As community news and networking sites like Digg and Reddit grow in size and popularity, many top bloggers and web commentators have started to notice alarming trends of abuse and manipulation. Top users have clearly learned how to work the systems rather than develop communities. There is more and more discussion of how to maximize incoming traffic for personal gain. A few days ago, one top blog even suggested that people may be writing stories targetted exclusively for success on Digg and social news or networking sites. The fact that we’re not partiucularly surprised to learn this reveals just how used to these trends we have all become.
Another alarming example: the top WTF on Technorati about WTFs is about how users can game the system to drive traffic to their sites. WTFs are supposed to be a way of sharing information, not getting traffic just for one’s own site. A different WTF that advises users to spread the WTFs around, delete outdated WTFs and generally use the system for the good of others has a depressingly small fraction of the votes.
These issues raise some critical questions. Are these sites still egalitarian communities for sharing information? Or have they reverted back to the old tried-and-trued top-down model, where those in power pass down information to everyone else? The answer seems to lie somewhere in between, and the issue clearly isn’t black-and-white.
Perhaps most importantly: are these sites becoming less about community and more about competition? Are those same people who helped build this new wave of online communities now using their knowledge to destroy them? What do you think? Leave your comments, questions and opinions below - let’s move back toward shared information, and away from top-down perspectives.
11 Comments
June 10th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Nice post. I do most of my work online, and I’m constantly seeing people formulate posts precisely for that very reason - to maximize social networking response. I’ve heard it called “Social media Site Optimization”, or SSO, which one could connect to the term used to describe gaming search engines: SEO.
June 10th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Yup, and it strikes me that maybe balance is best - sure, it’s good to recognize that traffic comes from those sites sometimes, but it makes for a poor site long-term just to optimize for them. I’ve asked people if they’d consider Digging, Stumbling, etc… a given post, but I’d hope they’d only do it if they thought it was valuable and/or interesting.
June 11th, 2007 at 12:08 am
As this alexa graph shows, digg’s traffic has been steadily declining since late last year. The eventual problem for any unmoderated public forum is the direct correlation between increased traffic and lowered signal/noise ratio. A brief glance at the comments for any digg is enough for me to remind myself why I stay away. This population does not include folks who I want directing my time, nor folks who I need visiting my site.
As for any perceived traffic boost due to manipulation of these services, the traffic-spike demographics deserve a closer look. This appears similar to the audience of 53,651 conversation from this time last year, but applied to digg/wtf-groupies. Likely some small percentage of a spike is comprised of potential real-world connections, while the rest are the same 50,000 digg-heads whose own comments and re-posts will rarely reach beyond this same in-bred audience.
This general phenomenon has long been observed within various web and blogger “orbits“, which have little cross-contact.
For this reason, I personally find that following a broad set of moderated RSS feeds — most often blogs — provides a dramatically increased utility and signal/noise ratio, without sacrificing much speed. However, the general public remains somewhere pre-digg in their ability to follow online trends, and will never be aware of any successfully gamed social site. What’s left is the population vulnerable to such schemes, short-term low-impact spikes without staying power.
June 11th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Excellent series of points Michael. In particular, I intend to take to heart the bit about the intended audience (related to your second link). In fact, in retrospect, this post perhaps doesn’t provide enough background for the non-web-geek folks. Perhaps these periodic geekish posts could have their own category. It certainly is a relatively small subset of the population that uses sites like Digg and Technorati, and it’s easy for us geeks to forget that not everyone knows how they work or what they are about.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:39 am
You raise some good questions about social networks and communities.. point well taken! =)
June 11th, 2007 at 3:46 am
I half expected this to happen at some point — these ideas start well, but always end up being about profits.
June 11th, 2007 at 9:49 am
good and enlightening info here. thanks for sharing this. Not sure what the answer is, but certainly having muckrakers, like yourself, dig up this info is one step towards keeping things in line
June 11th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I see gaming as a challenge in the growth of the online social news space, which is still very very new. Personally, I’m looking for a new breed of sites that get beyond the “digg-clone” dynamic and become interesting and compelling in their own right. For example, give me a political social news site that pulls in the best of the blogosphere from the left and right.
June 11th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
That’s a good point, Eric. Perhaps the decline of Digg and other sites will lead people to focus less on direct knock-offs and, instead, will encourage the development of viable alternatives that build on lessons learned. I also agree that sites showing different political, social and other perspectives are much-needed - it is much to easy to read with blinders on. Helium (not a site I recommend, just using it as an example) has at least tried to do this with their most recent innovation: they have developed a system where user-submitted content on controversial subjects is either submitted as ‘pro’ or ‘con’ so that people only rate articles in their chosen position and not from the opposing viewpoint.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:02 am
I can’t imagine why anyone would be surprised that people game the system. If you put some money on the virtual table then provide ways for people to pick it up, people are going to figure out ways to get more of it than others. Some will use legitimate strategies and work hard and some will use tactics that leave a bad taste in the mouths of the others.
I think that my hope for social networking sites is that, once the gamers had drained the traffic from them, the people who still visit will be the ones who are there for the community-building.
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