20 May 2008

How do YOU spell "share"?

In the beginning there was DIGG. Which begat the DiggArmy, which sucketh both mightily and hard.

Actually, DIGG was far from first (Slashdot was far earlier and has a similar 18-30 year old males living with parents vibe; Fark is in the same boat, too) but it provided my first run-in with a large group of people (largely men, largely aged 18-30) who have nothing better to do than maliciously crash websites, start flame wars, and bait newbies -- not necessarily in that order.

DIGG bugs other people too: my hubby, Ryan Tomayko, and Wil Wheaton, among others.

Recently, I came across KiRTSY, the grrl-positive alternative to DIGG. You may have noticed the little "ADD to KiRTSY" button below each post. I really like this site because categories that make sense to me, including arts & crafts, and it seems... well for the moment anyway, a happy place. We'll see how long that lasts.

If "green" is your thing, there's HUGG -- which actually bills itself as "DIGG for green" -- personally, I'll pass; I get my eco-news from Green Daily.

If you're really curious, check out this long list of DIGG clones -- though be warned, many have already failed, bringing up 404 pages or domain parking lots.

1 comment:

Coffee Expert said...

My creative partner in Los Angeles wrote a compelling blog quickie on the final episode of The Sopranos (never watched an episode myself...)Digg caught it and it started appearing in a variety of aggregators [is that what they are called?] - on a typical Thursday, Bob has about 2000 visitors. By Friday after the posting, it had risen to 250,000... by Saturday 1.5 million. he had more visits in a 3-day period than in the previous 2 months combined - He actually shut down the site for 24 hours fearing for the hosting bill (it was $300 in over-charges that Month...)
Good or bad? Dunno. It was exciting, brief and weird.