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update: chris mcgill has responded to some confusion caused by the initial press release. check out what he has to say.

this is a response to marshall kirkpatrick’s recent look at mixx.

when i first read that mixx had been busy making deals with mainstream news outlets such as usa today, reuters, la times, and the weather channel, i naturally assumed that the deals were similar to the one digg recently made with the wall street journal. but when dave cohn, my friend and co-worker at propeller, pointed out that the mixx deal went far beyond that, that’s when i had to take a look at the fine print.

what does the mixx deal entail?

matt marshall has broken down the details of the deal and one particular point is especially worrisome:

…times’ content will be “optimized” for searches from within the mixx site, suggesting results will be biased toward returning la times stories.

what this means is that when you search for content from within mixx, you won’t be getting the best possible results, or the socially driven or personally relevant results, but paid results from la times.

why is this bad?

this is problematic because this goes against the fundamental principle of socially driven news and the main purpose of mixx. mixx is supposed to be a response to editorially driven news, but is supposed to be better than other social news sites because of the power of it’s individual user based recommendation engine. i understand that thus far the editorially sponsored results are only in the search results, but i do feel that dave is right in pointing out that this could be a slippery slope for mixx.

for comparison purposes

in addition, i also wanted to examine some of the other points that marshall raises because i feel that people are unfairly comparing mixx to digg while they should be comparing it specifically to propeller, reddit, and stumbleupon, since realistically speaking they should be aiming for a top 5 spot (#1 not included). that said, here’s a comparison with propeller (the one that i know best out of the bunch):

1. openid login system: already implemented by propeller
2. off-site submission bookmarklets: these bookmarklets already exist for digg, propeller, and reddit. in the case of digg it’s not a first-party bookmarklet but the community has created one. there is also a right-click contextual menu submission plugin for firefox users (70% of digg audience).
3. personal start-page: was implemented at my.netscape.com but subsequently removed because not many people were using it. upcoming site upgrade will make it redundant anyway.
4. photos and videos sections: n/a
5. tagging: already implemented by propeller.
6. groups: coming in future propeller release.
7. point-of-submission checks: propeller checks story urls and story titles at point of submission without even requiring an action from the user. furthermore, once you click check story, it shows potentially related or similar stories to compare your submission with.
8. bury accountability: propeller has had bury accountability for a long time now.
9. changing votes: propeller allows you to vote and un-vote as many times as you want.

mixx certainly has a good set of features, but they should really be careful in the what kinds of deals they make. if they start killing off their social aspects in favor of sponsored results, then they’re playing a completely different game. and even with the features, the community has a long way to go.

Technorati Tags: social media, social news, digg, propeller, reddit, stumbleupon, mixx

i’ve written a guest post at read/writeweb on an unofficial digg recommendation engine called digg filter.

while we wait for the digg recommendation engine, which is perpetually ‘coming soon’, one enterprising digg user has taken the initiative and built one himself. sfter putting in 200 hours of his own time, dmytro mulyava has come up with digg filter, an api based digg story recommender.

check out the interview with the founder of digg filter.

Technorati Tags: digg, digg filter, recommendation engine, readwriteweb

wow. it took me a while to calm down before i could start writing anything. i got a chance to look at the new site design (not live, only internal) for propeller, and i have to say, it [expletive] rocks! the design will not only be much much better than the current site design, but it is safe to say that it will be better than all other social sites out there right now.

Technorati Tags: propeller, site, design, social media

if you’re going to be at the good and green pre-conference networking event (and of course the conference) don’t forget to stop by and say hi!

when: wednesday november 28th, 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

where: hard rock hotel, hamer room, michigan ave.

Technorati Tags: conference, good, green, networking

i’ve written a post on search engine land explaining everything we can hope to understand about the digg algorithm.

have you ever wondered what it really takes for a story submitted to digg to get to the home page? or why a certain story—even a really good, social media friendly story—never got to the home page? i’m frequently asked the question, “hey, my story has [number] of diggs but it still hasn’t been promoted to the home page. any idea what’s wrong?” and, relatively less frequently, I hear someone saying in amazement, “wow, all it took was 29 diggs and that story rocketed to the home page!” i’m always tempted to reply “it’s the algorithm, stupid!”

so here’s your chance to learn more about the algorithm.

Technorati Tags: social media, social news, search engine land, digg, algorithm

i’ve written a guest post at pickthebrain with 6 steps to writing content that readers will retain.

an opinionated piece with a human element should give any active reader more than enough to participate in a discussion while simplicity and brevity will appease the most reflective of readers. furthermore, while visual cues and formatting will attract the visual ‘readers’, retainability through repetition and simplicity should draw the verbal readers to your content.

please check out the complete article for a all 6 points explained in more detail.

Technorati Tags: copywriting, content, retention, readers

i’ve written a guest post at read/writeweb as a follow up to why digg is blocked.

by now most of you have probably seen the site ‘why digg is blocked’. for those that haven’t come across it, the site is on a mission to convince webmasters and content producers to reject social media traffic. here’s a look at the incredibly flawed logic the site uses to justify its purpose.

please check out the complete article for a point-by-point refutation.

Technorati Tags: social media, digg, propeller, reddit, stumbleupon, traffic, economics, readwriteweb

it’s almost been a week since digg launched digg the candidates, and it’s about time i took a shot at it. the new section let’s you keep track of presidential candidates’ profiles on digg (i.e. their submissions, votes, comments, and so on) and add them as friends.

you can now check out the 2008 presidential candidates profiles on digg! add your favorite candidates as a friend to show support, and to see all their digging activity in your friends’ activity feed. many of them will be digging, commenting and even submitting content.

on the digg the candidate’s main page you will see a star next to each article by each candidate’s name, this article is the candidate’s most recent favorite. when you add a candidate as a friend, a box will also be created on your profile showing which candidates you have added.

there are three three parts to ‘digg the candidates’:

1. the 2008 election primary calendar

the election primary calendar is incredibly simple. it just displays dates and the corresponding states next to them.

a much more interesting implementation would’ve been to allow each candidate to create a campaign hub with a detailed calendar of events that their campaign plans to hold, including a list of televised appearances and addresses, sponsored debates, candidate endorsements, endorsed advertisements, and so on. then we would really be digging the candidates.

2. the candidate profiles ranking page

the main ‘digg the candidates’ page does several things.

the candidates are divided into two lists based on their party affiliations and are ranked based on the number of friends they have on digg. underneath each candidate’s ranked profile is the latest story they have made a favorite. finally, in the right sidebar, the page displays the recently popular stories from digg’s u.s. elections category along with the candidates’ recent profile activity.

3. individual candidate profile pages

the final piece of ‘digg the candidates’ is the actual candidate profiles. these profiles function exactly like the rest of the users’ profiles.

keep in mind that this is the first iteration of ‘digg the candidates’ and even then, the feature is in its very nascent stages and is bound to evolve and improve as we head into 2008. at the same time, if you’re expecting an in-depth look at the issues rather than a straightforward popularity contest, i would suggest you take a look at political base.

Technorati Tags: digg, social news, politics, candidates, elections

i’ve written an introductory manual for participating in social media at danny sullivan’s search engine land:

i get so many questions from people about digg, propeller, reddit, stumbleupon and other social news sites every day, that i decided to write this little “manual” as something to read before you jump in head first into any social site, and to keep by your side as you progress through the ranks. it should not only help you succeed with your social media marketing efforts, but also help you avoid some of the mistakes i’ve made.

please check out the entire manual.

Technorati Tags: social media, social news, search engine land, digg, propeller, reddit, stumbleupon

when i submit content to social news sites, i usually check them at least twice over a 24 hours period to see what kind of comments they’re getting. in fact, often times, i read the title and summary of someone else’s submission and read the comments before reading the actual story.

one of the great things about the comment threads is that oftentimes when a site goes down because of the sudden influx of unexpected traffic from digg (or another social site), people point new readers to mirrors for the content so you can read and digg the story even if the site itself is unavailable. usually these mirrors point to duggmirror, coral cache, and google cache, but recently spammers have gotten wind of this tactic and have begun scraping content onto their own sites and passing them off as mirrors.

enter smith johnson (who is incidentally a 39-year-old girl):

smith has setup a blogspot blog at diggmirror1.blogspot.com (presenting a server error at the moment), and is mimicking well intentioned people by pretending to link to a legitimate mirror (i.e. duggmirror, one of the most popular mirrors for dugg sites), while actually linking to his/her own site where all the content is being scraped and reposted. i have already reported the user to digg (for posting 5 spam comments like that in the last hour) and if you come across the user, please bury the comments.

also, if you’re looking for an easy way to access unavailable content or for a way to inform your audience about mirrors, i would encourage you to look at the dugged firefox extension. the extension simply adds a link to the duggmirror page for a site that is down, right next to the submission for the site. here’s an example (notice the orange text at the bottom-left):

Technorati Tags: digg, social news, traffic, dugg, duggmirror, coral cache, google, mirror, spammers