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i was having a conversation with a few of my digg friends about diggnation a few weeks ago. the latest episodes of the show have been somewhat lackluster, sometimes feeling thrown together at the last minute, and half of the cast (kevin rose) is often mentally absent, making a less entertaining offering than what we’ve come to expect.

original image: laughing squid

this makes perfect sense given how well digg has been doing and the huge plans the team has for the future of the site, and the enormous strain this must be for kevin. this would be okay if diggnation was a ‘product’ product (like digg), i.e. was worth watching on content value alone, but it’s not. diggnation is a ‘personality’ product that requires the frat-boy personas of both alex and kevin, otherwise it fails. i doubt anyone watches the show to gain insight into popular stories from the site, rather they watch the show to see what the hosts will blab about as they get more and more drunk.

will ferrell’s online video comedy hub, funny or die, is a similar phenomenon. the site first skyrocketed to fame with will’s skit, the landlord. and while many other videos have been uploaded to the site by the community, the site’s traffic is largely seeing a downward trend. as you can see in the following chart, the site’s popularity has seen smaller spikes from subsequent skits by the all-star talent but no long-term, sustained success.

mark kvamme, one of the people involved in the site agrees that the site has to stand on it’s own, and if it is dependent on ferrell or the other stars rather than the larger community, the product is a failure. perhaps it is to soon for us to pass judgment on the site and we’ll just have to see.

such are the perils of a ‘personality’ product versus a ‘product’ product.

Technorati Tags: diggnation, product, personality, kevin rose, alex albrecht, will ferrell, mark kvamme, digg, funnyordie

i’m happy to announce that i was just inducted into the digg.com 900 club. i am currently the only person in the group but zaibatsu will be joining me shortly. i want to thank all the content producers whose stories i have submitted (for creating the great content) and all the digg users (who have been reading and digging my submissions).

check out my profile, and the complete rankings.

great news from nytimes today: the online version of nytimes has started featuring comments from readers on the front page!

i really have to hand it to their online team for embracing social media-first by embracing blogs, then with the submission buttons, and now by placing such high value on reader feedback. now if they could only do two more things:

1. remove the registration wall: it is just plain annoying for a majority of the users that just want access to the content and no additional features.
2. embrace the fill feed: it seems like the nytimes understands social media, but only to an extent. it’s about time they went with full feeds.

though it seems the site is taking steps to display both positive and negative comments, not everyone is happy with the move. david spector, for example, thinks that this is another step towards devaluing the nytimes.

so, suddenly the ny times decides its a good idea to put comments from random readers on its front page… don’t we have a letters to the editor section for stuff like this..?

Technorati Tags: comments, social media, nytimes

saul hansell over at the nytimes has some interesting scoop on linkedin’s plans to open up but in a closed way.

“we have no interest in doing it like facebook with an open a.p.i. letting people do whatever they want,” mr. nye said. “we’re not going to have people sending electronic hamburgers to each other.”

linkedin is going to take the lessons all online networking sites have learned from facebook, especially when it comes to platform building, and apply them to professional/business networking. while many of the features will be similar to those on facebook in principle, they will be molded to appeal to linkedin’s demographic.

original photo: gregpc

nye said something that i have always thought to be true of linkedin, and what i believe is the primary reason a majority of the people use the site.

“on many other web sites, there is a lot of noise and a lot of interference,” he said. “when you go to linkedin, we want you to be confident you can accomplish your goals, be productive and move on with your day. we are not trying to get you to come back multiple times throughout the day.”

in fact, if facebook is an airport lobby (noisy, heavily trafficked and so on), linkedin is the vip lounge without the price of admission (nice/clean, quiet and comfortable, get things done).

other points of note:

1. linkedin is making money: facebook maybe growing faster than any other networking site and may be valued at $100 billion dollars, but linkedin is making money. in fact, if the site is on target, it will be making $75 million to $100 million in revenue by next year.
2. there will be an ipo: unlike facebook, where everyone is guessing/hoping there will be an ipo, linkedin isn’t shy to say it. though they aren’t in a hurry to get there, they are building what will at one point become a public company.
3. linkedin will not be gobbled up by facebook: the company understands that facebook poses a threat to them but they are determined to provide a more targeted experience to professionals and stand their ground.

Technorati Tags: facebook, linkedin, social networking, business networking, professional networking

i’ve been using stumbleupon for a while now and am especially fond of photo-stumbles. whether they are from flickr or from professional photography sites/portfolios, whenever i find something i like, i photo-blog it.

for those unfamiliar with the concept, photo-blogging is an option in the stumbleupon toolbar’s contextual menu that allows users to post a photo into their stumbleupon blog. in this way, not only do you give the photo a thumbs up but you also give it more exposure through your stumbleblog. however, i’ve noticed that most photographers aren’t optimizing their sites for stumbleupon traffic. for those photographers, here is some advice (note: this also applies to stumblers submitting photos).

1. bypass the gateway: social media users are interested in getting right to the content. don’t stumble your portfolio’s gateway (the page with the ‘enter’ link on it), rather get right to the content. this way they can decide whether they like your content or not and get on with it (rather than having to click through to get to it).

2. don’t use flash: sure flash makes your portoflio look very snazzy but it also prevents stumblers from photo-blogging it and as a result you lose some exposure.

3. embrace the right-click: this is somewhat related to number 2. many photography sites prevent users from right-clicking on the sites (probably to prevent people from stealing the pictures). but as a result of this, your pictures can’t be photo-blogged.

4. know your limits: photo-blogging has its limits. any photo that is either larger than 250kb or wider than 715 pixels will not be accepted by the system. it’s a good idea to display an optimized version upfront with an option of clicking-to-enlarge.

but this is just the beginning. check out doshdosh’s guide to building traffic through photo-stumbles.

Technorati Tags: stumbleupon, photo-blogging, photo-stumbles, photography, optimization, traffic

the techmeme leaderboard which arrington gave us a taste of yesterday, is now live. though it is being compared to the technorati top 100, the sites actually accomplish different things. on the leaderboard, the sites listed can be any news outlet that has been on techmeme, and the sources are ranked every 20 minutes based on how many times they have been listed as the headlining site in the past month.

you will note that the list is drastically different from the technorati 100 for a couple of reasons. while the posts that appear on techmeme appear based on linking, the sites that these posts are from (i.e. the sites indexed by techmeme) are handpicked by gabe rivera to ensure relevancy and quality. on technorati, on the other hand, anyone can add himself. the only criteria on techmeme is that the outlet has to be technology-focused. it can be a blog, a news site, or whatever else. by comparison, on technorati, the only criteria is that you have to be a blog and can be about whatever.

while it is another great way to discover relevant and popular sites, it won’t replace technorati’s top 100 list anytime soon. this site will also probably not with techmeme any new users but is definitely a very welcome addition for loyal visitors (like myself).

Technorati Tags: technorati, techmeme, leaderboard, blogs

i just got an email from the folks behind one of my favorite podcasts, ask a ninja, and they’re launching a social network just for ninjas (and other cool people of course).

the social network is built on the ning platform and is an extension of the existing ask a ninja community. what this means is that if you have an existing account at either of those, you can use it to log in and start customizing your profile. to customize your profile, you begin by adding your email address and declaring your allegiance (the only two mandatory fields).

there are four main sections to the site.

my page

this is your profile page. this is where you can upload photos or videos, edit information about yourself, as well as see the latest activity from your friends and how they are interacting with your profile. you can also edit the appearance of the page and create and manage a blog.

members

the members page let’s you view snapshots of member profiles, which you can expand by clicking on them. you can also use the search box to search for members and invite your friends to join the network.

forum

this is where the meat of the conversation is taking place on the site. people can create and participate in discussions and optionally filter the conversation by ‘my discussions’. the section also includes a list of the most popular contributors.

clans

the clans section let’s you create or join a clan and view clan profiles. you can search clans by name or sort them by number of members or date of creation.

last words

on the whole it is a very simple social network (limited, perhaps, by the features offered by ning) but with a very viral theme. i look forward to killing networking with you soon!

Technorati Tags: ninja, askaninja, ask a ninja, social network

i have to admit, when i read that linkedin will begin letting people add pictures to their profiles, i was excited. in fact, it’s surprising that linkedin profiles didn’t launch with pictures.

adding a profile photo is one of the most commonly requested features for the linkedin profile, primarily because many people (like me) tend to recognize their colleagues and classmates more reliably by face than by name. they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and with this feature we hope to make it easier for people to form richer professional connections online.

original photo: photoplasia

i read articles from hundreds of different blogs every week and talk to dozens of content creators everyday but the blogs that i keep going back to and the people that i have developed long-term relationships with are the ones with the most comprehensive about pages (online bios on their sites) and author profiles with pictures. knowing more about the author and being able to see the human being behind the content makes it the connection much more ‘real’ and inherently makes me more willing to embrace them and their content. similarly, photos on linkedin aim to help people connect by face rather rather than just name.

uploading pictures to linkedin is not to be used like similar features on facebook or myspace. make sure you make the best use of the tools linkedin provides you with to appear most professional.

we know that people take their professional reputations seriously, and as a result we expect linkedin profile photos to be professional in nature. however, we also hope that the wisdom of the millions of linkedin users will help us identify photos that violate that. similar to linkedin answers, members will be able to quickly and easily flag photos that violate policy for review.

not everyone is happy with the addition. allen, for example, wonders if the addition of photos will lead to discrimination.

• Will employers be looking for the hottest cutie?
• Will a fat man be passed over just because he is fat?
• Will a woman who looks “old” be passed over?
• What about race issues?

Technorati Tags: linkedin

word got out a couple days ago that twitter would be implementing a real-time search feature very soon. the feature will let you type in any word into twitter and whenever someone tweets something with your query words in it, you can choose to be notified via an instant message or a text message to your mobile phone. initially the searches will be limited to all twitter users but in the future you will be able to limit whose twitter history you search based on the people you follow/are following you, geography, time of the tweet, and so on.

i’ve been waiting for this feature for a while now. it makes perfect sense, just like searchable, persistent chat logs on instant messaging clients. every couple of days i find my self wanting to bring up a conversation i had with someone based on the topic (or keywords) we were discussing, and the same applies to tweets from my friends.

that said, there are a couple of concerns. first, and the concern i have right now, is how does my twitter privacy factor into this? will anyone be able to retrieve a tweet from me or can i choose it so that only my friends (not even followers) can search my tweets? second, matt brings up an important point: twitter is not the most consistently reliable service and this update will probably cause further disruptions.

Technorati Tags: twitter, search, real-time, tweet search

when i’m in the mood to stumble, i usually go through hundreds of pages and photos in a sitting. it’s easy because a lot of the content i see on stumble, i have already either read in my rss reader or from digg/propeller/reddit. that said, i try to make a conscious effort to stumble my friends’ pages (by using the friends toolbar setting) as well.

here’s a look at some of the pages that always get a thumbs down from me regardless of how good the content is and who stumbled it.

1. pay-wall: if a page you have stumbled displays a pay-wall or expects me to register to view it, it gets a thumb down.

2. page no longer exists, has moved: this just makes sense because i don’t want my friends and followers to be spammed with pages that are no longer there.

3. other social submissions: stumbleupon is a site for sharing content. what this means is stumbling the pages where the content originated, not stumbling pages from other social sites (digg, propeller, reddit, sphinn) where you have submitted the original content. if you want me to vote on something that you have submitted on one of those sites, send it to me without submitting it to and clogging up the stumble index.

4. duplicate submissions or repurposed content with no insight: if you’ve just regurgitated information from elsewhere, please don’t submit it to stumble. it’s not always wrong to post some latest developments to your blog but if you haven’t added any insight, please stumble the original source and not your post.

5. improperly categorized or tagged content: i’ve set my preferences so that i only get pages and pictures, however because people incorrectly tag pages, i often get audio, video, or pdf files. i generally try to report these pages as incorrectly tagged and stumble them down.

6. auto-playing audio or video: one of the most annoying things on stumble is when people incorrectly tag audio/video and then have it play automatically as the page loads.

7. porn, la-la la-la, etc: posts where you are asked to thumb up if you want them to include adult video, or pages that say ‘end of the internet’ are submitted too many times and are equally annoying each time.

what are some of the pages that you thumb down?

Technorati Tags: social media, stumbleupon