Social Internet | Social News Watch

The Simple Truth About Digg’s Lack of Profits

Sunday, January 4, 2009 by JD Rucker 18 Comments

It was hard. For as long as I can remember, I have not been one who clicks on banner ads. Heck, in most cases, I don’t even see them (thank you FF).

A friend of mine who is an avid reader turned me onto Audible.com to download audio books. With recent articles in BusinessWeek and TechCrunch about the financial woe’s they’re having at Digg, I remembered seeing an Audible ad on Digg and thought, why not?

I’m going to be signing up for the service anyway. Why not throw a bone to the site that consumes a ton of my time?

The results weren’t good:

These things happen. I sent an email to Digg pointing out the issue and waited. It is now 4 days later. I surfed Digg, doing my thing, checking every time I went to a new page to see if my target ad had found me. It eventually did, but still, it didn’t work. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Social Internet, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social News Sites Tagged With: Digg, Social Media, social media advertising, social media revenue, Social News Sites

Complete this Sentence in 140 Characters or Less: “2009 will be the year of _ because _.”

Thursday, January 1, 2009 by JD Rucker 14 Comments

In so many ways, 2008 was a predictable year. When the year began, the economy was heading in the wrong direction, while Twitter was being born into “wow, this is way cool.” The Republican Party was one political faux pas after another, while smart phones were going from luxury to necessity with each new glorious app and feature.

Google was at its peak with no place to go but down. The automotive industry was already feeling like a step-child before they became an orphan. The Dark Knight was phenomenal while Speed Racer was phenomenally bad.

None of these things were surprises, but there were a few unexpected happenings. Gas peaked (for now) and bottomed out just in time for holiday travel. The Detroit Lions were worse than anyone thought a team in 2008 could be. John McCain fought back from obscurity within his own party to win the nomination, then threw us a VP curveball that flew over the catcher, over the ump, and on towards the talkshow circuit.

2009 seems to be starting with quite a bit more uncertainty. How will it end up? Nobody knows, of course, but at least we can speculate. I would like comments, please, with your predictions of what 2009 will be. Here are a few to get it started: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Internet, Social Media, Social News Sites, twitter Tagged With: 2009, predictions, the year of

1000, 2000, 3000 Milestones Hit on Digg

Wednesday, December 3, 2008 by JD Rucker 3 Comments

For many, getting a story on the front page of Digg is a nice accomplishment. Some people submit dozens, even hundreds of stories over the months and years and never make it. Others find modest success — 15 front page stories puts users in the top 1000 ranks on the site that gets over 20 million unique visitors a month.

For a pair of active diggers, the day they hit the top 1000 list is way behind them. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Social Internet Tagged With: Digg, mklopez, mrbabyman, msaleem

In Social Media What Do YOU Want Next?

Monday, November 24, 2008 by JD Rucker 8 Comments

Most of the top social media sites have been busy in the last few months making adjustments and (arguable) improvements to their algorithms, site designs, and features. It seems that there is a new race to offer their users incentive to stay, be active, and (hopefully) grow.

Most traffic indicators are showing that many social media sites are slowing down a bit after a peak during the heat of the election. This can be expected as there were users who joined and became active simply to promote their candidate’s campaigns, but the trends are still a little disconcerting. Mixx.com is the only one of the “big 10″ social media sites that seems to consistently be on the rise. This can be attributed to smart marketing and a fluid interface that, while far from perfect, seems to be coming out with new features to keep its active users happy and new users interested. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Internet Tagged With: social hybrid, Social Media, web 2.0, web 3.0

European Politics 2.0: Romanian PM hits Twitter, Facebook

Thursday, October 30, 2008 by JD Rucker 4 Comments

This is a guest post courtesy of maxyRO

In America, we’re in the midst of the elections. It’s a time where the political landscape is changing and everyone is trying to grab a slice of the pie. We, as social media users, have paid a good share of attention to the US elections, sometimes unwillingly.

It goes without saying that social media is a big part of the online campaigns that are helping candidates reach out to its younger audience. But it’s not just the US candidates that have taken up social media and started using it as a political tool.

Countries overseas are also getting into the social media landscape. Romania has the first Prime Minister in the European Union to get both a twitter and a facebook account along with the launch of his new website. [Read more...]