Diddit, a new site launching today to the public, is looking to help you check off all the things you’ve done with your life, and discover new things that you’d like to do. The site allows users to browse through thousands of activities in categories ranging from the bars you’ve visited to “Bizarre Retro Candies” you’ve eaten at one time or another. To coincide with the launch, Ludic Labs, the company behind Diddt, has also announced that it has closed a $5 million funding round led by Accel Partners with KPG Ventures also participating.
At first glance, the site seems a little pointless – I don’t particularly care if my friends know that I’ve eaten Pop Rocks during my lifetime or that I’ve visited AT&T park (though I should note that I had similar thoughts when I first discovered Twitter). But after exploring the site a little more thoroughly, I can see why it might become very addictive.
For one, it’s a great place to look if you’re trying to think of things to do during a day trip or a night out on the town. Interested in California’s Gold Rush? Check out the list of historic museums, parks, and landmarks that focus on just that. Want to experience Polynesian culture in the San Francisco Bay Area? They’ve got a list for that too.
But the site isn’t just focused on destinations – it has sections for just about everything you could have experienced, including books, movies, games, and foods. If you’ve discovered a new author you’re interested in, there’s a decent chance you’ll be able to find a collection of their best works, along with reviews from other users.
Every item in a list – be it a book or an amusement park – has its own profile, which offers a listing of user reviews, ratings, and other essential information (the profiles are very similar to those seen on Yelp). And while today is the site’s first official unveiling, it has quietly built up a user-base of 10,000 who have shared 750,000 items, so there’s plenty to read about.
Diddit shares many features in common with a number of other sites (for example, Yelp offers a huge library of user reviews and lists, as does Amazon). But its broad scope and already-thriving community may help it get a foothold, especially if it can acquire dedicated users who genuinely care about building up a list of their accomplishments (diddits) and To-Dos (wannados).
Wow, this is the perfect “things to do” application to use in connection with any sort of app like latitude that is location aware. Having planning features and letting people do activities together in groups or clubs would be fun.
Finally instead of more tools to do random pointless stuff online, we can take that same motivation out into the real world!
I wish this was around 15 years ago when my dad dragged the fam on a Canadian train foliage color tour. LOL!
Do web developers have any concept of the software release cycle and what alpha and beta actually mean? What is Alpha the new retarded trend rather than the infamous Beta now? Alpha is supposed to be release to internal testing, not the public.
Looks pretty interesting…
I like the layout and the community idea, I just don’t see people investing that much time keeping everyone up to date on these things. There are travel sites that already fulfill giving us this info.
But what do I know, people waste their time using and reporting on Twitter all day.
43 things?
More like 43 sites diddit 43 times over already.
NEXT
Cool name, cool concept.
Diddit needs a Kama Sutra interest channel. Talk about your social to-do list!
seems like an interesting app
Pointless? No.
Actually interesting? could be.
Actually fun and addicting? again, could be to some ppl.
Any business model here? No.
I’ve been using diddit for a few months now, and I absolutely love it. It’s a great way to get ideas for trips or weekend activities. Totally addicting.
$5M? I thought the bubble was over and all the VCs were hiding.
Are you kidding, someone just gave $2 million away, so some chimps could make web polls.
Agree with greg. This seems a lot like 43things, (http://www.43things.com), 43places (http://www.43places.com)
All Consuming (http://www.allconsuming.net/). And it’s been around much longer. But let’s see what diddit adds.
Just took a quick whirl through it…
It’s kinda like they took all those “Likeness-type” Facebook apps and unified them in another site.
Now all they have to do is allow users to add photos, status updates, and … oh wait… users already have “walls”.
5 million dollars??? I swear, I don’t believe there’s a recession out there if a site like this is being backed by 5 million.
Hope he kissed his 5 million goodbye before he gave it away.
Looks like a lot of fun.
The quality of lists is surprisingly good for user-generated content. It will be interesting to see if that continues as the community gets larger.
The layout isn’t so nice for the iPhone in Safari, but I think that interesting lists could make for a fun iPhone experience.
For travel and other stuff like exhibitions or books, good idea if used wisely and wide.
But $5 millions, specially nowadays, sounds a like a strange joke.
Great idea! {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/ToOARuyYSj_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”Great idea! ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/qE2zd2sLZF”}}}
Stop making video comments, it’s dumb and no one wants to watch them.
OK OK, WE GET IT!!! YOU HAVE A WEBCAM, AND NOW YOU FEEL YOU CAN PUT YOURSELF UP ON THE INTERNET. PLEASE DONT, UNLESS YOU HAVE A PERSONALITY AND ARE SOMEWHAT ENTERTAINING. DONT GO TO ALL THE WORK OF DOING A COMMENT LIKE THAT. DO A DOCUMENTARY GUY. YOU SUCK. GOOD LUCK LIVING AT HOME WITH YOUR PARENTS.
Not having an option for Facebook Connect is dumb, and leaves that flank open for competitors.
That is a great point and a very important feature. We are going to roll that out just as soon as we get through the fB Connect approval process. Look for support soon and thanks the interest.
this comment section sure smells like funding envy
Interesting concept.
However, why didn’t they name themselves DidIt.com? Can you imagine how much traffic they’ll lose?
It’s funny to see that didddit.com (3 d’s) is forwarded to diddit.com (2 d’s), but didit.com is a separate entity.
Could be that another company already owns the name? *smacks forehead*
In many many ways, Diddit.com is similar to my company’s FanBash.com. Where the list building approach on Diddit focuses on personal to-dos and experiences, Fan Bash centers on sports lists anyone can rank and edit.
As far as list creation and item adding, our mechanisms are very similar. Fan Bash was online first, but props to them on the funding.
Our “business model” is to sell ads and then sell the site. It’s a bootstrap operation with virtually zero expenses. Not my first go around with this model, so I know it’s viable. I’d like to know their plan for providing a return on the $5M invested.
Overall, I just find it very interesting to see the same core concept and mechanisms for list building, but vastly different approaches to content (personal to-dos and activities vs. sports) and funding (VC backed vs. bootstrap).
Sigh..another clueless techie starts an app that does…really nothing interesting…and has no business model.
How are you going to monetize it?
Sites like this are interesting for about 5 minutes, then people move on and never come back.
I hope new online businesses can promote their url’s for free on there