Sphinn - An Open Letter to Kevin Rose by Tamar Weinberg

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An Open Letter to Kevin Rose by Tamar Weinberg

Went Hot: September 7, 2007 - 8:28 am
Posted By: chriswinfield 667 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.techipedia.com)
Category: News Sites

Tamar lays it all on the line in an amazing letter to Digg founder Kevin Rose. The auto-bury problem has to be addressed... NOW.

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from ViperChill 667 days ago #

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Chris your quick ;), beat me by 20 mins haha

Great 'letter' by Tamar, hope this makes the Digg Homepage aswell

from chriswinfield 667 days ago #

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The domain that Tamar is writing about is 10e20.com (mine) and has basically been on auto-bury since I wrote this post: http://www.10e20.com/blog/2007/03/06/how-to-become-a-digg-top-user-without-doing-anything-shady/. That post was submitted to Digg and got over 900 diggs - it was about building up your account and making it more powerful (without doing it in a shady way). But as Tamar points out, since that time everything else has been on "auto-bury" even though many of the posts were easily coasting to the homepage...

From my perspective, it seems like anytime you write anything that could mildly be perceived as 'gaming' digg and especially if you do anything at all SEO related to boot - you risk the auto-bury....

I still love Digg and as many of you who know me can attest - sings its praises as a marketing tool and community in general but they really need to address this issue as a whole - once and for all.

Great post Tamar. It will be interesting to see if they respond...

from steaprok 667 days ago #

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Great post by Tamar, always insightful. Man! you guys are waiting by the feeds, beat me by 45 minutes =) Nice!

from graywolf 667 days ago #

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The bury featue definitely needs to be more transparent. Not only are domains hit by the auto bury feature but so are accounts. I've had an account where nothing would go popular, identical content from another user went popular and got 900+ diggs.

from ViperChill 667 days ago #

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In terms of accounts I'm sure its possible but just not so sure its in effect. Ive seen occasions of other people submitting content and it hitting the homepage. But these people also hit the homepage a lot more, have more friends and are more active on the site.

However I'm sure you have a better example (it was in a post of yours not long ago If im not mistaken).

from tomcritchlow 667 days ago #

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Interesting - looks like the story on digg got buried....!

from chriswinfield 667 days ago #

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Tom - It actually got submitted twice (basically at the same time) and there is actually one still going (for now at least)...

from tamar 667 days ago #

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Tom, it's Digg bury material. I wouldn't have expected it to even last this long. :)

from Qwest 667 days ago #

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Why is Kevin's ratio even a discussion point?

The majority of folks on there digg stuff just because it's Kevin.

People have well documented the influence of digg power users to boost your story. Kevin would only need a few power users to digg his story, but because he's Kevin he gets ALL of them digging his stories.

Nothing sinister about that I don't think. It's like wondering why the most popular person won the popularity contest....

from tamar 667 days ago #

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Qwest: I am well aware. That's also why I wrote this post, which you might like better - http://www.techipedia.com/2007/digg-friends-and-kevin-rose/

The point is that his ratio is not mathematically rational. He has more *popular stories* than *submissions*.

from Sem-Advance 666 days ago #

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Sounds like just another person whining, about a 3rd party company's method of operation.

Much like those who whine about Google which has the right to fight spam as it sees fit so to does Digg have the right to defend itself.

Don't like Digg ? Try reddit.....

And whats even more weird is people are waiting by feeds to post responses??? Don't you have sites to work on???

from tamar 665 days ago #

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Sem-Advance: see, there is a misconception here that should be addressed. Not everyone who posts on Sphinn is an SEO. Sphinn attracts a wide base of people with SEO at its core, but the community doesn't cater exclusively to SEOs.

Also, Google Alerts is a fine tool. It informs me when responses are posted to these threads so that I don't have to manually check for them. :)