This guest post was written by Muhammad Saleem, a social media consultant and a top-ranked community member on multiple social news sites.
Most of us know the Digg story. All it took was a scrappy-looking kid with an idea, and lo and behold, online news discovery and aggregation were changed forever. Digg wasn’t the first social bookmarking (now social news) site, nor was it the first to popularize the concept. It was, however, the first site with a story that touched people, and helped the site outgrow all its competition and become an industry (and even mainstream media) darling.
So why does the Digg story sell so well? Here’s a look at 9 elements that make a good story – one that people embrace and propagate through their networks – and how Digg has taken those principles to heart:
1. A great story rings true.
Digg tells you a story about a world where the media is controlled by a select few. Whether it be mainstream media, or fringe media online, the story outlines a hierarchical system where a few people decide what is important and subsequently feed that to the audience. True here doesn’t mean that it has to be factually true (though the story of Digg is). David and Goliath is a great story but some would say it isn’t necessarily true. True here means that it is authentic and it is consistent. That the story is believed by those who create it and by those who propagate it.
2. A great story makes a promise.
After outlining the limitations of the existing model of news aggregation, Digg makes you a promise. The promise is that the site will put power in your hands. You get to decide what content is submitted to the site, and you collectively decide which submissions are important enough to be promoted to the site’s front page. With everyone getting an equal say, the content that is promoted is the one that appeals to a majority of the people on the site (or at least the most active users on the site). The site promises to reject any hierarchical system or spoon-feed any content to the community.
The promise is a bold one. It goes against conventional wisdom and as the underdog, the site promises to fight all odds.
3. A great story is trusted.
Unlike Slashdot and its small group of moderators, or Del.icio.us, which is decidedly more corporate, the Digg story is easy to trust. When it was started, Digg was the obvious underdog, started by a couple of idealistic kids that were doing it because they believed in the power of the people, and wanted people to have more control over what media they were exposed to.
People are generally mistrustful of authority and manufactured content, and therefore it was easy to fall in love with Digg
4. A great story is subtle.
Digg started of as quite idealistic and making huge promises. But ultimately the site said that it could and would only achieve what the community wanted to achieve. Digg is a platform that empowers you. Anything that is accomplished through the platform is up to you.
Digg is subtle in that it doesn’t force its ideals on you. Rather than pushing its ideals, the site draws you in.
5. A great story happens fast.
Fast not in the sense of Digg’s rise to fame (which didn’t take too long either), but fast in terms of user engagement. Digg’s initial design was very minimalist, and in fact I think it was the site’s best design to date. There was no need for flashy diagrams or longwinded speeches. A user could visit the site and within minutes know how to use it and start making a difference. From hearing about Digg to getting hooked on the site could take as little as a few minutes.
6. A great story appeals to your desires.
Like I said, Digg was the underdog and everything the site was doing was counterintuitive and against conventional wisdom (just like the entire concept of the wisdom of crowds, we’re much happier “chasing the expert” rather than entrusting people with decision-making). But it worked because it appealed to the people, and it appealed to our inner punk. Everyone wants to stick it to the man, oppose mainstream media, and collectively decide what information you and your peers consume.
The Digg story didn’t make logical sense to most people. But t appealed to the desires of enough people to make it a popular phenomenon.
7. A great story inspires a following.
Digg isn’t for everyone. Even today, my parents would never read or participate on Digg (they would much rather just read the daily newspaper). But you don’t have to target everyone. All you need is a passionate following from a small group of people and the phenomenon will snowball through natural social networking (think Apple).
8. A great story doesn’t contradict itself.
As the site was growing, the story was incredibly consistent. One user, one vote, no exceptions, and everyone and every site was allowed to participate with equal opportunity. As the site has grown and more and more people try to manipulate it, Digg hasn’t been as consistent as would be ideal. We saw this with the HD-DVD fiasco. The users are incredibly good at finding inconsistencies and when they do they aren’t very forgiving.
9. A great story agrees with your world view.
The wild popularity of social news is made possible today especially because of the general mistrust people have of mainstream media (which hasn’t gotten any better lately). To cite an example from Matt Mason’s book The Pirate’s Dilemma, “In June 2005, the major U.S. network and cable television stations arn 6,248 segments on the Michael Jackson child molestation trial… [And] a total of 126 segments ran mentioning Sudan.” People often complain that social news sites like Digg, only cover either extreme of the news spectrum. What they don’t realize is that these sites cover what the mainstream media won’t, and in doing so they give the people a voice they wouldn’t otherwise have.
The 9 elements of a great story are adapted from Seth Godin’s All Marketers Are Liars.
Note: It’s arguable that over the years Digg has lost its way a little and even betrayed some of the principles that made the site what it is today.
A great story is so overtold that it is like beating a dead horse.
Who gives a shit about digg anymore?
Who care?
Great article. As a ’sometimes’ Digg user (like maybe a few times a week) I am a little frustrated by the overwhelming amount of useless articles that I have to trudge through to get to the good stuff. While I admit this is most likely just a question of taste it seems to me that a large proportion of the sites users and the same as Digg’s founders – scrappy-looking kids. This is obviously drives a lot of the content that appeals to those type of people (young scrappy-looking people I guess).
There was this show on TechTV, the real TechTV, and you see Kevin Rose was on it, and for all his audience cared he could have started a used panty auction site, and they would have flocked to it.
People in non-US countries didn’t understand this, and thought that if they did the same, they too would enjoy the same success as Kevin. Not realizing where he came from and why people were on Digg. Then Netscape thought they had a past on TechTV, and they found out that they in fact did not. Then Intel got confused and they thought that they had a history on TechTV as well.
It’s not social bookmarking that made Digg. It’s Rose.
Digg is a very resilient web community. It manages to police itself and keep coming up with good content – and it keeps me coming back for more.
Maybe once Digg was cool, but now its all jobs-lovin’ fubuntu-runnin’ congressmen from texas.
Look at this new social bookmarking website http://popdup.com
Exactly. Rose hat star power amongst the geeks and they followed him. Albeit it, he did great work building the business but his previous following embraced the idea with open arms, no questions asked.
I’m a daily digg lurker, and every so often i actually digg content. If you step back and look at the commenting on that site it’s very easy to grasp the mentality representing a majority of the community. it’s pathetic the sort of comments are popular and unpopular with those people.
Digg has a major flaw IMO. it’s not a discussion platform, or made to be one. and thats unfortunate because the commenting section could be great asset to the site. the initiative falls on digg, but the execution is actually the users who need to grow up a little.
-faramarz
it’s relatively elementary why Digg is a success, if you want to call it that (i’ll personally call it a success story once they cash out)
1. founder, is a “scrappy-looking kid”
2. funded
3. promoted, marketed well
4. this is the Big one, digg has been generally widely accepted by the news masses – most of them have added the Digg button to their stories
Yea, the scrappy-looking kid who just happened to have access to a TV camera he could look into and go, “Look at this cool find.” Not really the average scrappy-looking kid with an idea.
This story will probably get digged.
I think this article points to a core fact: Digg had (emphasis on HAD) a great P.R. story. People were rooting for Digg (I know I did).
But now I think it’s time for the social media scene to – diversify. There are other major portals now like Propeller and Stumble Upon and then there are niche sites like http://NewsTrust.net which focus on a specific aspect (”quality journalism”). The scene is ready for people to go to what they find most interesting – I know, for example there is another site that focuses just on environmental stories.
As great as Digg’s PR story was (emphasis on WAS) it isn’t strong enough to hide the fact that it isn’t providing a great service anymore.
Hey guys, I use a website a lot! Hire me to consult on it for you!
dugg down for diggbait.
Top 5 reason why this techcrunch post ll get digged..
1. Uses the phrase “x reasons” in title (where 5<x<10) – check
2. Takes an extreme (positive or negative) view on something – check
3. Dumbed down technical details – check
4. Talks about Digg in positive light – check
5. I just digged it –
IMO Digg is frequented by guys in age grp 20-25 who have hard time getting laid.. (myself included:) again its just my opinion
did success is directly related to embedding the icons on other sites.
Buried for being potentially accurate.
I stopped at #2…
I think the primary reason for Digg’s success is that is an “empowerment technology.” It empowers people by making them feel like they are contributing to what is good/bad media and news. It also empowers the little guy to suddenly get a huge influx of traffic when he/she breaks a story.
Rose may have been a large part of it, but ultimately the site’s success comes from the serious value it has provided users on a personal level
http://www.leveragingideas.com
Digg is successful because it was 1 of the first few sites that bring interactivity to news sites. Back then, all you can do at most news site would be to read and email article to friend.
Reading the headings only was enough for me …. i think the “how to get Dugg” has been over done. I have no troubles getting stumbled mainly and all i do is post pictures and stories from my life in Japan.
Digg got popular because the exact same people that were being called the “old” media by it were incentivized to promote it. With promises of increased page views and better SEO, people added digg buttons. Maybe some initial popularity was related to Rose’s personality, but it succeeded past those initial stages because of Rose’s great marketing angle – every OTHER site on the web does his marketing for him.
How much power can be in any one pair of hands? Not much, it is dispersed.
meh – digg had lost my interest a few months back; Reddit + news.ycombinator.com + techcrunch keeps me more than informed on technical news and other ’stories’
The quality of content has dropped significantly on digg
It’s always easy to find success reasons for anything when looking backwards in retrospective, but it’s not that easy when you analyze a new service and bet that it will succeed or fail based on it characteristics.
Humans tendency to look backwards and analyze create a distorted sense of understandable reality, when in fact the real reasons for any success are not so obvious and mostly random.
@24, lol
all the cloner sites of today are realizing your conclusion.
nice perspective
things change with passage of time and so organisations/sites
@#4, can I get the url of that used panty site? For, uh, research…
lol
Muhammad, great post whatever people think of Digg itself
You have noticed and explained the most important factors in Digg popularity and have done so brilliantly.
That is all about “The Story Only”. If story is good, it could be sold anywhere, let the people about DIGG that’s different 9 ways from the same theme.
Digg gives us the power to vote.It is democracy at its finest. People feel more in control, and stories which are good and popular, are promoted more.
digg is a great site!! i check it our every day.
Additionally – it has to be submitted or shortly DIGG by a top member
This story was submited only 2 hours and 50 minutes before making the Digg Homepage – (most take 2/3 of a day)
Looking at those who first DIGG the story – there were MANY top members and friends of top members :-p
little intrinsic value to digg, but players may buy it for a lot of bucks… why that is true tells you what you need to know about america
Great writeup, Muhammad.
Gee what a surprise, this story was submitted to digg and people are digging the story up. The formula for getting onto the front page is so hard to figure out…
Digg is yesterday’s news.
Great writeup, very true,I have been a digger for about 2 years.Your article rings true as well as most of the comments.It would seem most of the posts that do become popular are submitted by the same people.I have posted a story a full five hours ahead of the most popular person to post, mine died on the vine, while the populars post went frontpage after 1 hour, 6 full hours after I had posted,Oh well, maybe starting to become a bit centralized as in main stream>>>?
Digg would return to it’s roots if it got rid of its user popularity contest. The concept of an article appearing on the front page should not be dictated by WHO YOU KNOW.
The economic crash is going to wipe Digg and many other ’social’ media sites to oblivion.
I’ve been thinking hard about that Gherkin. I’d really love to see a post which outlines what the repercussions are going to be for all of these new media/advertising revenue based sites if the economy crashes this year. Perhaps a little less partying and a little more work?
It’s a great story so who cares if we’ve heard it before? You’re not forced to read it or even digg it are you?
The beauty of the digg format is that you can bury articles you don’t like. Then hopefully other like minded users will do the same (if the article is spam, etc) and the story won’t be around for long.
Digg is in danger of being a victim of it’s own success though as they move more into the mainstream. Also they could do well if they regionalised their content so the rest of the world doesn’t have hot US topics (like the elections) forced down their throats.
“1. A great story rings true.”
How ironic, considering that Mr. Rose chose to introduce Digg on his show with deception, and zereo disclosure of his involvement with the site.
It seems the professional bloggers are churning so much out the occational ones are left in the cold.
“A great story agrees with your world view.”
Sigh. Shouldn’t a great story expand your world view?
And maybe Digg did that. But claiming that a great story is just an echo… well, why bother looking beyond your own mirror, eh?
Wow, such a bunch of praises. Pure PR. Almost looks like a paid article. Doesn’t matter – Digg is losing ground and word of praiser isn’t going to save it.
And this after Rose has admitted to the existence of the Bury Brigade. Hilarious.
Yawn. Try these reasons which ring true again and again:
1. It praises something to do with Apple
2. It mocks Microsoft
3. It mocks a big organisation or corporation
4. It promotes files sharing and theft of copyrighted content
5. It has a list of other sites that are billed as the complete list of resources for [insert generic topic] on the web
5. It contains a TOP TEN or NINE REASONS
This is what you really need to do if you want to rate well on Digg.
It would be a great story if they could sell it. Its a great story that the valley bloggers created because well lets face it they all want to be Kevin Rose’s buddy.
only some guys stories comes to main page even if its dump; Digg shld change its algorithm;ony msaleem ,mrbabayman make it to front page;
Digg might not be as straightforward as it seems anymore:
http://www.fokkinel.com/?p=25
They should sell now or they will be at risk of becoming an uncertain legend