Lee Garnett from ncomment did it again. We knew that the first comic was absolutely amazing, but this Part 2 took it to another level.

Click the image for the full comic (but check out part I first if you haven’t already).

How awesome is that!

* * *

Read more about social news on this blog.

This is a guest post by Tamish

The recent action of Digg against a number of its “top users” is being questioned at the moment.  Recent stories point all the blame on Digg for the action however its a lot more twisted than it seems.

Though a number of Digg users had been fast-digging for a long time, the issue had hit digg just recently. Apparently it seems that there had been a cold war between top users. In order to remove some top users from the stack, some reported them up for different reasons.

After that became a long motion of more anti-digg stories.

As Digg is responsible for stopping misuse of the system, it is responsible for the bans. Any user that was banned just went straight head up against Digg.

The fact that most of the banned users didn’t accept their fault was that they thought Digg would take them back because of their popularity.

One reason why users submit multiple stories for frontpage is to increase their chances of reaching frontpage and have more fans. This would just make them more powerful.

Social Marketers know that. They are not interested in contributing good stories but Business. Once they are established on Digg, they get offers from various companies to submit and popularize their product through social sites.

A lot of the banned users moved on to other sites like Mixx claiming them to be better than Digg however I expect that sooner or later the same issue would be brought up in the mixx community just what happened at Digg.

* * *

This guest post reflects the opinions of the author, but with the recent rash of anti-Digg posts, having a different perspective is important.  Read more articles about Digg right here.

Recent changes at both Propeller and Mixx have pushed the inevitable forward.  Mixx, the brainchild of Chris McGill, has been poised for success for about a year now.  Propeller, the once-proud Netscape, was doomed the moment that AOL stepped into the picture.

If recent trends on Alexa (which we all know are not always accurate) give any indication about what is happening, then Mixx is making the move to become the 3rd choice amonst social media sites.  Propeller, on the other hand, is heading down, down, down as users have expressed concerns about a lack of communication from the administrators as well as a disastrous redesign that threatened to push its dwindling core of users off to another site (perhaps even Mixx).

Propeller has hope, but they will need to employ some fresh ideas from people outside of their normal realm.  The current leadership is heading (theoretically) in the right direction, but there needs to be an infusion of ideas for them to be able to keep pace or even exceed expectations in the growing world of social media.

* * *

Read more social media opinions on this blog.

Pound for pound, punch for punch, Mixx has been a true innovator in social media as it approaches it’s first full year of popularity in the segment.  Their recent launch of Mixx Communities is no exception — a true step in the right direction that most other social media sites have either ignored or just haven’t considered.

Below is the bulk of the coverage so far regarding the launch of the new feature, but something minor that was overlooked that had a negative effect on the launch was a miscalculation in the Karma aspect of the communities.  It seems to have been fixed now, but for the first couple of days, someone could accumulate thousands of Karma points by simply creating Mixx Communities and importing stories.

Since it is fixed, there is no way to see exactly what happened, but here is the theory.  Since submitting is one of the best ways to gain Karma on Mixx, the algorithm wasn’t prepared to handle the unintentional mass-submissions that creating a community allowed.  One step in the creation of a community was to place up to 10 tags that were part of the community.  As stories with these tags were imported, the community creator became the “submitter” of the story within the community and received a lot of Karma with hundreds of “submissions” happening at ones.

It is only a theory, and it seems to have been fixed, but we will continue to monitor it.  In the meantime, this should not be construed as anything negative towards Mixx or the launch of their Communities.  It was a minor mistake that has apparently been scaled back quite a bit — as I created communities last night, my Karma rose swiftly.  Tonight we created two, and… not so much in the way of Karma so far.  We’ll verify with another creation tomorrow.

Here are some of the stories that have already been published about the launch:

Mixx Gets Serious about Community Building – TechCrunch

Mixx Wants You to Build a Community – ReadWriteWeb

Mixx Communities – Teknobites

Mixx it Up with a Free Hosted Community – SocialTimes

Mixx Launches Mixx Communities – Orangeinks

Mixx Adds Communities which is like Groups on Steroids – SearchRank

Mixx it Up – New Communities Feature -  GeekEstateBlog

When the news wires started buzzing, burning, and smoking about Dennis Kucinich introducing 35 letters of impeachment against President George W. Bush, we started watching the three top social media sites to see who would get the news the quickest to their front page.

As of the time of this post, it was broken 3 hours, 33 minutes ago.  We started watching the front pages of Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Newsvine, and Mixx just over 3 hours ago.  Here are the results:

Propeller and Newsvine: Currently not on the front page.  This is disappointing, as one of the reasons to have Scouts and Anchors on Propeller is to quickly move breaking stories to the front page.  For Newsvine, which has a front page that is similarly edited and also feeds directly from many news sources, this is not a good omission.

Digg: 2 hours, 38 minutes.  The first three stories that broke the news were bypassed by this Rawstory piece.  The odd part came when the live C-Span coverage received quite a few more diggs (over 300 in 2 and a half hours) but was immediately “buried” from the upcoming section when the other story hit the front page.  Fishy.

Mixx and Reddit: Less than 30 minutes.  By the time we started checking the front pages, both Mixx and Reddit had it already on the front page.  Mixx had it in their innovated Breaking section and Reddit members had already pushed it to the front page naturally.

* * *

Read more about Social News Sites right here.

On an episode of The Drill Down 3 weeks ago, MrBabyMan, Zaibatsu, MSaleem, and about 50 people in the chat room of their Ustream broadcast discussed putting up a site where stories that didn’t make it to the front page of Digg could “find a resting place.”  After a quick brainstorming session, Lost Shovels was born.

While it hasn’t taken off yet as hoped with only 4 stories posted there currently, a variation of the idea was created at PopFAIL.  This one has much more activity currently (I am one of the contributors) and each submission is accompanied by an analysis of why it didn’t make it and why it should have made it to the front page of Digg.

Both LostShovels and PopFAIL exemplify what should be happening with social media.  While voting is currently king of what does and does not hit the front page of Digg and other social media sites, it brings to light a variation of a solution.  Keeping a site “purely” user driven is nice in concept, but as sites gain power and increase in users, the inevitable flood of poor content starts to creep onto the front page.  Trends take over.  Currently, politics is so heavily weighted on Digg that the former Tech News powerhouse often looks more like a dumping ground of political commentary.

New social media sites are popping up every day.  Some have promise.  Mixx is one in particular that demonstrates a stronger desire to and more malleable platform through which to make a “smarter” promotion system.  Propeller has been promising major changes for a while.  Reddit is Reddit, but even its homepage is starting to seem more quality-based of late.

Until somebody figures out a way to put the best of the best at the top and the rest at the bottom, PopFAIL and Lost Shovels are potentially viable options to see what “coulda, shoulda, woulda” been a popular submission on Digg.

* * *

Read more social media analysis on the homepage or visit some of the sites we recommend.

Every time I bring up Alexa, I get a ton of people who tell me how unreliable and worthless it is.  Let’s assume for the sake of this piece that I know this.  Let’s also assume that my budget for gathering data is zip and Alexa and Compete are the only real options.

With that out of the way, Alexa is showing major drops in reach for Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Mixx and other social bookmarking sites.  They are all happening around the same time.  Concerning?  Not at this point, since the data is all very young.  Worth monitoring?  Absolutely.

Digg

StumbleUpon

Reddit

Slashdot

Mixx

del.icio.us

Newsvine

Ma.gnolia

* * *

Propeller and Fark saw some drops, but not as pronounced as these.  Again, this is absolutely, positively nothing to worry about.  It’s been a slow news week.  There are things going on that are taking up people’s time that aren’t social media.  This drop won’t last long.  BUT, it’s interesting to see it happen like this.  Just FYI.

* * *

Social News must be watched.  Watch more.

The negative comments to this post are already coming.  I can feel it.  Why?  Because I am about to be completely ambiguous and talk theoretically, even though I have knowledge that the things I’m about to discuss are facts.

Ever since Digg, Slashdot, and the other early social news sites took hold of a new market on the internet, there have been clones and competitors popping up left and right.  The next “Digg Killer” has emerged and subsequently fallen almost every week for the last couple of years.  Newer networks have been proposed, many are getting worked on, and I know a lot about some, little about others.

All I can say is, a couple of them are so innovative, so promising, they just might make it.  Sadly, I can’t say much more than that at this stage.

Propeller has updates coming that are rumored to be able to give Digg a run for its money.  We’ve heard that before out of their camp, but reports from those who have seen the changes indicate that this may be the real deal.  Propeller has been on the edge of greatness since shortly after its inception.  The skeptics who believed that losing the type-in traffic from Netscape would spell doom for the social media site have been proven wrong.  Still, it hasn’t made the huge impact that it should have.  The changes coming up give it that last chance boost that it will take to finally “make it”.

Over the next 6 months, there will be several more new sites popping up.  What’s different now is the mindset of these new companies.  Before, everyone was making Digg Clones or innovations on the Digg theme.  The proposals I’ve seen for the newest batch of sites is different — they want to make sites that take the best parts of social media, turn them on their head, and present something that is unique.  Something new and different.

They all seem to be heading towards the goal of launching Web 3.0.

What makes now different from before?  The motivation now is to make something that is better.  More people are getting into the game, not because they want a piece of the pie, but because the pie the way it sits is getting old and stale.  People want something better, something fresh.  Social media users want something better.  In general, all of the social media sites have a stronger public outcry for a better site than ever before.  That is why the new players are primed to succeed where others who have tried to get in have failed.

Will they succeed?  Most of you don’t know because I can’t put out the details yet.  You have no reason to trust me when I say that a couple will most definitely work.  All I can say for sure that most will agree with is that sites like Digg, Reddit, and Mixx have strong points, but there are weak points that prevent them from being truly great.  The new sites, as they emerge, will be great.  Not all of them, of course, as I’ve seen some doozies of poorly-conceived ideas, but there are a few gems that will stand out from the crowd and pick up the traction they need to become real players.

Don’t hate me for being vague.  Just trust me when I say that the next big thing, the “Digg Killer,” is real and is not far in the future.  As soon as I can report more details, I will.  In the meantime, start throwing your rotten tomatoes at me for being an absolute tease.

* * *

Read more Social Media Articles, or visit our sister site at the Social News Blog or visit some of the sites we recommend.

Strange. It’s one of those things that pops up and you think, “was there really nothing like this before?”

That is what comes to mind when you look at the Social Media Social Network at Social News Central.  It is a simple Ning site, but it has started off very strong.  With 160 members joining since its recent creation and a member list that boasts “heavy hitters” from social media websites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Propeller, and Mixx, Social News Central promises growth and a world of potential.

The network itself has several features.  There is “open source blogging” in which members can post their own blog posts to the primary blog.  Images can be submitted as well.

Groups can be created and joined, with many of the social media sites already represented.  StumbleUpon has the highest current membership with 60 members as of this post.  If it involves social news, you can find it here.  If you can’t find it, you can start it.  That’s the real beauty of the network.

“Go there to vote, come here to hang out”.  That’s the tagline for the network, and in its simplicity it speaks volumes.  If you ever wanted to discuss ideas, talk with people who are involved with the same (or different) social media sites that you frequent, or if you just wanted to socialize with SM users from across the Web 2.0 spectrum, SNC is the place to go.

Read more about social media sites like this one at the homepage for Social News Blogs or visit some of the sites we recommend.

This won’t be a popular article.  It can’t be Dugg because it mentions Mixx and it can’t be Mixxed because it seems to lean towards being critical.  In hopes of my true feelings being expressed and understood, let me say that I love Digg and I love Mixx.  Both are the best at what they do.

What do they do?  Digg serves up the ultimate in news niblets for us to ingest at our leisure.  It grants incredible exposure to quality content and helps blogs, large and small, to pop up on someone’s screen who never would have visited otherwise.  This doesn’t even touch on the other recipients such as YouTube, Flickr, and traditional news sources online.

Mixx does the same thing, right?  Well, sort of.  Mixx does offer the same type of quality content.  It does grant exposure, but not on the same scale (or in the same ballpark) as Digg.  Still, its strength lies in the people and their attitudes.  For the most part, Mixx is a much more social and sociable platform that Digg or any of its clones.

Mixx is the fun side of Digg.

There are features unique to Mixx that give it a leg-up on the competition.  The lounge, badges, multiple categories, infinite tagging, and a point system for users are just some of the things that makes it different.  It has proven over the last month or so that it is not just a fad, not a passing “hip now, hopped tomorrow” type of social media website.  It is here to stay and will continue to grow.

So why are there so many stories about Digg?  There are several answers.  Many “Digg Refugees” and people who want more than what Digg can offer come to Mixx.  Digg is the big boy in the segment and in itself is in the news as much as it serves the news.  Then, there is the potential jealousy factor, but I think that time will make that fade.

There are tons of stories about Digg submitted every day.  At least 4 or 5 hit the popular page.  With the recent news, over 30 Digg stories have become popular in the last 3 days.  This is just simply too much.

Yes, I’m a hypocrite.  Not only do I vote for Digg stories, I submit them.  Chances are, based upon the topics of my blogs being based around social media, I will continue this.  I’m hypocrite.  I admit it.  That doesn’t mean it’s right.  Most smokers know they need to quit, just as I know I need to step back from stories about Digg.  It’s just tough.

After blowing any credibility I had with that last paragraph, let me get to the punchline.  Mixx is ready to stand on its own.  There is a passion for Mixx that doesn’t exist with Digg or Reddit, Propeller or Newsvine.  Few Diggers recruit contacts to join.  I personally have had several people tell me to join.  I am a member, but my name is different on Mixx than my standard name, but that’s another story.

Stop following Digg.  Be you own Mixx!

Visit some of the sites we recommend.