Changes to the Digg template and feature set discussed by Kevin Rose August 22 are now live.
The biggest change with the new look Digg is the inclusion of video on the front page. Other changes include tweaks to page and story summary layouts, streamlined navigation, and more customization options.
Stories are now able to be buried in one click as opposed to the previous two click procedure. Story submission has also been streamlined.
First impressions: I’m not sure yet. Drop down menus have replaced the previous tree style content directory at the top of the page, and the overall look feels a little more feminine; the strong colors used in the old Digg template have been replaced by lighter, nearly pastel colors at places. The inclusion of videos on the front page seemingly interrupts the flow of Digg stories as you scroll down the page.
Digg’s Daniel Burka writes that the changes have been made following consultation with Digg users, so perhaps the new look will be well received and I’m being a little bit too picky. Comments on a number of Digg threads covering the changes seem to be running at around 50/50 for and against.
Update: a tip from Aidan Henry via Skype: the story pages have more advertising, with the previous Leaderboard now having a 300×250 rectangle ad below right of it above the fold. Both spots were showing animated ads when I was viewing them, which suffice to say is rather annoying from a user perspective.
Somewhat minor changes, but very very nice anyway. I really like how the design is looking, but that’s just a sugarcoat to the features etc.
They should put the screenshot of the video to the right of the title. Also, the screenshot is a couple of pixels taller than the yellow box + digg it area to the left - if they were the same size, it would be slightly less distracting.
Eli
I’m still exploring them but certainly the interaction side in terms of burying and site submission makes it pretty major in my book. Looks side though you are right, minor, but why do I still feel it’s softer and more fluffy looking?
Pretty soon the PHOTO section will debut - it will be interesting to see if that is included on the homepage or made isolated like Podcast still are:
http://www.freezepage.com/1188279057BMLFEEQQPC
…This is how the new Digg looked the very minute it went live
This is peanuts compared to what’s coming in a few months.
I have started frequenting Digg lesser after the comments got threaded..I am not sure if its only me who’s system starts to hang when I click to view comments..
@#5
What’s coming up apart from the image section?
yeah anand…after last redesign I can no longer use digg using firefox. After this current one, even Opera is starting to freeze. Is it me or sites like digg get tested on the most expensive machines avaialble srewing over your average user(and my system isn’t that crappy either, was top of the line a few years ago)
Personally I think the digg layout looks like ass, they made it uglier. The popular/upcoming tab new location is plain retarded…it should be over the actual posts like it used to be. And the current layout for sections is adding extra steps
Have they updated the fact that a majority of the users are single-minded preteens who are incapable of even acknowledging ideas different to their own (ideas like: people who don’t worship at the alter of Steve Jobs aren’t actually part of a human subspecies called “Apple Haters”)?
I think it gets more and more clean and beautiful
I fail to see how Digg is interesting from a reader’s perspective. How is it anything more than a collection of below-average links for them? The quality of comments is absolutely terrible. Only a small percentage of visitors even bother to digg stories (right now, the most popular story in the last 24 hours has only 1866 diggs). Even smaller percentage of visitors care about upcoming stories.
Jason,
Given Digg’s popularity, you might want to consider the possibility that its readers don’t consider its links to be below-average.
Stephen, Digg is not a popular site when it comes to repeat visitors - (http://www.quantcast.com/digg.com, only 14% of its audience is classified as regulars and like I said the number of diggs that stories get is quite low), so this does indeed show that its readers do consider its links to be below-average. Due to its popularity among webmaster looking to promote their websites, Digg’s visitors come from “Digg this” links on other websites and from search engines that often rank Digg’s stories above actual stories, even though Digg adds no value whatsoever.
What we need is Digg 2.0 Smart Version, with upgraded user intelligence.
Something must have happened because the site has been down since around 10 last night (Arizona Time). I just checked it (3:52 AM Arizona Time) and it’s still down. What’s funny though, is that Reddit is throwing 500 errors now.
I was on there earlier and didn’t even notice the change.
I only became aware of the change after read the headlines.
But that’s not a bad thing. I don’t think Digg have got too much of a license to change things around too much.
And to be fair, the website works pretty well…
Rumour has it ole Don Juan himself, Kevin Rose implemented these changes to impress new jailbait squeeze Lindsay Lohan! Or maybe I just woke up funny.
Don’t know if TechCrunch should be criticizing any site for its advertising…..there 16+ ads on this page, with many competing animated ads!
I was kind of hoping for something a bit more substantial in a Digg update. Getting Digg Images doesn’t excite me that much. I’d rather see some relating to how friend see what each other is digging.
We were promised OpenID support at the last Future of Web Apps conf. What happened to that?
@James L: Right on!
i too object to the softer, more feminine design. next thing you know there will be girls in our treehouse. i always say - a nation is only as strong as its trains are on time and its web apps are manly!
Hear hear, Mr. Kirkpatrick!
Ah the beauty of Firefox, I didn’t know there is a big ad block until I saw the image above because it is removed by FF adblock and / or greasemonkey script.
Thanks for all the input, folks. Interesting idea…”Smart Digg.” Anyway, some of the changes will make more sense as we release new features in coming months. In any case, we’re reading all of the feedback.
Thanks,
-jay
Lancelot, same here.
I wonder what percentage of Digg’s users are using AdBlock/Etc and never even see the ads? It would be interesting to see if there are any stats on this.
Websites are always evolving as we get new ideas. I’m sure this will be an improvement for Digg. Jim Westin, http://www.fastandfreeinsurancequotes.com/
People miss the whole premise and point of digg…….it’s not a news site, it’s a community commenting system based around link sharing.
People don’t go there for news, they go for the comments, half the time people don’t even click the news links, they just read the comments and even target first the buried comments over the non buried ones.
People crave community and interaction. Digg does that under the pretense of news, but you could take away the links and people would still visit.
Digg is a community of 12 year old males bashing each other into submission, there’s nothing wrong with that as it provides a place for kids and you can make money.
Copy digg.com call it ’smart news for smart people’ and instantly you’ll get on digg and probably build an audience…….of course all the digg loyalists will flood your site and make it crash, but hey you might get some of the people who have left digg because it’s a pre school.
M
Advertising? I don’t see any advertising…
personally I think the diggs site is looking better all the time as well as getting easier to navigate
http://1stopinsurancequotes4u.com