2007 December | Social News Watch

Digg the Candidates: Not much to analyze here

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 By JD Rucker 2 Comments

When Digg released their Digg the Candidates section back in September, we made lots of predictions. Luckily for Digg and for America, most were wrong.

Still, it has been a huge disappointment so far. Digg put together an excellent section with appropriate features and nice opportunities for the candidates to interact with their supporters, as well as those who support other candidates. It should have been a great thing, with many of our predictions coming true. They didn’t.

Prediction 1: Ron Paul will dominate this through Diggs, submissions, and fans.

Obviously, we were right about the fans, but that wasn’t exactly a stretch of a prediction. He currently has over 15k, more than Obama, Clinton, and every Republican candidate combined. In retrospect, we should have known that it wasn’t possible for him to submit a ton. There are too many supporters who scramble to submit the stories about him for him. I’m shocked his team has been able to submit 9. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Social Internet, Social Media Marketing, Social News Sites Tagged With: candidates, Digg, election, Social Media, socialmedia

SEO Spammers: Leave Social Media Sites Alone!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 By JD Rucker 48 Comments

You’ve seen them before. They create accounts that have either a gibberish name or “SEOSuperstud”. No avatar, or one that is their company logo. They might have lots of people befriended. They may have none.

They always submit. They never vote/Digg/upmod anyone else’s submissions. Their submissions get 1 or fewer votes (unless they are a MASS – a Multi-Account-SEO-Spammer, in which case they will have more than one, but it will always be the same amount and always voted by the same “people”).

They submit stories or websites that nobody from social media visits or votes for, and they don’t care. They are the social media SEO Spammers. If nobody clicks on their link, no worries. The only visit they care about is from Googlebots, and sadly (in some cases) Google will visit and take note of the website.

We wanted to make a video spoof on the “Leave Britney Alone” theme, but neither Chris Crocker nor Seth Green were available. Instead, we’ll just put together a nice little rant about why Reddit, Propeller, Newsvine, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Digg, and the others are not communities tolerant of spammers. More importantly, we’ll offer ways to combat the issue. Read on. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Mixx, Newsvine, Propeller, Reddit, Social Internet, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking Sites, Social News Sites, Stumbleupon Tagged With: Digg, Mixx, Newsvine, Propeller, Reddit, search engine optimization, seo, smm, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social News Sites, socialmedia, socialnews, Stumbleupon

Digg is from Mars, Reddit is from Uranus

Tuesday, December 4, 2007 By JD Rucker 32 Comments

(In other news, Front Page Addiction: Destroying Families, Ruining Lives)

There are many mini-wars being fought on the Internet. Facebook vs. MySpace. Google vs. Yahoo. Apple vs. Microsoft.

One of the most polarized mini-wars going on is Reddit vs. Digg. While the two differ so greatly in look, feel, style, and membership, they are generally going after the same crowd – those who want to read and share in media on the Internet. There are others out there – Propeller (formerly Netscape), Newsvine, newcomer Mixx – but in the end, Digg is the top dog and Reddit is #2.

Those who are dedicated to either Digg or Reddit sometimes find it hard to crossover between the two. If you look at the top members for both, you will not find any duplicates. MrBabyMan, Digg’s top guy, does not have a Reddit account (unless Andrew is using a different name, which is unlikely). QGYH2, Reddit’s top guy, does have an account on Digg that has had some success, but not to the extent to be considered a “top digger”. Down the lists, this trend continues. Top Diggers are not Top Redditers. Period.

In any polarized war there are differences. Here is a breakdown of the differences and an analysis of their impact on each website. [Read more...]