stories either favorably (digg it) or unfavorably (bury it). By allowing the users to have a say, rather than the editorial board, digg gained popularity among its users. Although Slashdot remains a force in the internet community, its significance has been overshadowed by the size and power of digg. In some ways, they were among the early victims of the ‘digg wave’. When a story is dugg on a large scale, the popularity of the story brings numerous visitors to a site and often overwhelm the servers. Digg itself experienced some server meltdowns when their site became popular due to the traffic generated.

In order to prevent and minimize abuse, digg has instituted measures to keep the digg wave honest. No one is allowed to “double digg” and vote twice for a story. Digg has found that its social community polices itself. The digg and bury features allow the community to censor stories or topics that are offensive or of little or no interest.

Despite implementing these control measures, some controversial stories receive both diggs and bury designations. Depending on which direction the story is heading, it is possible the story is removed from the digg site. The tipping point where a story is removed from the site is a proprietary secret of the digg staff. Since there are various categories for news items presented at digg, the number of diggs required to achieve front page status varies with the focus of the news story. Some categories have higher digg requirements than others.

The site, which is based in San Francisco has received criticism for burying news with a conservative viewpoint and issues of concern to conservatives. In response to the actions of digg, some conservatives have created their own site, weaselzippers (www.weaselzippers.net). The founders of digg deny the intentional burying of stories, claiming that their system works at indicating what is popular. Regardless of which side of the controversy a person stands, the digg site reflects what is popular and of interest to many people. Besides attention garnered from being mentioned on the front page, digg has another powerful attention generator. Some businesses benefit from being mentioned on digg’s own show, known as ‘diggnation’. The hosts of the show discuss the items that are of interest to them or what is currently popular on the internet. Businesses who have been hit with the digg wave or ‘digg effect’ can attest to the power and traffic that it brings with it.

To see the 'digg wave' in effect, visit labs.digg.com and see for yourself. One of my favorites is watching the swarm.