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February 10, 2007

Digg Rock Stars

Michael Arrington

59 comments »

A Wall Street Journal article called “The Wizards of Buzz” focuses on the power of the top users on Digg, Netscape and other “social bookmarking” sites. The article highlights 16 or so of these users, along with their real name, screen name, areas of interest and other information. The point of the article, I think, is to show how much power these individuals have, and how they are dealing with offers to take payment for promotion, etc. Sample quotes:

For 17-year-old Henry Wang, the job of finding compelling information for Digg’s 20 million monthly users starts when tennis practice ends. Mr. Wang, a senior at Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, Ill., says he spends three hours a day doing his Digg work, and highlighted his success on the site — at one point, he was ranked the No. 2 user — on his college applications.

and

On Reddit, one of the most influential users is 12-year-old Adam Fuhrer…When Microsoft launched its Vista operating system this year, he submitted stories that discussed its security flaws and price tag, which attracted approving votes from more than 500 users…In spite of a content filter his parents use to block him from viewing certain sites (including YouTube), he has managed to consistently make it onto the list of Reddit’s highest performers. “I watch my son’s page while I’m at work,” says his father, Gerald Fuhrer, and “gush about his achievements to my co-workers.”

For readers familiar with Digg and the others, the article won’t tell them anything they didn’t already know. For those unfamiliar, they may be left somewhat confused by the whole crazy ecosystem, and the fact that twelve year olds are now helping to define what “news” is. Interesting times we live in.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. Highlighting The You Of Social News Sites » Webomatica

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  2. davedonohue.com » WSJ profile of social media services and powerusers

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  3. TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Diggのロックスターたち

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  4. Teaching Better With Web 2.0 » Power to the People

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  5. Spawners Feb-11-2007 at TechSpot Analysis , Reviews, Programming and Security

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  6. Web 2.0, Bookmarking y adolescentes « TotumRevolutum

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  7. pepperjamBlog » Blog Archive » Buzz Marketer Neil Patel and other Social Media All-Stars Profiled in Wall Street Journal

    February 11th, 2007 at 8:03 am

  8. Jeremy Toeman’s LIVEdigitally » Blog Archive » Distinguishing Web Traffic from Influencers

    February 11th, 2007 at 1:06 pm

  9. Geek And Poke

    February 11th, 2007 at 1:25 pm

  10. Digg Rock Stars - Posted by Mike Fomkin « Official Michael Fomkin Blog

    March 7th, 2007 at 9:39 am

  11. Spawners Feb-11-2007

    April 15th, 2007 at 12:22 am

  12. » News to know: Intel’s 80-cores; Windows Mobile 6 screenshots | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

    May 22nd, 2007 at 4:11 pm

  13. The Buzz of Community

    June 22nd, 2007 at 5:08 am

Comments

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  1. Robert Dewey

    February 10th, 2007 at 4:19 pm

    With the offers of payment floating around, I wonder if any of the top users have ever been bought. At 17, I would have taken a few grand to post a story.

    Ah, that was only a few years ago… I’d still take a few grand :)

  2. Tony

    February 10th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    While it would be tempting to sensationalize “12 year olds determining content” [and I love a bit of sensationalism every now and again] they’re only submitting that which the community (and their “friends”) will find interesting — that is, there is a self - interest to find things that are front page material, and stuff that isn’t (even with a large group of friends) just won’t hack it.

    Apple / linux / Anti-Bill Gates / Geekery / gadgets / Xbox / PS3 / Wii / Explosions / NSFW / Technology –> “all good”.

    Having said all that, you might argue that the majority of 12 year olds are interested in all that stuff. On the other hand you might strike back with demographics of Digg’s users who are largely in their 20’s - 30’s …
    http://www.federatedmedia.net/authors/digg

    Meh … at any rate, its an interesting story. ;)

    Cheers
    t @ dji / bh

  3. Stephen Sclafani

    February 10th, 2007 at 4:40 pm

    Top diggers are just those that are the fastest at feeding the mob.

  4. Paul Freet

    February 10th, 2007 at 5:00 pm

    “30 people were responsible for submitting one-third of postings on the home page”

    OK, explain to me again how Digg is different than Slashdot? You know, how a democratic system selects the top stories rather than a elite group. :-)

  5. ...some Drifter

    February 10th, 2007 at 5:20 pm

    if the top digg users do accept payment(under the table) for promotion for whatever news articles from these private co.s - then digg’s model of democracy, if that’s the right term…essentially gets flushed down the toilet

  6. heri

    February 10th, 2007 at 5:37 pm

    top diggers are the ones that have too much time on their hands.

    @paul
    the digg system averages stories and add noise. In a democratic system, people do not see which candidate got the most votes, people dont get dugg down because they expressed their opinions. You see both side effects in Digg, and as a result, sensationalistic and inaccurate stories shine on digg

  7. Robert Dewey

    February 10th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    @…some drifter

    If the top diggers accept payment, then the system truly IS democratic; just look at how our government (in the US) is run ;)

    Who has the most money? Democrats and Republicans… Who’s going to win the next election? One of those parties.

  8. David Mackey

    February 10th, 2007 at 6:26 pm

    Pretty fascinating. I wonder what the effect is as far as experts on a subject? Are experts not seeing their articles pushed to the front because a large portion of users who have time to submit articles aren’t reading the articles?

  9. David Mackey

    February 10th, 2007 at 6:26 pm

    Pretty fascinating. I wonder what the effect is as far as experts on a subject? Are experts not seeing their articles pushed to the front because a large portion of users who have time to submit articles aren’t reading the articles?

  10. David Mackey

    February 10th, 2007 at 6:26 pm

    Pretty fascinating. I wonder what the effect is as far as experts on a subject? Are experts not seeing their articles pushed to the front because a large portion of users who have time to submit articles aren’t reading the articles?

  11. sam

    February 10th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

    so in other words….

    people really don’t know who the person/guy behind the story is… only that they ‘like’/wnat to ‘digg’ it…

    and just how many people would really wnat to read these articles if you could really put some kind of information behind the person..

    while there are a few 12 year olds i would listen to/discuss things with, they are few/far between!!!

    but i’ve long screamed/noted that a huge problem with anonymous systems is that you don’t have any informational link to the person behind the message/posting… if the systems provided a way to rank/rate examine background information on the person posting, i can then make a reasonable choice as to how large the grain of salt should be when i’m reading the person;s postings….

    peace…

  12. Donna Rhea

    February 10th, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    Mike, why do you have the COMMENTS link at the TOP of your articles? We have to scroll down to read the article, and one would expect the comments feature to be at the bottom - I’ve scrolled down to complete the article, ready to hit ‘comment’ but I have to scroll back up to get to the comments link. Why?

  13. Mike Cruz

    February 10th, 2007 at 6:57 pm

    Tony - big difference btw 18 and 39. And it’s simple - in with the diggies, all stories go frontpage. Not in, you will have a ultra hard time getting there.

    I have seen tons of great content from other sites not make it because they didnt’ have a power digger (like a webtech who was mentioned last week) or a popular site.

  14. Tony

    February 10th, 2007 at 7:01 pm

    The difference between 18 and 39 for men — some would argue — is questionable. ;)

    No question that top diggers have a better chance at promoting frontpage-type material. On the other hand, its better than it was 6 months ago, and to say that *everything* that top diggers submit gets to the frontpage is a bit disingenuous.

    Moreover, there are other factors as well, and some independent of who is submitting it, including how the headline submission is worded, the time of day, time of the week and so on.

    cheers
    t

  15. Mike Cruz

    February 10th, 2007 at 7:08 pm

    Ha Tony - I knew someone would say that.

    I agree on the other factors, though I would say those are way less in importance than the web site and the submitter.

  16. Anonymous

    February 10th, 2007 at 7:13 pm

    Hehe, doesn’t this completely obliterate the move to eliminate the top users list?

  17. Devon Young

    February 10th, 2007 at 7:18 pm

    Maybe it’s time I get a Digg account.

  18. Fox

    February 10th, 2007 at 7:26 pm

    His dad blocks youtube? What is he going to watch, the Pokemon Theme Music Video instead of doing his reddit work? Come on.
    http://sanityfordummies.blogspot.com

  19. Fox

    February 10th, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    His dad blocks youtube? What is he going to watch, the Pokemon Theme Music Video instead of doing his reddit work? Come on.

  20. Ashish Mohta

    February 10th, 2007 at 7:38 pm

    It comes as a user reponsiblity of any social book marking site like digg to gather news.Its not said but it has to be understood.Its not about just digging and traffic but also about getting the right news highlighted.

  21. Chip Griffin

    February 10th, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    On the one hand I love sites like Digg and Reddit for being able to point out stories I might otherwise miss. And I really enjoy Techmeme, and to a somewhat lesser extent TailRank, for their ability to highlight prominent memes.

    On the other hand, I think all of these efforts point out the difficulty in using reader votes for computer algorithms to identify valuable stories. I do believe there is still a role for editors and human review of content to recommend content.

    Certainly outsiders would be skeptical of either existing system; but I believe for the community at large, there are benefits for user input, computer algorithms, and editor-driven sites.

  22. lemon obrien

    February 10th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    techcrunch is becoming painfully slow to load.

  23. Josh

    February 10th, 2007 at 8:08 pm

    Isn’t the internet great? A 12-year old pretty much dictates what news thousands of people view. How cool is that?

  24. Don Wilson

    February 10th, 2007 at 8:16 pm

    I wonder what would happen if you were limited to submit a certain amount of stories per day/week?

  25. Digg Hater

    February 10th, 2007 at 10:09 pm

    I couldn’t hate on Digg more. 12-year olds picking content? No thanks. Every news article comes bundled with juvenile, sniveling, asinine commentary that reduces any discussion on news sources to a slavering mob. And when they hit your website and disagree, it ain’t pretty. Trust me.

    Digg is tyranny of the majority. Digg is mobocracy. If the Diggers ever hold a national convention, better hope the security on that place is air tight. If someone walks in who disagrees with the mob they will get the snot “dugg” right out of them.

    It’s shortsighted to celebrate Internet democracy that is really mob rule. And for all the whining people do about mainstream media, university-educated citizens work at all levels of society precisely because they aren’t 12-year olds with too much time on their hands.

    That’s . . . erm . . . kid stuff. And they can have it. I count Digg as teensy bubble on the Web 2.0 bubble. Instead of cash running down the sewers, however, it will be the froth of amateur opinions.

  26. Debbie Davies

    February 10th, 2007 at 11:05 pm

    Mr Wang says he’s at the computer three hours a day. He also says “I’m at the computer all day” It would be more revealing to have comments from people outside the loop, say Adam Fuhrer’s teachers, rather than what his father thinks, which is what you would expect.

  27. Smaran

    February 10th, 2007 at 11:13 pm

    Interesting times, indeed! As I said on the Digg thread of that article, it was an honour to be profiled. :-)

  28. Anshul

    February 10th, 2007 at 11:50 pm

    Interesting article. The fact that stories from a 12 yr old reach the front page is amazing in itself.

  29. JasonM

    February 11th, 2007 at 12:46 am

    Digg is useful for finding those stories that my regular RSS feeds dont include.

    I was surprise to read that the top digg users were so young - I expected 16-17 year old guys. When I was 12 I was told I had to go outside and play cricket or football.

  30. Smaran

    February 11th, 2007 at 1:34 am

    Jason, the youngest Digg top user is 17 (dirtyfratboy). Adam, the 12 year old, is a so-called top user on reddit.

  31. Debbie Davies

    February 11th, 2007 at 1:41 am

    It could be disingenous of the WSJ to profile a 12 year old, the subtext being do you want to listen to a 12 year old intead of us.

  32. Nader

    February 11th, 2007 at 3:40 am

    I wonder what is wrong about a 12year old posting stories to digg. It’s just the initial post, not the digging to the front page, which gets done by the majority of their users (above 18).

    When it comes to technology, hacking, dvd-cracking, early adopting of gadgets, 12-18 year olds are much faster and sometimes better than us old farts :)

    Am I missing something? Are the older ones jealous?

  33. Debbie Davies

    February 11th, 2007 at 4:33 am

    Reddit’s terms of use state: The Website is not intended for users under the age of 13, and Website Provider does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from users under the age of 13. Such users are expressly prohibited from submitting their personally identifiable information to us, and from using our forums and chat areas; any information submitted by such users will not knowingly be used, posted, or retained by us.

  34. Rollo

    February 11th, 2007 at 4:45 am

    “Any system tending under the guise of humanity and benevolence to establish an equality of duties between men, and to destroy those distinctions necessary in a well-ordered monarchy, would soon lead to disorder [...] The result would be the overthrow of civil society, the harmony of which is maintained only by that hierarchy of powers, authorities, pre-eminences and distinctions which keeps each man in his place [...] These institutions were not formed by chance, and time cannot change them.” — Parlement de Paris, 1776.

    But time did change them.

  35. Sprague Dawley

    February 11th, 2007 at 6:41 am

    As the social media ecosystem grows there’ll be more 12 year olds feeding it because the requirements of constant update with new material requires either: 1) people with lots of leisure (i.e., students) or 2) professional posters. The second option is ruled out by the New Media moral watchdogs, so, we better hope those 12 year olds have a decent sensibility.

    BTW, Calacanis posted a link on his website to a page that uses the Digg API to list the top Diggers:

    http://www.efinke.com/digg/topusers.html

  36. James

    February 11th, 2007 at 6:54 am

    Isn’t this a pretty-much a case of preaching to the choir? I mean the only people digg has any influence over are the people who read digg. The rest of the world, well, they couldn’t care less.

  37. SearcH EngineS WeB

    February 11th, 2007 at 7:32 am

    LOL:

    SearchEnginesWeb has been posting and sharing important news way before there was ever a DIGG or PAYPERPOST - and was the catalyst for change in a number of ways

    It would not be surprising if these ideas partly originated from the controversies SearchEnginesWeb was drawing the obvious voids that existed :-D

  38. Vic Okezie

    February 11th, 2007 at 8:03 am

    Thanks to digg, Techcrunch is on top. Am sure that Mike would be happy with the efforts of the digg users that drive traffic to Techcrunch. Mike himself has confirmed that digg brings him a lot of traffic. Maybe some 12 year olds are on Mike’s payroll…

  39. Phil

    February 11th, 2007 at 8:25 am

    The article makes a big deal of Henry Wang (dirtyfratboy on digg) boosting famster.com’s visitor numbers to 50,000 a day!, look where they are now though
    http://www.alexa.com/data/deta.....amster.com
    Digg users have an attention time span of a goldfish (at best), they’re just a bunch of bandwidth locusts.

  40. Go Away Digg

    February 11th, 2007 at 8:39 am

    I have never used Digg once, and I can honestly say I have never once felt out of the loop when it comes to current events, be it sports, news, politics, or Anna Nicole Smith.

  41. Patricia

    February 11th, 2007 at 3:20 pm

    Michael,

    Thanks for the article. I was aware of the ages digging on Digg. In fact, once I found out about them 6 month ago, I stopped using Digg. Why would a 38 old professional like me relay on a News promoted and voted by a 12 or 17 years old? Nothing against any kid in that age. My argument is, how could they be possibly experienced enough to know what to promote and what not. As for their competitor Netscape paying these users, that is just the stupidest business model. What is even more stupid is the people who still continue relaying on such News promoted by a few Kids with no experience.

    I think out of all the social something site you have covered on your site so far, the one that I believe will win the space is Searchles. I registered on their site and in less than a minute I figured them out. What I like about searchles are their Group, sharing, tagging, and awesome search technology. Their Index is still low in battery.

  42. Reg

    February 11th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

    While “2.0″ sites like Digg are good for getting interesting headlines into an RSS feed, a lot of the value of social news sites, at least for me, is in the comments. And here Digg crashes to the ground like the worst trolled blog around.

    Read the comments attached to Digg stories and you’ll be in no doubt whatsoever about the user ages. In fact the actual “emotional age” is guaranteed to be much less than the physical age.

    Slashdot, by comparison, is populated by opinionated but also very articulate adults, many of whom are often well versed in the field they’ve chosen to comment on.

    It’s as insightful as Digg is infantile.

  43. Isaac

    February 11th, 2007 at 4:13 pm

    Um, so, spending three hours a day promoting sites on digg for geek bragging rights is about the lamest thing ever. Social media is not a social life - digg is just a website. Instead of talking about how great these kids are, shouldn’t we be encouraging them to get out more?

  44. Michael Fomkin

    February 12th, 2007 at 6:14 am

    It is rather interesting to see the person behind the mask and they are quite young. It would be more interesting to see the ones that post advice and then you find out who you are listening to. As I always say it is the Internet and you must take everything with a grain of salt.

  45. Dr Fence

    February 12th, 2007 at 7:38 am

    I’ve recently started to explore the friend feature. I don’t like that the main page is always cluttered with “top 10″ lists.

    The problem is finding users that digg stories with interests of my own. If this feature turns out to be useful I’ll get more fulfillment out of digg.

    I think the term “friend” is misused here … perhaps it should be “respected user” or something to that effect. This is really the way I’m using the feature.

  46. Michael Fomkin

    March 7th, 2007 at 9:22 am

    There are so many site like digg today.

    Michael Fomkin

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