Chris Pirillo » digg

Digg Hires Editors to Bring You the News Faster

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 05:11:14 +0000

Digg Hires Editors to Bring You the News Faster

Digg has always had trouble getting the hottest news to you as quickly as they would like. With the way things used to be done, it could take hours for users to submit a story and vote it up. From now on, there will be editors on staff to make sure headlines make it onto the site as quickly as possible.

“Starting today, Digg will add a breaking news/interesting stories module that will be managed and curated by Digg’s community team. This team will aggregate stories that they think should be on the Digg front page but haven’t garnered enough votes by the community yet. These curated modules will appear on the top right side of the Top News, My News and Upcoming pages.”

Do you think this move will make Digg more viable as a news source?

Don’t forget to stop by our software center to see what’s new today.

Digg Hires Editors to Bring You the News Faster

Digg is Laying Off 37% of Its Workers

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:43:37 +0000

Digg is Laying Off 37% of Its Workers

Not long after laying off 10% of its staff, Digg is now adding another 25 heads to the chopping block. That’s approximately 37% of the current staff, folks. The company also lost CRO Chas Edwards earlier today. He is reportedly moving into the startup realm. According to founder Kevin Rose, the company will be refocusing the Digg product and more announcements will be made tomorrow.

Company CEO Matt Williams attributes the cuts to the deep financial loss Digg is operating under right now. With these layoffs, the hope is that it will once again reach solvency in 2011. The problem is, though, is that much more is needed than simply giving hard-working and dedicated people a pink slip. The service itself has suffered in recent history. There need to be some massive changes in order to breathe life back into what some people are calling a dying dinosaur.

What are your thoughts?

Don’t forget to stop by our software center to see what’s new today.

Digg is Laying Off 37% of Its Workers

DiggMixer for the iPad – The Perfect Way to Control Your News

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 07:42:20 +0000

DiggMixer for the iPad – The Perfect Way to Control Your News

DiggMixer helps you control the news and stories that you want to see – and hides the ones you don’t. There are even faders included in the app which will control how many stories you’ll see within each topic. This is an unofficial Digg app built with the Digg API.

The app boasts ten features that you won’t find in any other iPad news app:

The mixer lets you control how much content is visible in each topic.
A trashcan holds old stories so they never reappear (unless you look in the trash).
Save stories to your favorites list so you can read them later (even if trashed).
Stories are grouped by topic and sorted by popularity.
A “More” button can fetch older stories if your list runs low.
A timer can automatically fetch the latest stories.
All top level comments are visible and sorted by popularity.
Dual refresh buttons: one for the feed and one for the visible story/comments.
Post comments directly from the app.
Vote for comments and watch them move up/down in the list in real time.

Organize your stories into three lists: latest feed, favorites and trash. Stories are sorted by the number of diggs and are grouped by topic. Comments are sorted by popularity. When you vote for comments, they are automatically re-sorted based on the most current popularity.

Even if you aren’t a fan of the normal Digg site, you’re likely going to enjoy this app. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “power of choice.”

DiggMixer for the iPad – The Perfect Way to Control Your News

Goodbye iFrame Toolbar – Hello Sites Now Unbanned on Digg.

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:19:30 +0000

Goodbye iFrame Toolbar – Hello Sites Now Unbanned on Digg.

Things sure are shaking up around the Digg offices this week. On his first official day as CEO, Kevin Rose has laid out a few interesting changes which should vastly improve the popular social networking site. The DiggBar we have all come to hate is going to finally disappear in the upcoming version of the site. Additionally, all previously banned domains will have their restrictions removed – not including those sites with malicious intent.

With surprising candor, Rose admitted that the toolbar was a mistake from the beginning. “Framing content with an iFrame is bad for the Internet. It causes confusion when bookmarking, breaks w/iFrame busters, and has no ability to communicate with the lower frame. It’s an inconsistent/wonky user experience.”

Both of these are positive moves for the site in my humble opinion. I have read thousands of rants regarding the toolbar, and I have a feeling that no one is going to miss it. Do you Digg? Are you looking forward to the changes? If so, you can sign up to beta-test the new version now. If you do, let us know what you think!

Your computer will “Digg” the hottest new software and apps that we’ve placed on our software center.

Goodbye iFrame Toolbar – Hello Sites Now Unbanned on Digg.

The Digg Effect

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:10:31 +0000

The Digg Effect

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I promised that after we made the front page on Digg for my recent article about the Top 100 Mac Apps, I would give away an Apacer USB stick. In order to win, you had to have Dugg the story, and be present in the chat room.

We used a GoToMeeting during this giveaway. I let one of the participants be there person to scroll through the names list, and my video encoder Kat told him when to stop scrolling each time via Ventrilo. GoToMeeting is a great way for you to get people together and have live meetings, share desktops and information, and the like. You can get a free 45-day trial by clicking the link at the beginning of this paragraph.

Ok so let’s get this show on the road! The first person chosen was Bughouse. Unfortunately, he didn’t answer our call, and was found to have been idle for 21 hours. On to the next person! Second up was nvista. He doesn’t show as idle, but he never answered us or provided a Digg link. The third person chosen was dontknowanything. Excellent! They’re present in chat! Wait, what? Ohhhh well dang. No Digg account. That’s a requirement for this particular giveaway. Let’s try again…

Finally! Neoyoshi1 was chosen, is present in the channel, and pasted his Digg account link immediately. We have a winner!! Congratulations!

Thank you everyone for continuing to support us, Digging those articles, and leaving so much feedback. I appreciate it more than you know.

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The Digg Effect

Digg is Worth More than $60m

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 01:17:40 +0000

Digg is Worth More than $60m

The Kevin Rose cover story in BusinessWeek magazine has been receiving a lot of attention in the blogosphere. The cover claims that “This Kid Made $60 Million In 18 Months.” Pundits are largely taking umbrage, as collected by ValleyWag:

I agree with what some of these guys are saying: the number is wholly inaccurate. Kevin and the Digg brand are likely worth twice that amount.

Community is worth its weight in gold. So, let’s have every Digg member submit their weight and then compare that resulting number to today’s gold prices. My guess is that it’s slightly more than ~~$60m~~ $200m. Bubble or no bubble, COMMUNITY LIKE THIS DOES NOT DISAPPEAR!!!
Brand is worth twice the amount of your community. Again, let’s do some weight measurements here.
Kevin’s a good guy – genuinely. I knew this from the first time I met him on the Call for Help set (he was sitting with Cat and Morgan in the chat area for TSS). And you know what? I’ll trade one Kevin for a hundred Silicon Valley snakes any day of the week. A good guy is priceless (especially in this industry).
I bet any businessperson on this planet would give up their testicles (or ovaries) to have the power of Digg at their disposal. How much is that worth? Digg is just getting warmed up.
Let’s just stop and think about how much revenue has been generated from the sites that have been digg’ed. Not Digg, itself – the pages that get featured. That number is likely in the millions, I’d imagine.

Now, for those who would quibble over BusinessWeek using the word “made,” I offer you a definition from Answers.com. According to them, “made” is an adjective:

Produced or manufactured by constructing, shaping, or forming
Produced or created artificially
Having been invented
Assured of success

Uh huh… so, what’s the problem with “made” here? As with any word defined in the English language, it only needs to assume a single meaning. I read it as “Assured of success.” And yes, I believe that Digg (and its entire community) is worth more than ~~$60m~~ $200m today. Then again, I’m an idealistic sonofabitch. Even if Kevin was a billionaire, I’d still insist on buying lunch for him.

I went back and corrected the numbers – though my position still stands. The value of both Rose and Digg are beyond imagination.

Digg is Worth More than $60m

The Myth of the Press Pass: Busted

Chris Pirillo — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 17:35:10 +0000

The Myth of the Press Pass: Busted

I apply for (and receive) press credentials for industry conferences run by large corporations – in many cases, they need help getting the word out about what happened at their event. Gnomedex isn’t like other conferences, though. Robert Scoble and Steve Broback speak the truth. While we didn’t quite lock “press” out of Gnomedex, we made it clear that we only had a limited amount of space for registered attendees – people who paid to be there. I’ve (luckily) never been faced with a situation where I had to ask: “Which person would you like me to kick out so that I might accomodate your needs?” But there’s a method to my madness, and it has most certainly paid off in terms of front-page coverage in the Seattle PI. Let me explain.

Todd Bishop is a reporter, and a damn good one. He has a fundamental understanding of what Gnomedex is – and how important it has become in the eyes of developers, users, producers, evangelists, and vendors. He was a registered attendee, and I have the Mollyguard record to prove it. He came there not necessarily as a media pundit, as no respectable journalist would promise coverage in exchange for guaranteed admittance. Instead, Todd came as a technology enthusiast – and (I believe) the only local media in attendance. The exclusivity factor was through the roof (though not planned). How much was Gnomedex worth to Todd? That’s for him to answer. I can tell you this, though: as a conference producer, I’d take one Todd over a hundred press-passed people any day. Why? He was there because he WANTED to be there. And out of his passion sprang a front-page newspaper story, massive credibility and positioning with bloggers, as well as a front-page Digg link. Plus, I think he’s working on yet another story for the paper. Even if he came through the PI’s support, he was smart enough to ask for its help in the first place.

If more members of the press were like Todd, perhaps there wouldn’t be such a rift between traditional journalists and citizen media? I’ve had several conversations with this guy, and he’s not just someone who takes his job seriously – I really believe his efforts (inadvertenly or not) are helping the newspaper industry upright itself. He’s not just reporting technology, he’s learning and embracing it. I don’t know how accurate I am with my assessment of the situation in relation to Gnomedex and its coverage in the PI through Todd, but I believe I’m correct in the neighborhood of 90%.

I love the media (though I’m often accused of being an ‘attention whore’ in random Internet threads where my name is mentioned). I even want to help the media figure out how to move past slightly-outdated models and shrinking offline readership. Are they ready to listen – are they ready to be helped? Can we work on something together instead of spinning our wheels separately?

I believe “press passes” are important for certain conferences, but not others. If you’re charging thousands of dollars per attendee, you’ll need to comp out the wazoo. If every seat matters (for space reasons), then media comps become far less of an option. “Press passes” are also more important for events with low visibility – something which bloggers have made sure Gnomedex will never have. So, sometimes they’re good – but sometimes they’re not. I’m not trying to be Switzerland again, I swear. Over the coming days, there will be dozens of blog posts about the conference – both good and bad. More than anything, Gnomedex has gained a little more mindshare – strengthening the brand and enabling us to continue to complete our goals.

On a semi-related note, I’m more than a little disillusioned in the local tech crowd (generally speaking) – independents, small firms, as well as people from larger corporations. I can’t fault those who did not know about Gnomedex – but it’s the ones who could have come, who didn’t have previous plans, who weren’t busy with other things, who play in this industry and inside events like ours… I’m most disappointed in. This weekend was a tough one to work around, but if Canadians could celebrate Canada Day with us and not go home to sleep in their own beds… perhaps we weren’t offering enough value for Seattle? Perhaps we should take it to Los Angeles next year?

The Myth of the Press Pass: Busted