My son just sent me email that said only, “it happened.” Digg.com passed Slashdot in Alexa (probably getting Alexa some new users along the way as well).
I plan on writing a longer piece on this – and I will probably get slammed for it – but oh well –
I see no competition between Digg and Slashdot. The real competitors for Digg – a closed community tagged/votted on/promoted content – are del.icio.us, furl, my web 2.0, and maybe sites like kuro5hin, plastic, mydd, and others.
Slashdot runs a different model, more like that of your own weblog – a select group or singular person decides what goes on the home page. A huge difference in methodology. The comparison between the two just doesn’t make sense.
So that’s two different ways to aggregate news:
1. Content selected by a closed community (you must be a member to effect content) of users who vote.
2. Content selected by an editorial team or single editor (you must be an editor to effect content).
There are two more:
3. Your aggregator – Content via your personally selected RSS feeds.
4. Algorithmically enabled aggregator – Memeorandum and Google News – Content selected via algorithm.
There is room for all four approaches on the web. The ultimate would be a service that combines them all in a way that makes sense.
They’re not really comparable – Alexa’s penetration among geek users (firefox and anything linux, which is a much higher proportion of digg and slashdot) is not great, therefore the real stats aren’t known
You could say that the difference between the first kind of news site vs. the second is mainly in the numbers of editorial staff – slashdot has a select few – a typical blog usually has less – and digg has thousands – but the difference is crucial I think. I still need to be a member in order to post – I still need to be a member to promote my news item. Another site that oft gets overlooked in these discussions is Metafilter. No editorial fiat there – no voting. If you are a member – you can get on the home page. The high level of quality at Metafilter has always blown my mind.
I don’t trust Alexa either James. In fact, I know of no one using their toolbar. Do you? Does anyone here?
Power to the People!
Good catch.
I plan on writing a longer piece on this – and I will probably get slammed for it – but oh well –
I see no competition between Digg and Slashdot. The real competitors for Digg – a closed community tagged/votted on/promoted content – are del.icio.us, furl, my web 2.0, and maybe sites like kuro5hin, plastic, mydd, and others.
Slashdot runs a different model, more like that of your own weblog – a select group or singular person decides what goes on the home page. A huge difference in methodology. The comparison between the two just doesn’t make sense.
So that’s two different ways to aggregate news:
1. Content selected by a closed community (you must be a member to effect content) of users who vote.
2. Content selected by an editorial team or single editor (you must be an editor to effect content).
There are two more:
3. Your aggregator – Content via your personally selected RSS feeds.
4. Algorithmically enabled aggregator – Memeorandum and Google News – Content selected via algorithm.
There is room for all four approaches on the web. The ultimate would be a service that combines them all in a way that makes sense.
They’re not really comparable – Alexa’s penetration among geek users (firefox and anything linux, which is a much higher proportion of digg and slashdot) is not great, therefore the real stats aren’t known
You could say that the difference between the first kind of news site vs. the second is mainly in the numbers of editorial staff – slashdot has a select few – a typical blog usually has less – and digg has thousands – but the difference is crucial I think. I still need to be a member in order to post – I still need to be a member to promote my news item. Another site that oft gets overlooked in these discussions is Metafilter. No editorial fiat there – no voting. If you are a member – you can get on the home page. The high level of quality at Metafilter has always blown my mind.
I don’t trust Alexa either James. In fact, I know of no one using their toolbar. Do you? Does anyone here?
I agree with Karl on this, two very different models, but they are going for a similar audience who reads the sites and follows the front paged posts.
And I always laugh when Alexa ratings are lauded. It’s something that you want to get rid of, not want on your browser.