Digg Case Analysis: Why technology people are important users

I've always thought Digg was the one I missed. A Web2.0 application, want to study and research, thank Tintin for the translation!

Digg Case Analysis: Why the technical crowd is an important user original author: Nisan Gabbay
: Thunder Rain Big
Original link: Digg case study:why techies are a important audience
Original publication date: October 15, 2006

Why does this case analysis from December 2004 to the present, Digg has become the success of Web2.0 typical. Digg is a Web site that provides news content, an editorial system that is counter to the traditional layers of auditing. Digg users submit news footage, and other users decide whether the material will be on the homepage of the site, rather than the editor's decision. While Digg does not fully conform to our previous success criteria (they have not been acquired, listed or generated high revenues), their site has reached a high level of traffic in just two years: 600,000 registered users, 10 million PV per day, 1.5 million independent visits per day, and 10 million independent visits per month. Digg has also had a profound impact on online journalism, and many veteran companies in the industry are concerned about Digg's success.

Interview: Jay Adelson,digg.com's CEO and co-founder, Mike Maser, vice president of Digg.com Market, and two other reputable news sites who were reluctant to disclose their identities.

Success factors use transparency to attract the providers of news materials

When Digg is on the line, it's a priority to attract core users who can take the time to submit news footage to Digg. Today, attracting material submitter is no longer the principal contradiction, but it can be different in the early days of the website development. Now that Digg's readership has 1.5 million independent visits a day, Digg can bring significant traffic to the original author's website, so the original author will have the incentive to submit the content. 600,000 registered users, as well as more than 5,000 news footage submitted daily, make Digg almost never miss any interesting news. Now the challenge for Digg has shifted from encouraging users to submit content to how to get readers and the entire community to read the news that is most relevant to them.

At the beginning, however, the biggest challenge for any user-generated web site is how to motivate users to submit content to a Web site before the network effect has been formed. (Translator: Network effect means that the network itself can bring sufficient returns to the user submitting the content after the total number of users and content exceeds a certain threshold value, thus automatically motivating the user to submit content.) Digg addresses this problem in three ways: transparency, recognition of users, and competition among users.

The most valuable insight that Kevin (the founder of Digg) and Jay has in operating Digg is that many other news service users are dissatisfied with the "black box" of those services. In those traditional news organizations, the public submits news materials to editors. Editors review these materials and somehow decide whether or not a piece of material has news value. The submitter has no way of knowing why the content they submitted was not selected, and how many other materials were in front of them. Digg makes the selection process completely transparent. The submitter can learn what the content will be popular and use it to adjust what they later submit. At the beginning of the Web site, this feature attracted users to submit content to Slashdot (another technology news web site) while also submitting content to Digg and not even providing content to Slashdot. Transparent selection process is also a fun process for users, which makes users more willing to submit content. When I first submitted my news footage to Digg, I experienced the thrill of competing with my content and the content of other users.

Starting with transparency, Digg has further launched the ability to create cognitive capabilities in its community, and has introduced competitive mechanisms among top-performers. Users can compete with other users in terms of the amount of content submitted and the ratio of selected home pages. These features facilitate the establishment of an active and faithful submitter community.

A creative online news service that attracts readers

There's a lot of theoretical discussion about how Digg makes news discovery and promotion more democratized. I think Digg's success can be summed up in a more fundamental factor: people like to read news on Digg. These mature brands, such as Yahoo News and Slashdot, seem to have a strong user base, but Digg creates a more appealing product for users. The reasons for Digg's success in this regard can be summarized as follows:

1. Meet the needs of people and others to compare the inner need of view. It's amazing how much we need to let others test their point of view. We are always comparing our thoughts with the ideas of the masses, or trying to understand what the public thinks is "cool". Digg meets this need. Digg provides a transparent way to compare what you think is interesting with what the public thinks is interesting. (Original author Note: I used to study engineering, but I really want to be able to take some psychology and sociology courses at school.) I have found that understanding some of the essential needs of people is essential for designing Internet products that face consumers. ）

2. Bring surprise to readers. Digg attracts readers by bringing surprises to readers. Some strange news often surprises you. In addition, many popular content is useful technical tips or full of sense of humour. Such content is often not considered newsworthy by traditional news editors.

3. Readers ' comments and discussions add to the original. Digg lets users in. It provides an easy-to-use forum system for readers to express their views. The original content is further enriched by different viewpoints.
4. A steady stream of fresh content. Readers can choose to read hot news from any time period: daily, weekly, or every 10 minutes, and in the past one hours.

Kevin Rose's personal role

I think Kevin Rose, one of the founders of Digg, is a little bit more detailed below. 's personality and his public role on Digg played an important role in Digg's success. Initially, the user Aiwujiwu for Kevin's success and wanted to see Digg succeed. When Digg launched its first round of venture capital, some prominent Internet investors thought other better products would come online, surpassing Digg. However, we see that very good technology is not necessarily the dominant factor in success. Consumer-oriented Internet service is science and art. And Kevin Rose's personal role is an important weight in art. And this is hard for other competitors to replicate.

I also think Digg's podcast "Diggnation" has a big effect on their success. Although Jay and Kevin don't think this is the main factor of success, I reserve my opinion. The reason for Jay's diggnation is that it only started when Digg had a certain degree of success (more than 100,000 users). Diggnation is only downloaded 250,000 times a month, and only 2.5% of Digg users listen to podcasts compared to the 10 million per month of the Digg site's individual visits. However, this podcast fully demonstrates Kevin's personality and helps build a loyal user base. In addition, Kevin's previous experience as a TV Screensavers host was also very important to Digg's success. In the Start Policy Section I will introduce further.

Start strategy Digg An important early decision is to start by providing technical news. The Digg team considered applying the Digg concept to product reviews and other types of news, but they realised they should focus on the technology crowd. First, the tech crowd is receptive to new things like Digg. More importantly, Kevin Rose knows the crowd and has some influence on it. Before creating Digg, Kevin was the host of cable TV's TechTV television program screesavers. Digg's initial traffic came from Kevin announcing Digg online on his TV show. This left about 100,000 users immediately heard digg--a pretty good start.