Digg made headlines at the SXSW conference this week, announcing significant upgrades to the front and back ends of the site, which allows users to find, share and rate links and scoring the top story in today’s SmartBrief on Social Media. CEO Jay Adelson promises the changes with streamline the experience, making it faster and more user-friendly.
But is that enough? When Digg launched in 2004, Facebook was little more than a cleaned-up MySpace for the college set. YouTube didn’t exist. Twitter was just a glimmer in a madman’s eye. Back then, all that sharing, finding and ranking was quite novel. Getting on the front page of Digg used to be quite a big deal back in the day — the equivalent of being a trending topic on Twitter now. The site had the power to direct a lot of traffic back then.
The landscape has changed. Now, every social network can easily be used to share news. Digg’s core community is still quite strong, but in some ways it can act as a deterrent, keeping new members from finding much success in talking up their favorite stories. The changes seem poised to alleviate that problem by taking other social networks into account and trying to make the network less of a front-page-or-bust proposition. But the question remains: In a world with so many other hot social networks, why should an organization invest time in Digg?
Do you use Digg? Do the changes being made to the site intrigue you? Does Digg still have a place in a corporate social-media strategy?
Image credit, K A Arjun, via Shutterstock