Digg Profile For Sale on eBay

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1. Simon Willison
   

   July 30th, 2006 at 3:03 pm

   Calacanis will never pay someone who bought their account - he’s after the people who are prolific posters, not the accounts themselves.

2. Celulares
   

   July 30th, 2006 at 3:05 pm

   Something I find even more valuable are YouTube channels. There are a couple of kids who are very influencial on youtube and have manage to get hundreds of thousands of views and more importantly channel subscribers. I even went about offering some money for an account in the top ten who only has one video uploaded.

3. Gabe
   

   July 30th, 2006 at 3:11 pm

   Such transactions are inevitable, and if conducted privately, smart for buyer and seller. That this was conducted publicly was a mistake.

4. SearchEngines
   

   July 30th, 2006 at 3:25 pm

   :LOL,

   
   hmmmm……Perhaps some of those companies who’s Websites have gotten to the Digg HOMEPAGE - because of being Digg-ed by Top users - might want to place a bid
   

5. Guk
   

   July 30th, 2006 at 3:32 pm

   Yes, but soon when the auction end Digg will turn off that account.

6. Nick Gavronsky
   

   July 30th, 2006 at 3:40 pm

   I think this is a bold crazy move. I really dont think calacanis or anyone for that matter will buy it.

7. Patrix
   

   July 30th, 2006 at 4:01 pm

   As the folks at MR say, markets in everything.

   The bid is up to $75 now (7pm CST). I don’t understand why should Digg turn off that account. If the users want to cash in on their linking behavior, they should allow it.

   Dedicated users whom Digg claims are not in for the money will never sell out. This may be perhaps the perfect test even better than Netscape’s attempts to buy off prolific users.

8. Steven
   

   July 30th, 2006 at 4:29 pm

   Who the hell would want that? I go to digg, love the site and always watch diggnation. I submit stories but mostly go to the site to find some stories.

9. BPAndrew
   

   July 30th, 2006 at 4:57 pm

   Your forgetting that this user has friends - http://digg.com/users/Geekforl.....befriended

   This means that if someone were to buy this account and use it to promote content, it would be picked up by these people. 44 users is more than enough to get a frontpage digg. Chances are its only good for 1 or two front pages until everyone ignores this account of Digg deletes it.

   Seth Godin says that if a “sneezer” “sells out” he/she loses all credibility and people stop listening.

10. tehgooch
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 4:59 pm

    I hope Digg will turn the account off because it could be used to spam. I hate spam unless it comes in a can or on bread.

11. tehgooch
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 5:00 pm

    Oh, in other news: I have lost all respect for GeekForLife.

12. gmillerd
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 5:17 pm

    Pretty cool, more power to this guy.

    In the end we have a guy that is $200 richer and will digg from scratch a new account to within 100 again, someone who is $200 poorer and has an account that is within the 100 and will fall lower and lower in all likeliness. Digg gets a lot of publicity over the whole thing and we get to talk (or argue) about it. Perfect slow news day stuff.

13. Webmetricsguru
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 5:18 pm

    I would think this is more of a curiousity stunt than anything else - of course the profile will be shut off - what’s the point of selling the profile if the person behind it does not have anything to say anymore (because they are someone else).

14. Joe
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 5:22 pm

    Odd that one of the users bidding on ebay has a username of geekforlife2, which is a brand new user, registered on Jul-30-06.

15. Anonymous
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 5:24 pm

    I wonder how much popular MySpace pages would go for? Or if MySpace members have thought of auctioning some of their page for ads?

    It would be kinda funny since Rupert Murdoch and company are still looking for ways to profit from MySpace.

16. Peter
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 5:37 pm

    I can’t believe the nerve of this girl! I mean, I take my hard-earned free time and blah blah foo blah bar blah.

    I actually like the idea that certain profiles - certain ‘attention suppliers’ - have monetary value. I mean, shouldn’t they? Don’t they? Of course, they do. There’s no tears in profiles!

    In other news, Israel executed a bunch more brownish people today.

    And the SF Marathon supposedly happened, though, you had to be up early if you wanted to catch the 2.30 am start time or whatever it was.

    And cococococomment sucks. And the name sucks. It has possibilities, though. If you work for the NSA and are trying to keep tabs on ‘profiles’.

    Digg that.

17. BlogReader
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 6:07 pm

    Simon Willison Calacanis will never pay someone who bought their account - he’s after the people who are prolific posters, not the accounts themselves.

    Ya don’t say

18. Jason
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 6:08 pm

    According to this post submitted by user Geekforlife:

    http://digg.com/tech_news/I_co.....le_in_eBay

    Someone claimed to have correctly guessed the password to that account and is apparently in control of it now.

19. Sr. Gen X. View
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 6:45 pm

    It doesn’t matter what anybody says here….. digg is now part of “the machine”… see #3

20. Keith L. Dick
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 8:11 pm

    People are Basically Lazy and Money Hungry… They will try to sell anything if it envolves the *Least Amount of Effort* and they can make the *Most Bucks From It*…

21. Kevin
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 8:31 pm

    EVERYONE AVOID THIS SELLER ON EBAY! He’s been pushing up the price of his own account!

    Check the bid history. Half the bids were placed by accounts that were created on July 30th. Heck, one of the bids comes from geekforlife2. This guy is a cheat. He probably does this to everything he sells on ebay.

    Again, AVOID THIS SELLER AT ALL COSTS!

22. Ashish Sinha
    

    July 30th, 2006 at 9:22 pm

    Well, its a simple economics equation - If you have made a site/application successful, you would definitely want to have some share of it.

    And the Netscape bid actually evoked those monetary emotions amongst the top Digg users.
    I don’t see anything wrong with the auction- This maybe a harbinger to community/web 2.0; i..e let people share and decide, but pay them to do that!!

    Ashish
    Idea Labs

23. search engine
    

    July 31st, 2006 at 3:06 am

    i dont like it when free and unbiased stuff starts turining in to some thing like this

24. Ashish Sinha
    

    July 31st, 2006 at 5:39 am

    Well, apart from the Digg profile, here is another story of a Myspace user minting money out of her strong network..

    Yes, it does bring upon a basic qn (as pointed by ‘Search Engine”) - Is this the future of social networks? i.e. commercialization of social networks?

    Only time will tell !!

    Ashish

25. Alan Lewis
    

    July 31st, 2006 at 6:37 am

    Kevin - From looking at the user’s feedback it appears that this user hasn’t sold anything before. Also, don’t jump to conclusions about those users who registered just today. Here is an article from one of those users, explaining why he/she is bidding on it.

    http://onstartups.com/Home/tab.....count.aspx

    -Alan

    I work for eBay, but this opinion is my own, blah blah blah. Oh - and I don’t have access to any super-secret eBay data — just whats available on the website to everyone else. Our customer service folks will take appropriate action if there is anything against policy going on with this auction.

26. Chubbs
    

    July 31st, 2006 at 9:56 am

    Hey Michael, will you let me put this comment up on eBay?

27. Sharpshoot
    

    July 31st, 2006 at 10:03 am

    Maybe he should try and trade the digg account for something cooler; like a flamethrower. Any first offers?

28. joelle
    

    October 4th, 2006 at 4:02 am

    It sounds quite strange that people are able to sell user accounts, but if there is really a demand… why not?