For social news powerhouses Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon to be so changed by the presence of gobs and gobs of spam hits a little harder. They are the sites where I started my journey in Web 2.0. They are the shiny beacons of user-controlled, traffic-generating goodness that made mainstream media look to the people for their opinions and discoveries.

They are, for all intents and purposes, shells of what they should be, and spam is to blame. Perhaps more importantly, how they handled spam over the years has caused them to close their networks in one way or another through a series of witchhuntesque spam countermeasures.

…and spam is to blame.

Digg Paranoia

Many people go out (in this case, we’ll call her Blogger Sue), create a wonderful site or blog, put their heart and souls into the content (some even pay for strong content) and prepare their servers for the onslaught of traffic inherent with a Digg front page story.

One try, two tries, ten tries later, nothing. They’re lucky if they get 100 total visitors combined to their 10 stories.

They look at the stats. According to Di66, 2203 of the 4011 stories to hit the front page in the last 30 days came from 100 websites. Out of hundreds of thousands of submissions per month, 100 website control 55% of the Digg front page.

Blogger Sue notices something. It’s not just the domains. It’s the users. The top 100 users this month have 2197 front page submissions, again over 50% despite millions of unique visitors per month. That’s the ticket! She makes friends with a couple of top users, asks them to submit, and again waits for the traffic onslaught.

Again, she is disappointed. After several failed attempts, her site has been flagged for what some call “autobury” or “spam protection” because the Digg algorithm watches for new sites getting too many Diggs and prevents them from hitting. In any given month, new sites will account for less than 1% of the total front page stories.

Digg has trust issues. It trusts certain users and certain sites. The rest are spammers pushing spam. While on one hand you can’t blame them, as Digg is often considered the crown jewel of a traffic-driving strategy (and therefore gets spammed to death) but on the other hand there really needs to be a way to make it more fair for both new users and new sites. We have ideas, and we’ve offered them, but thus far nobody at Digg has asked our opinion.

Reddit Elitism

Reddit is the most open of the social news sites in that great content can hit the front page regardless of the submitter. Well, almost regardless. As long as the submitter is either brand new or well “vetted” by an algorithm actively pursuing spam and as long as the domain hasn’t been banned within a subreddit or by the entire site, then Blogger Sue can create an account, submit a post, title it appropriately, and have a chance of doing well.

There are 3 problems with Reddit:

1. If you get banned in a subreddit or the site itself, you may never know. You can submit and submit and submit and nobody will ever be able to see your submission. This can be done by getting banned in enough subreddits or algorithmically based upon a series of criteria that few understand.
2. The Subreddits, while they were a great idea at first, have partitioned into “traffic or no traffic”. There are a handful of subreddits that gained popularity early on and have continued to gain in popularity simply because they’re popular. The others are worthless and there it’s almost impossible to get traction into a small subreddit.
3. The moderators. Too much power for the “trusted” few who have control over the strong subreddits. They can (and in many cases, have) banned users or domains based upon simply not liking someone or something. There are subreddits where respectable, completely non-spammy domains are blocked because they weren’t liked by an individual.

There are solutions at Reddit as well, but again, nobody seems to be looking for them. The offer, as always, is on the table.

StumbleUpon Contradictions

There are a dozen people in the universe who have figured out how to properly promote via StumbleUpon. For the rest, it’s hit or miss. Do we Stumble a lot or not? Subscribe a lot or not? Discover a lot or not? Should we share? Not share? Tweet? Su.pr?

Why did Blogger Sue stumble one decent story that got 30,000 unique visitors in a week, then stumble a great piece of content from the same domain that got 30 views?

StumbleUpon has been successful in driving traffic to quality sites, but has also been victim of filters that keep a TON of content out of the mix.  There are stories that are served up thousands of times before the algorithm realizes the content sucked, while other pieces of content that are gloriously powerful aren’t served to a single person regardless of who discovers it.

With StumbleUpon, I have no advice because I don’t understand it enough to offer any. Sorry guys.

What is the Future of Social News?

Digg.

Reddit.

StumbleUpon.

They are the present and will likely be the future as well. Still, there are things on the horizon that have potential. Tying in conversation within other networks is an option. Judging quality through batches of moderators vetting content is another. Someone will come up with a solution, then thousands will figure out ways to game and spam it.

That’s the nature of the beast, which is why I still love these sites, regardless of whether they’re dead or not.

… and spam is to blame.

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Read more about social news on this blog.

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.

Another thing I noticed was the quality and targeting on the ads.  There has to be a reason why the estimates (well over $100,000,000 through 3 years) of the Microsoft ad deal were so far above the reality (less than $10,000,000 per year).  After looking at the ads, there were more problems than just my audible ad not working.

As you can see by the ads to the left, there are concerns.  In one, you appeal to the male demographic with a pretty girl and cleavage offering images of local singles.  I would venture a guess that these ads are among the most clicked.  Still, with social media being populated by people on the “cutting edge” of Internet technology, one would think that paying for images of local singles was, well, below the curve for Diggers.

The other image points to a diet plan. It is Maria’s diet, to be specific.  While there are, I’m sure, men for whom this would appeal (I could use a few dozen pounds off after Christmas), it is clearly targeted towards women. Women are becoming a stronger force on Digg, but it’s still probably around 20% of the total demographic.

Was this all part of the original plan?  When Digg signed a 3-year plan (which is extremely long for any advertising platform, even one with a name like Microsoft) were they aware that the ads would be either off-target or lacking of the most remote chances for a paid conversion?

Here are some others that don’t really need an explanation.  Take a peek and ask, “Are these targeting me?”

These aren’t terrible.  It could be worse.  Actually, it is worse.  Look below at a pair of ads that are clearly not designed with Digg users in mind.  First, you see the Hyundai ad.  Digg users are pretty good at noticing mistakes in images.  It comes with the territory.  For some reason, the Hyundai ad wasn’t sized right and cuts off.  That mistake is nothing compared to having a Comcast ad on the page.  This is Digg.  The community is one of the most outspoken about Comcast.  The conversion rates are most likely next to nothing for this ad.

For those of us who are in the market to build new social media sites, it hurts us when the numbers at one of the top social media sites is so dismal.  Hopefully, potential investors will see that it’s not that these sites can’t make money.  For some reason, they simply choose not to.  With that said, here’s one last image to leave you with:

Read more about social news sites at Social News Watch.

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:

• 2009 will be the year of the social hybrid because people are tired of going to Twitter, then Digg, then Facebook, then Yahoo, then everywhere else they go.  Put it all together into one nice website, please.
• 2009 will be the year of online television because the networks are starting to figure out that people spend a lot of time in front of the new boob tube.
• 2009 will be the year of organic diets because organic food prices will drop as distribution becomes easier.
• 2009 will be the year of Twitter journalists because you can say enough in 140 characters or less and get it out to the masses instantly.
• 2009 will be the year of family gaming because parents won’t be able to interact with their children any other way, giving them an excuse to join clans and build monsters.
• 2009 will be the year of computer-talk because text-speak and internet-speak will become so commonplace that you’ll have to learn it to truly be part of web communities.
• 2009 will be the year of solitude because America will be the only true remaining ally to Israel and the balance of power will shift.
• 2009 will be the year of 100,000,000 YouTube views because the magic number that has only been achieved twice (technically 3 times, but one cheated) will be hit by at least 50 videos, many of which will be brand new in 2009.

Wow, it’s fun to speculate.  Help out.  Who cares if you’re right or wrong?  If you’re right, you can point back to this post next year.  If you’re wrong, you can forget you ever participated.

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Read more about social media websites on this blog.

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.

For most of the emerging countries, the closest they get to Web 2.0 is a blog.  Romanian Prime Minister, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, is the first to go further and use these platforms as a political marketing tool. It’s a small step for politics, but a big step for the social media landscape in the growing country of Romania. Twitter is no longer connecting only marketers.  It’s growing to such an extent that it now encompasses various social categories in several countries.

Read more about social media and politics on this blog.

Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Slashdot, Newsvine, NowPublic, Yahoo! Buzz.  Between these seven sites, traffic to a particular website can easily exceed 100,000, potentially much higher.

With so much power to drive people to various websites across the Internet, why are none of them greatly involved with charity?  I’m not talking about donating – I’m sure that the companies or their executives donate.  I’m talking about making a difference.  I’m talking about using their power to drive traffic and applying it to charity websites.

The reason that they don’t is that they (other than Slashdot) are strictly driven by the actions, likes, and intentions of the users.  You could argue that there is a human hand or two manipulating the system from time to time, but that’s an entirely different post.

Would it be wrong or unjustified to use the server-busting power of their front pages for an occasional bit of  philanthropy?  It wouldn’t be hard to do at all.  There would be those who would cry out “don’t preach to me” or “keep your humanity to yourself” but for the most part, I believe the communities would embrace it.  Who knows – they might just learn something from time to time that has more substance than lolcats and bacon.

Digg could very easily create a category for charity.  They could hire a handful of people to moderate the category more closely than others to keep the spam to a minimum.  The threshold could be lowered a bit (if necessary, though it probably wouldn’t be) to get a story or two a day on the front page.

As with all categories, if a user doesn’t want “charity shoved down their throat” they can always turn the category off completely.

Reddit could adopt a different type of charitable technique.  By making a charity subreddit that was featured as one of the  primary selections on the front page and making it a default, the subreddit would grow quickly.  No need for moderators – the community self-moderates well.

Even better, they can integrate their technology into a new site dedicated to charity, activism, and philanthropy.

Slashdot is clearly more tech-niche-oriented, but their control of the front page is a perfect way to make sure that tech-related stories involving charities (there are plenty) received attention from time to time.

Newsvine and NowPublic have strong communities that really pays more attention to original stories written on the websites by the users than most of the links posted there.  It would take the users themselves, especially the “powerful” ones, to take more of a stand and write about charities (then link to them, of course).  Still, the sites can help promote it through special sections dedicated strictly to charity and posted on the front page.

Yahoo! Buzz – still a tough one to understand from a traffic perspective, but potentially the most powerful of them all.  As with Slashdot, the super-popular stories are hand-picked, so squeezing in a story or two every now and then for the sake of righteousness would be a piece of cake.

StumbleUpon already has a way to implement charity into their system.  They have an advertising platform that allows people to buy Stumbles for a nickel.  Why not open that up and allow some charities to join in?  They could easily send a conservative 500-1000 people a day to a page with a 5 cent discount given to charities.  My math is spotty at best, but I believe that comes to a total cost of none, both for the charity and for StumbleUpon.  If it does well, the charities can always purchase more than their low daily quota.

Regardless of what they do, it is important and practical that they do something.  Times are tough for many.  Charitable giving is naturally down as a result.  With the power that they wield, it just makes sense that they should use just a small bit of that power to help make the world better.

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For more social media opinions, visit Social News Watch often.

Tip’d is the exception.  After its official launch last week, it has already made some amazing strides as of October 20, 2008:

• 750+ registered users
• 1000+ articles submitted
• Approaching 10,000 Tips received
• 600+ comments made

The real splash, though, is in the quality of users.  Social media powerhouses like zaibatsu, tamar, jaybol, Emit, nowsourcing, weblaunches, webaddict, 1only, coloneltribune, ritubpant, TunisianGuy, and  adrian67 have been active on the site.  Many of them came because of the endorsement of another social media powerhouse, msaleem.

With that kind of backing, there is very little doubt that this broad-niche social media site has positioned itself well for success.  Their niche?  Finance.  Could there possibly be a better time for a news site about the economy?  Here is what they have to say about themselves:

Tip’d got started because two businessmen, Andy and Jimmy, enjoyed discussing investing news with each other. They wondered: why wasn’t there a better casual, friendly, online place to share and discuss current financial ideas and news?

So they started their own community to do just that. Tip’d is a place for investors — both amateur and professional — to meet, share, discuss, comment, and vote on what’s happening on both Wall Street and Main Street.

Social News Watch will definitely be watching.  Our prediction: social media is a bull market and Tip’d is well positioned to go up in value.

Social media websites like Digg, Reddit, and Propeller offer the same product in the form of headlines.  We get to nibble on the news, taking it in bits and pieces, served to us through headlines that are often sensationalized or pointed.  While some people take the nibble and move on the main course by reading the full story, a good portion of us live on the appetizers.  We read the headlines, possibly read the descriptions, occasionally scan the story (or even just the first few paragraphs), then it’s back to the social media site for the next bite of news via headlines.

Some never make it past the headlines, establishing a reaction or opinion based on the nibblet.  This is good.  This is also bad.

The advantage is that we get to see what the masses say is good.  With traditional media websites, the news is served based upon what a handful of people feel is the news.  Social media brings news (and pics, and videos, and…) to the front based upon what hundreds and thousands of people feel is worthy.  It is “screened” for us by two things: the social media algorithm and the votes of the users.

Most of the time, this is a huge benefit.  We can nibble on photos that make it to the homepage because they are truly good.  We get to watch videos that have been pre-screened for us and voted up (hopefully based upon merit) so that, in theory, we only have to spend time on the best of the best.

Then there is news.  Most of what makes it to the front page of the major social media websites is there because it passed across the eyes of the masses and was deemed worthy.  Some slip through because of the headlines.  Others are artificially bumped up through networks.  No matter how it gets there, when it does, thousands will see it.  For some, their opinions will be changed (or confirmed) based upon the nibble that may or may not be factual.

Which brings us to the bad part.  Rather than preach, I’ll let the examples speak for themselves.  Two were taken from the headlines currently.  One was so overtly bad, I had to digg back a few months to find it.

Examples:

From Propeller front page, 11-30-07

Does the Pop Princess Have a Plastic Surgery Addiction? (picture of Britney Spears next to it)

If you read the article, there are many references to online sources.  One is mentioned b name, though not linked to.  The article is 3 short paragraphs with nothing confirmed, including assertions by nameless doctors about rumors.  Being a headline on the front page of Propeller, how many people now believe (and are perhaps telling friends) that Britney Spears is addicted to plastic surgery?

* * *

From Reddit front page, 11-30-07

Not only did Rudy Giuliani charge New York City for his affairs in the Hamptons, he charged taxpayers for his failed Senate campaign travel as well! As any New Yorker would say, what a schmuck! (Yes, that’s the headline.  Not the description, the headline)

Is it true?  The article itself is a somewhat compelling bit of investigative internet reporting.  While the slant of the post is clearly anti-Giuliani, the evidence appears to show that the story is possibly true.  The niblet, the headline on Reddit itself, gives you everything you need to know, even offering an insight into what New Yorkers think about it all.  The problem is that, based upon the story itself, it isn’t as “factual” as the headline would have us believe.

* * *

From Digg front page, 8-11-07

Obama – “if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong.”

WOW.  Obama said that?

Yes he did. The problem is, it was taken out of context, and because we sometimes make judgments based upon our niblets, some may not have read the full quote:

 ”It’s not my track record. It’s not that I can’t give a pretty good speech; from what I’ve heard I can preach once in a while,” he told the audience. “What it really does lay bare, I think, in part: We’re still locked into the notion that somehow if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong.”

Totally misleading headline.  Sadly, as something that hit the Digg homepage, thousands of people read the headline and formed their opinion based upon it.

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Social media gives us, the news nibblers, an opportunity to fit tons of media into our busy lives.  We can get a laugh with outrageous photos, entertaining videos, and important articles.  Because of social media’s nature, thousands of people get to participate with the news.  We are a part of it, helping to bring it to light by submitting and voting, as well as helping to remove it from view through sinks, buries, and down-mods.

The participatory nature of social media is its best quality. It’s also its most dangerous drawback.  Those who live on the niblets, be wary.

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Read more on this social media blog.

In retrospect, this experiment was flawed.  The subject matter and style of delivery was very clearly geared in favor of one of the combatants.  When it was initially conceived, it was decided that the experiment would best be delivered through a post that announced itself.  By checking traffic statistics on a post titled: “The StumbleUpon Digg Experiment”, there would be equal billing, equal exposure, and most importantly, equal chances through the delivery methods to give both sides a chance.

We were wrong.

In retrospect, it is clear that the title and subject were more geared towards a social experience.  While Digg offers ways to share stories with friends, it isn’t nearly as suited for this as StumbleUpon is.  The very nature of SU is designed to where members passively share stories they like by stumbling and reviewing them.  Digg requires active participation by people to see the story.  Stumble requires nothing other than clicking and waiting for websites to be served to them.

The Digg traffic of lore says that websites will get tens of thousands of visits in a short period of time.  The problem is, not all stories get this kind of traffic when they hit the front page.  Because they have to be actively clicked on, people have to have an interest to click.  This story, while more popular than past stories that have hit the front page of Digg from this blog, still didn’t have the universal appeal to get a ton of traffic.

Stumblers are, by their nature, more interested in stories about SU than Digg users are interested in stories about Digg.  This and other factors make this experiment somewhat flawed.  Thus, the results were tremendously in favor of StumbleUpon.

Detailed statistics are being compiled.  We are breaking it down hour by hour, noting traffic spikes and comparing them to specific times of reviews on SU.  The data so far is interesting, but for those interested in the general results, here they are:

Story posted early in the morning, PST, December 14th.  It was Dugg shortly after being posted by ThinkingSerious. Then, it was Stumbled by hockeyguru around 7:00 am PST.

December 14th, 2007:

• Traffic from StumbleUpon: 15,694
• Traffic from Digg: 8,463

Surprised?  So was I.  Traditional thought is that Digg wins the short race and SU catches up over time.  Again, the subject matter/headline were geared to get Diggs, but not actual visits.  Another thing to note as that this story made it to the “Top in All Categories” box on the front page.  Less than a minute later, it was buried off that page after getting 24 hits.  Stories that do can get a huge bump in traffic for that day.  Some stories whose statistics I have seen have gotten twice as much traffic or more from being there than they did when they were initially on the front page.

December 15th, 2007

• Traffic from StumbleUpon: 4,761
• Traffic from Digg: 2,357

This is actually a very encouraging number from Digg.  Considering most of the traffic came from people when the story had to be found on deep inner pages, this is a huge number relative to the original day’s response.  Stumble traffic, if anything, was a little disappointing, as some stories get 80% of their initial day traffic on day two.  Despite the positive reviews still rolling in on day two, the percentage compared to the first day was low.

December 16th, 2007

• Traffic from StumbleUpon: 3,689
• Traffic from Digg: 349

There is the drop that happens with Digg.  There is also the famed residual traffic from Stumble.

Again, let me be clear.  This story was unintentionally geared to for SU.  The results are not a real representation, as stories that aren’t about Social Media will still have the normal results of Digg wins the first day and SU may or may not catch up over time.  The subject matter appealed to SU’s manner of delivery.  One digg is one digg and helps very little.  One stumble and especially a positive review by the right person can generate a chain reaction, a viral effect that can snowball into more and more stumbles.

Thank you to all who participated by reading, sharing, stumbling, and digging this story.  We want more data.  If you have statistics from posts other than social media themed ones, please contact us.  We want to explore, analyze, and share the data.

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Read more social news stories on this blog.

The Godfather showed us a world of beauty and corruption.  Alliances were made and broken.  Those who were good to the family were rewarded, while anyone who stepped in the way was hit.

Social media works in much the same way.  It can be beautiful, offering the best of the web compiled into loosely organized areas where masses of people can flood a worthy website and enjoy its offerings.  It can be corrupt, as spammers use the power of social media to drive traffic to unworthy websites.

Websites can form alliances with social media partners, whether it’s a collaboration between The Wall Street Journal and Digg, Wired and Reddit, or even something as simple as placing buttons on stories to drive traffic to and from the social media platforms.

If a website is good to the family, they are rewarded.  Rawstory.com receives a huge portion of their traffic from social media.  Then again, if you wrong the family and its members, your website can get banned.

To make it as a social media website,you somehow have to fit into the family. Here’s how the breakdown of the family looks today…

Reddit as Sonny Corleone:
For a while reddit has been considered the “hothead” of the social media family. Just like Santino “Sonny” Corleone, Reddit is simple to understand but almost impossible to comprehend. The top headlines on any particular day can include ranting, raving, cursing, and insults as exemplified by the judgemental, down-modding mentality.

Successful submissions on Reddit require a firm yet respectful voice, especially with the title. Just as Sonny would back hand any man for speaking out of turn, so too will reddit users doom a story to oblivion if it isn’t titled properly.

The best part about Reddit/Sonny is straightforward simplicity.  Within 5 minutes of meeting Sonny or joining Reddit, anyone can get a feel for how they work.  Submitting to reddit is easy: URL, Title, and a choice of 8 categories.  Requires very little thought and even less effort.

Propeller as Fredo Corleone:
When Netscape first decided to be a Digg clone of sorts, they assumed that their name and age would be enough to help them ascend to full Godfather status. Frido was Michael’s older brother but still had to answer to his power, just as Propeller (Netscape) is trying to catch up in stature to the three-year-old Digg.

In many ways Propeller has features that are superior to the other major social media websites. They are good to their people, catering and supportive. If you have a story make it to the front page there are different things that give Propeller the “human touch” factor that its competitors do not have. They’ll manually select and attach relevant pictures to your story. They’re anchors feature five hand-picked submissions at a time in their recommended section at the top of the homepage, and they make it super simple to vote for your friends’ stories.

Still, Propeller is not the Godfather.  The website works exceptionally well for a large chunk of the social media crowd, but it would be difficult to see them make it to full Godfather status.

Digg as Michael Corleone:
With more direct traffic than the other social media websites combined, Digg is the current Godfather.  Choices made by Digg and by the masses of its members can make or break a story or a website.  When Michael spoke, people got buried.  When Digg speaks, servers can be shut down.

The media focus is always on Digg, just as with Michael.  Its popularity has been a tremendous driving force in the growth of social media as a whole.  If you ask Kevin Rose what he thought, would he say something like, “Every time I think I’m out they pull me back in.”?

Newsvine as Tom Hagen:
One look at Robert Duvall’s character in The Godfather and you knew he wasn’t quite a Corleone.  One look at Newsvine, and you can tell that something is different.  A social news website that caters to the handful of people who don’t have SM-ADHD, Newsvine is more appealing to those who have the time and want to spend it.

Still, it doesn’t quite fit in.  It’s pretty, for one thing, with lots of pictures and a design completely different from the rank-and-file style of the other SM sites.  Like Tom Hagen, Newsvine is the quiet voice of reason.  Like Tom Hagen, Newsvine doesn’t want to be in control, shoved into the spotlight that comes with being a Corleone.  Newsvine is the “Consigliare” of Social Media.

StumbleUpon as ________:
This was a tough one.  Is Stumble the Vito Corleone of social media?  You tell me.

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Check out our other informative articles about social news.

A little-known but dangerous epidemic is spreading across members of social media websites like Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Newsvine, and Mixx.  Like a secret scourge, SM-FPA (social media front page addiction) isn’t making national headines yet, but the effects have been felt in thousands of households across the world.

“Ever since my wife’s submission hit the front page of Reddit last month, we only see her on the way to the bathroom,” said Jake Dixon.  His wife Amber, better known as “diggwho”, made the front page of Reddit with a story titled Bush makes more people mad by saying something stupid.  Since then, Amber has been submitting 15-25 stories per day and has a submission hit the front page 3-5 times per week.  She declined to be interviewed.

Research scientists at the Social Media Institute of Technology (SMIT) in Kolkata, India, say that Mr. Dixon and his family are not alone.  They have documented 342 confirmed cases of SM-FPA in 2007 and estimate the actual number in the thousands.

Chief socialmediatologist Tapan Patel says dozens of treatment techniques have failed.  “Because each social media site has different ways for submissions to become hot or popular, it has been extremely difficult to isolate a cure.  We’ve used drugs, had accounts banned, and even tried a new technique called Taser Therapy where we have members of law enforcement perform electro-shock treatments.

“It’s almost like a virus that mutates.  Just when people think they’ve figured out how to make the front page, the social media website algorithms change, prompting an increase in SM activity.”

For Kim Kiyotu, her family’s problems are doubled.  “My husband has been a front page addict on Digg for over a year now.  It was manageable, but when he discovered Mixx last month, he was soon fired from his job for excessive absences.”

After being kicked out of his house two weeks ago, June Kiyotu, “asianassassin69″ on Digg and Mixx, spends most of his waking hours at the public libraries in his area that offer free internet access.  “I know it’s a problem, but you can’t understand how FPing (front paging) a story makes me feel.  Nobody can.”

Rick Shaw, Director of PopUrHere, a half-way house for recovering FP addicts, says the solution is in recognizing the problem.  “We reach out to everyone we find who shows signs of SM-FPA.  If they are submitting dozens of stories at different hours of the day and night, we know we’ve found someone who needs our help.”

He continued, noting that the problem is not just with the addicts themselves.  “It doesn’t help that some of the most active Diggers, Propellers, Redditers and Mixxers have fans that vote for all of their stories.  If you are one of those who damages these poor souls by hitting their submissions, stop.  Stop right now.  The damage you’re doing is heinous and obscene.”

SM-FPA and other Socially Transmitted Diseases have caught the attention of Washington.  “We’re actively pursuing the problem of STDs,” said Janine Rodgriguez-Callahan, the spokesperson for the recently-formed Department of Homepage Security.  “Plagues such as stumblitis, tweeteria, and youtuberculosis must be stopped.  We are weighing all of our options.  The US will start with sanctions, but if the President feels it isn’t enough, airstikes on the headquarters of each social media war criminal are not out of the question.”

There is opposition.  Some groups have been vocal in their support of peoples’ right to participate in social media at whatever level they choose.  The National Society of Frontpage Warriors (NSFW) has issued a response to the recent backlash against SM-FPAs.

We at NSFW feel strongly that every individual on the planet has the unalienable right to Digg or Stumble as much as they want.  We need the leaders of the world to understand that there is good that comes out of making the front page.  To this end, we support Ron Paul as the next President of the United States.

The organization is making waves through their lobbyists because of a constant flow of financial support given to the group by corporations that include Apple, Firefox, the Wall Street Journal, Pirate Bay, and several search engine optimization firms.  None of the companies’ could be reached for comment.

If you or anyone you know suffers from SM-FPA, call the STD hotline at 888-DIGGTHIS.
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Related Links:

• Problems at Digg with the Algorithm
• Reddit’s New SubReddit System
• StumbleUpon vs. Digg

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