I was about to criticize the article on pandering to the digg audience based on the headline but upon reading it - I realize it's more about the marketing aspect and indeed I would say that is truly a clever idea on Digg's part.
I would extend to say that this is basically the first case of a Social Site using Viral Marketting to gain traction. Usually we hear of the inverse, a site using social sites to gain viral status - but here we have digg appending themselves on links meaning that tons of users (non digg users) will visit through those short digg urls and all the while have a digg ad above in the header. The genius of this idea is not fully apparent, until you realize that when people link to these sites - they're most likely going to link to the digg url, and not the actual url itself due mostly to Digg using some slippery javascript to append the short url when a user clicks a link. of course being standards compliant they added the ability to just visit the url straight on if javascript was disabled or a special cookie set to ignore the diggbar.
Great for Digg, bad for sites being marketed as the visitors will have a selection of two urls to link from - 1) the digg story page, 2) the digg short url bar and 3) the actual url itself.
I wonder if the diggbar page will start showing up in google results, or whether digg will add a nofollow or noindex to the diggbar pages. If they don't it could mean that the diggbar starts out-ranking the actual content.
I agree that the new Digg toolbar is much more creative than I initially thought it was going to be. And the URL-shortener is going to be pretty handy for all those Twittering Digg addicts. Who woulda thought that URL-shorteners were going to be the big thing this year?
traeblain
· 8 months ago
I have to agree that this is big. I will want to use the Digg url-shortner because--like you say--you'll get both the benefits of Twitter and Digg in the same piece.
Also what is nice is that Digg remembers the shortened url for the site you post. One complaint I have with most url shortners, there is often more than 1 small url for the same link. I would rather have my shortened link be the same if someone else has shortened it already...DiggBar does this (as least my simple testing shows this). With bit.ly having analytics this is difficult, but I wouldn't mind seeing complete analytics if I wasn't the first to share.
I like this move very much...
Brett Borders
· 8 months ago
Nice writeup. I think the DiggBar is a genius move on Digg's part. I think the site would be in big trouble without it, and start to decline.
I noticed that they definitely intend to monetize the platform, as after you use the random button enough you will run into "Sponsored" URLs - here's a placeholder:
This is really a brilliant move on Digg's part. Once they get a nice foothold on the micro-blogging services they can use the data (re-tweet count, etc) to factor in to the order of the stories and determine which ones will show up on the home page, how long they stay there, etc. Very cool!
Jimmy
· 8 months ago
I always though that framing a page goes against copyright laws?
Facebook User
· 8 months ago
A problem with the iframe shortener though is that many people will use the digg url when they blog about a page (out of lazyness / not understanding how / wanting to close the toolbar) that links will get credited to digg in terms of seo. well, in case anyone still blogs and not microblogs on twitter :)
@jimmy not really a copyright issue if you understand whats going on, cause you don't touch the content or profit from it. else Firefox would get into trouble for showing all the copyrighted material in their browser :)
eric
· 8 months ago
what about when they start showing ads?
swag
· 8 months ago
Still have no interest in installing it. Meaning: I'd short Digg shares only if I could.
Jimmy
· 8 months ago
I think at the very least it’s a gray area. Even if they do not directly put ads on the bar, it indirectly promotes their site, and drive traffic to digg. Granted digg probably has enough weight that it probably won’t be an issue.
Jan
· 8 months ago
@Jimmy i don't even see a shade of grey here 1)the site profits more from digg with traffic than digg profits from the site. digg sends the traffic. 2)the ads they use are not connected to the site. they seem to appear when the user pushes the next button on every x times 3)they do not scrape or safe and index the content from your site. iframe often gets put in the same corner (although not seen as bad) as scraper. yet the iframe does not index your content or take any profit from it. they profit by establishing a channel to drive traffic to your site. thats almost the same when i place an chorlink to your site 4) they do not use your site to generate traffic. they have the traffic and the brand and just channel the traffic to you.
actually googles search index is much worse when you check all the points that i made.
flabbybuns
· 8 months ago
There is no profit. When shown amongst a frame (with Digg domain in address bar) advertisements don't pay. It's how ad groups prevent fraud.
Frederick Townes
· 8 months ago
Definitely worth a try.
Mat Wiemann
· 8 months ago
The New York Times seems to disagree with it being a good idea. They blocked the digg bar as you can see here. http://digg.com/d1nnyF
Muhammad Saleem
· 8 months ago
I don't think they've blocked it, I think their own bar is conflicting with the DiggBar. I could be wrong though (it did appear for me briefly).
eric
· 8 months ago
Yes. They Blocked it. By adding a simple line of javascript inbetween their head tags which busts out any iframes loading their page.
Sean Duffy
· 8 months ago
The Digg bar is available via my toolbar.. if you are not sure how to install the Digg bookmarklet, my toolbar is the way forward - please take a look at my blog entry here: http://streaminginternetradiotoolbar.blogspot.c...
Kevin Butler
· 8 months ago
I am new to Digg and so I don't know what it's like not having the digg toolbar but when I first visited I almost envisioned that it would have something like this so I'm pretty happy that they do have it.
rickt
· 8 months ago
Two words: CORPORATE SHILL.
WendyMerritt
· 8 months ago
This makes Digg a little more user friendly and convenient. I guess I'll give it a try. Thanks for the great article and the video.
Blessings, Wendy
chris o.
· 8 months ago
I don't really see how you can say Digg is somehow copying others by implementing a toolbar?
There really are only a handful of popular mediums to deliver content.
The Digg bar, while useful, is really more a traffic retention tool than anything else. I've seen these bars popping up on myriad URL shortening services. You know the ads on that bar aren't far behind.
On the positive side, it's easy enough to use javascript to break the frame.
the_director
· 8 months ago
It seems like pages take longer to load with this Digg bar. First day, I'll get used to it.
JOhn Davis
· 8 months ago
I think this new "digg Bar" are whatever it is is a real pain in the rear! I hate toolbars in general.
My favorite feature is the 't' button that shows you a picture of a whale!
TI
· 8 months ago
Digg’s core business is aggregating shared links and facilitating conversations between liberals, socialists and Marxists around those links along with some light social networking. Digg remains the hub for antisocial website aggregation.
The Digg Bar is a pain in the ass. It causes web pages to load slowly. Beyond that Digg will be sued for copyright infringement for adding the bar to every site that loads beneath it and for preventing the accurate reporting of URLs. Do you think that a corporation that pays to maintain a domain wants the socialists at Digg to hide the accurate reporting of their URL?
Tell the bisexual alchoholic Kevin Rose to go back to the drawing board.
flabbybuns
· 8 months ago
Two problems with the toolbar:
1. No revenue for popular site. If your page goes popular on Digg now, all the traffic will be sent through a frame. MOST to all ad networks do not pay out for pages that don't have your exact domain in the address bar. So you, as the popular site, are paying for bandwidth, and hosting, to have Digg show off your content. So, in short, a popular article does great branding, but represents a loss of income in short run.
2. Just another way for Digg to exaggerate their stats and lie to investors. With the user still contained within the frame, Digg can claim a lower bounce rate, longer visit time, and more pages opened (guarantee they are counting that frame as a page opened).
It is a cool idea, but definitely has some seriously negative catches.
pc
· 8 months ago
no its more spam/pop ups done with digg it was nice years ago but digg is now just another 4 letter word for spam
noyb
· 8 months ago
You mean the one that is already adblocked?
Alexandre Fugita
· 8 months ago
I think it make (a little) dificult to people like me that likes post links on delicious. I have to "unwrap" the post to hit delicious FF button.
Big Robby
· 8 months ago
I've never been a fan of Digg's politics, and fear that any large investment in time using their site to promote links, no matter how good the content. I don't think this changes that.
jeff
· 8 months ago
GTFO! It's a thinly veiled attempt to monopolize web content. Slow and intrusive and completely disrupts one's browser history.
It causes web pages to load slowly. Beyond that Digg will be sued for copyright infringement for adding the bar to every site that loads beneath it and for preventing the accurate reporting of URLs. Do you think that a corporation that pays to maintain a domain wants the socialists at Digg to hide the accurate reporting of their URL?
jenn
· 2 months ago
I still think removing the shout will be have everlasting effects to the growth of Digg. No matter what fancy device comes out unless one can communicate through Digg to each other
All Comments
I would extend to say that this is basically the first case of a Social Site using Viral Marketting to gain traction. Usually we hear of the inverse, a site using social sites to gain viral status - but here we have digg appending themselves on links meaning that tons of users (non digg users) will visit through those short digg urls and all the while have a digg ad above in the header. The genius of this idea is not fully apparent, until you realize that when people link to these sites - they're most likely going to link to the digg url, and not the actual url itself due mostly to Digg using some slippery javascript to append the short url when a user clicks a link. of course being standards compliant they added the ability to just visit the url straight on if javascript was disabled or a special cookie set to ignore the diggbar.
Great for Digg, bad for sites being marketed as the visitors will have a selection of two urls to link from - 1) the digg story page, 2) the digg short url bar and 3) the actual url itself.
I wonder if the diggbar page will start showing up in google results, or whether digg will add a nofollow or noindex to the diggbar pages. If they don't it could mean that the diggbar starts out-ranking the actual content.
http://tomuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/mu...
Because that's what the web is going to look like in the future if frames are allowed.
Essentially the Digg's DiggBar is "FRAME SPAM" since the user does not give consent for it to be displayed:
http://tomuse.com/framing-spam-diggbar-facebook...
Also what is nice is that Digg remembers the shortened url for the site you post. One complaint I have with most url shortners, there is often more than 1 small url for the same link. I would rather have my shortened link be the same if someone else has shortened it already...DiggBar does this (as least my simple testing shows this). With bit.ly having analytics this is difficult, but I wouldn't mind seeing complete analytics if I wasn't the first to share.
I like this move very much...
I noticed that they definitely intend to monetize the platform, as after you use the random button enough you will run into "Sponsored" URLs - here's a placeholder:
http://digg.com/sponsored/6
well, in case anyone still blogs and not microblogs on twitter :)
@jimmy
not really a copyright issue if you understand whats going on, cause you don't touch the content or profit from it. else Firefox would get into trouble for showing all the copyrighted material in their browser :)
i don't even see a shade of grey here
1)the site profits more from digg with traffic than digg profits from the site. digg sends the traffic.
2)the ads they use are not connected to the site. they seem to appear when the user pushes the next button on every x times
3)they do not scrape or safe and index the content from your site. iframe often gets put in the same corner (although not seen as bad) as scraper. yet the iframe does not index your content or take any profit from it. they profit by establishing a channel to drive traffic to your site. thats almost the same when i place an chorlink to your site
4) they do not use your site to generate traffic. they have the traffic and the brand and just channel the traffic to you.
actually googles search index is much worse when you check all the points that i made.
They blocked the digg bar as you can see here. http://digg.com/d1nnyF
Blessings,
Wendy
There really are only a handful of popular mediums to deliver content.
Website, toolbar, add-on, widget, download software.
best,
Chris O.
Referral Key
On the positive side, it's easy enough to use javascript to break the frame.
RT
www.anon-tools.cz.tc
The Digg Bar is a pain in the ass. It causes web pages to load slowly. Beyond that Digg will be sued for copyright infringement for adding the bar to every site that loads beneath it and for preventing the accurate reporting of URLs. Do you think that a corporation that pays to maintain a domain wants the socialists at Digg to hide the accurate reporting of their URL?
Tell the bisexual alchoholic Kevin Rose to go back to the drawing board.
1. No revenue for popular site. If your page goes popular on Digg now, all the traffic will be sent through a frame. MOST to all ad networks do not pay out for pages that don't have your exact domain in the address bar. So you, as the popular site, are paying for bandwidth, and hosting, to have Digg show off your content. So, in short, a popular article does great branding, but represents a loss of income in short run.
2. Just another way for Digg to exaggerate their stats and lie to investors. With the user still contained within the frame, Digg can claim a lower bounce rate, longer visit time, and more pages opened (guarantee they are counting that frame as a page opened).
It is a cool idea, but definitely has some seriously negative catches.
Busy searching for a Firefox diggbar blocker. Ah gottit: http://daringfireball.net/2009/04/how_to_block_...