In case you haven’t heard, yesterday Digg removed the controversial “shout” feature that allowed users to share stories with one another. This feature was Digg’s only internal tool for communication that was put in place a little over a year and a half ago.
History
Shouts were supposed to even the playing field between ‘power users’ and the common Digger. This feature allowed users to select a story that they enjoyed and send it directly to their friends on Digg. Shouts did empower numerous Digg users and did help more stories gain awareness and become popular when otherwise they might not have. However, one major problem occurred, the majority of users abused this, and used it as a spammy broadcast tool. This turned off many long-time users who turned off shouts, or simply left the site.
Unfortunately, the problem with the system could not be fixed by just shutting it off. This add-on turned the site from a ‘pull-oriented’ site where users scanned the best submissions to a ‘push-oriented’ site where votes on stories with shouts were hyper-inflated. This bloated vote count would force the shouted stories to dwarf any regular submissions. A quality post that wasn’t shouted might receive ½ the votes (and visibility) as a story promoted using the shout feature. Much like the steroid era of the baseball, the majority of member began shouting all of their stories just to keep afloat.
The Resolution
Digg has been eventually tuning its algorithm to try to discount the value of shouts, but at the end of the day it simply wasn’t working. The first step in the direction of external promotion was the import of stories to Facebook that allowed users to share their Digg activity with friends. The DiggBar and DiggURL were the next steps to move away from shouts, as it gave users the power to share on both Twitter and Faceboook with ease. When they announced that they were moving to a “real-time” share system last week they finally admitted that the current internal promotion system was not working.
Now, all internal communication has been silenced and Digg is forcing its users away from the site to socialize. This makes sense for Digg, because they can possibly gain a larger audience. However, this is a risky move, as Digg is forcing users off of the site and onto other social sites. Twitter has already demonstrated that popular stories can be aggregated in a Digg like fashion.
What Will Happen to Digg?
After the shout-pocalypse I believe that Digg will be a better place from a content perspective. Average stories won’t be artificially inflated; articles will be back to being judged based on their content … not on who has motives behind it. Without inflated (and irrelevant) votes, the Recommendation Engine will become a better asset for its heavy users.
One major negative byproduct of this shift to external promotion will be the loads of user endorsements that will soon flood your Twitter stream, Facebook wall or your inbox.
Thoughts on the Decision
From a company perspective, I would never advocate sending users off-site for communication. Digg has always flourished because it truly was a ‘social’ site where you could add friends, images and links, this however is a step in the opposite direction.
I had always believed that it wasn’t the concept of the shout system that was flawed, rather that it was the allotted usage that was the culprit. When you allow all users to promote every story, the value of that promotion is voided, much like using the bold typography for an entire paragraph. I think a solution that would have pleased both parties would have been a 1 shout per 24 hour limit, so users could only share their best find of the day.
Conclusion
While this may be a large change for many users, this change should help to increase the quality of content on Digg. Whether you like it or not, the termination of shouts is now just another part of life, and another adaptation that active users will have to make.
Will it piss off those users that rely on shouts? Absolutely.
Will it make it harder to get your stories on Digg? Not if your content is awesome.
Will it add more Digg SPAM to Twitter, Facebook and Email? Without a doubt.
What do you think? Will Digg be better or worse without Shouts?
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I think that it will. I hated the Digg shout system and this now makes it a lot easier for everyone to share their stuff where they were sharing it anyway: Offline or online with their friends via Twitter, email or Im.
I agree. I still think that just one shout per 24 hours would be nice for all users (power & non-power) but at least this should bring it around full circle and be more about the content.
I agree with your suggestion of one digg every 24 hours. This will encourage people to use their digg carefully.
I have 173 unrtead ones that I'm never going to get too – truth be told, the shouts were often total BS anyway.
apologies on the spelling
– I meant to say unread shouts
"Will Digg be better or worse without Shouts?"
Much better. Less noise….
Hi Chris. I almost never checked my shouts, and many others didn't either, so noise on Digg was never a big problem. However, the noise level on Twitter has risen a few hundred decebels in the past 24 hours, even worse than FollowFriday noise. I am sure that will all get worked out in time (I hope), but right now it's noisy.
Nothing is worse than the #FollowFriday noise David
I agree twitter has become busier. How long is it going to be before users on facebook and twitter become unhappy with the extra entries coming through those sites all of a sudden.
Shouts theoretically are a great idea, but they get overloaded and come off as spam.
I generally agree with you. There are two big problems on the way.
1. Digg accurately diagnosed the problem, but over reacted in the solution. While one shout per 24 hours is fairly extreme, perhaps a shout per hour would have been reasonable, with a maximum number of friends you can shout to (Propeller allows just 25 shouts per go). Some form of limiting the number of shouts and the number of people that can be shouted to at a time (or the number of people that can be shouted the same story) would have worked better than sending people off-site.
David – I think that shouts would have worked (and flourished) with just one user per day. Before shouts existed, the site ran smooth and users actually browsed around much more. With all the friends submissions & shouts, and people shouting for a friend – the noise was just too much. 1 per day would force you to read more of the stuff in the recommendation engine and general submissions.
Maybe even 1 every 12 hours would be ideal, but I liked the thought of giving the shout more power. If users had a limited amount they would only share their absolute best stuff that mattered to them the most.
I think it will be better…at first.
Seems to me, people began migrating to twitter, IM, email, etc. as soon as the news came out (that shouts were being removed). Heck, services like: diggshout.com are even popping up. Eventually, it'll be as easy to share/promote your submission as it was with the shout system, but this time Digg can't control or filter it.
IMO Digg should have found a way to make their shout system work (not sure if 1 shout a day is that fix, though). Today, people are spending less time on digg and more time on Twitter & Facebook. Tomorrow the quality of front page stories will be the same (or worse) than they were before yesterday.
2. An off-site shouting system is already set up at http://DiggShout.com , which will hopefully help us avoid having our Twitter accounts flooded with nothing but Digg shouts. If the goal was to limit the power of the power Diggers, I believe this over reaction will have the opposite effect. Heavy submitters will joining DiggShout, Digg-specific Twibes and possibly other services, giving them access to unlimited shouting to their friends. The average Digg user submitting less frequently will be 100% shut out from the shouts they previously had access to. in other words, as imperfect as the shout system was, Digg just relinquished all ability to control it.
In the short term it might be all about the content, but in the long-term it will be more about what private club you belong to.
Thanks for the comment David! My two cents – I would be careful about joining any public groups, and the Digg TOU states that "manipulating or otherwise affecting the site in any manner" is cause for termination. This is blatantly pretty blurry, so I would just stick to awesome content and being a good user with targeted friends. Traditionally URLs with the trademarked "digg" term included haven't lasted too long either
The Digg shout system was a huge pain. For a while, I tried to keep up with the shouts but it took so much time that I could no longer look for good content on my own or write it myself. Then I realized that if a friend Dugg something of mine, it carried less weight than a submission by a stranger. This made it counterproductive to cultivate friends. I am not CollegeHumor.com or a power Digger so there was no chance of ever getting to the front page.
So though I'll miss the theoretical potential of making to the FP, in reality I won't miss shouts at all. But my question is, why would I go on Digg now? My friends were a built-in aggregator of stories that I'd like. But if I get inundated on Twitter or Facebook, I'll lose my mind. Hopefully, there will be a way to filter that out.
Digg SUX without shouts. Plain and simple. Whats wrong with those idiots for taking away shouts anyways???
Dnio
http://www.real-anonymity.pro.tc
They also got rid of some other features like blog it and share which is sad because those were pretty good features that really didn't drain their resources and could have been kept.
i think you should all get a life and worry about somthing more important that some shitty "shout" feature on digg. go spend time with real people rather than typing to someone you've never met online.
in short -
get a life.
~ps. get the hell over it.
1.find interesting title
2. read article
3. enjoy or not enjoy article you selected
4. ?????
5. profit.
its really not complicated.
I've always for the most part ignored the shout system but I can already see the spillover coming into Twitter for sure.
Your shout-limit method would have been more sensible. I only had 50-odd friends on Digg, so this doesn’t change an awful lot for me, However, I would have thought less poorly of Digg if we had been given some advance warning of the change, or even a notification on the site itself that the option had been removed. It was arrogant of the service to take away one of its fundamental (in my view) features.
I did think it was strange that they got rid of all already existing shouts sent to you. What if a user didn't have an opportunity to read them?
We at Gartner call this a facet of the Hostile Information Ecosystem. Your post is intelligently structured and good work. Glad I saw it.
I'm sure it was to streamline the process of everything they are doing. making things cleaner is not a bad thing.
HI looks very interesting! bookmarked your blog. john brightman
I've never really understood the value of Digg over the past year, unless you have access to a super-user who can get your story Dugg a hundred times in 6 hours and get you to the front page. The web development company I work for has some great new videos that would go viral, but how do you get that process rolling without a Digg "connection"?
Very nice post.
This article is really new! hehehehee I wonder if now digg is more on content submission!?
Digg really help me alot on campaigns.
Thank you about this!
The best option would have been the compromise you suggested – limited shout(s) every 24 hours or so. Why should I share stories with my friends in Facebook or Twitter that have to pass through Digg when I can refer them directly to the source?
I think it's a terrible idea because it will just drive people onto social media sites that have more meritocratic algorithsm, i.e. reddit. This article claims that the best content will get dugg no matter what, but that's simply not true. On Digg, lots of stuff falls under the radar. By comparison, sites like Reddit do a better job of categorising and weighting contributions so that everyone gets a fair shot at promoting their content.
With Digg shouts I was able to get about 150 diggs on my most popular articles. The shouting system just got the ball rolling, and allowed me to flag things up to my friend list (which I had filled with likeminded people who were typically interested in my shouts). Now the friends function is largelty pointless, and solid content I produce is liable to go completely unnoticed.
Digg is committing suicide. It's basically admitting to its users that its website is poorly designed and can't handle member interaction. Bad move!
Limited shouts once every 24 hours or so would have been good. Digg just killed a big part of their social system and their hardcore users. According to Alexa though they aren't growing at all. I think in the long term digg will eventually fade away, the only thing they really have that's unique is their name, and that fades quickly from the minds of the masses like most fads. At least better social networks like twitter are poping up where bloggers can share their stories.
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Provocative post. I also think Digg killed a big part of their system. My Digg activity has gone way down and so have my friends and fans. It is kind of like we are not sure what to do with the system now. Not everything that you Digg is approriate for Facebook.
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I can see where it would get out of hand. I didn't mind getting shouts from my friends. I found it was a good way to get my friends to see my articles, that they might miss otherwise. Now I get email sent to me from certain people on their Digg articles, which I think it more tacky.
I have seen a definite decrease in traffic to my articles now that the shout is gone. The bookmarks on Digg are no different than the ones that I had already used before uploading to Digg.