50 Websites That Control The Digg Front Page

When I found this story late last night, I had the sneaking suspicion that I wouldn’t be surprised by the sites found on this list to be controlling the Digg front page. I and many others who have commented on these findings are indeed, not surprised by the results. Soshable.com is reporting that 46.6% of the Digg front page is controlled by 50 websites according to data taken from di66.net

I remember a time when I was a Digg fanatic. The site used to be filled with all sorts of content that was hard to find without someone recommending it. Now a days, all I see on Digg.com is political stories, Apple fanaticism, and Microsoft bashing. Those three categories can be used to describe the Digg front page at any time. But every now and then, a stupid picture of a cat with illegible language text written on it makes the front page to offer up diversity.

But you know, even though it’s somewhat the fault of Digg and their spam algorithms as described by Soshable for not allowing diverse content to appear on the front page, much of what makes it to the front page is still user driven. Human beings voting for certain stories to make the front page. So with that in mind, the majority of blame should be shifted to those who actually use and participate on the site. When a website can be described as a bunch of political, Microsoft bashing, Apple fanboys controlling the site, you know that there is no diversity thanks in large part to a majority of people on the site having something to do with one or more of those three topics.

While Digg can still provide webmasters a huge influx of traffic if you’re lucky enough to make the front page, I as an end user no longer use Digg as my source for finding great information online. That has been replaced by those I follow on Twitter. The only time I ever come across a Digg article is if it is linked to by one of my online friends.

My only hope is that in the future, Digg is not looked at as an example to prove the ‘Wisdom of crowds‘ theory because if you take a look at the comments or some of the stories that make the front page, you might think that is the last place on the web where wisdom actually exists.

9 thoughts on “50 Websites That Control The Digg Front Page

  1. Yeah, I used to be a Digg fan as well. I remember the good ol’ days when they had chock full of original content on the front. Guess it’s hard to compete with all those big companies taking over the first page now. These sites have rediculous trafiic to begin with, all they gotta do is put a digg link on their post and voiala! they’re number 1

  2. I realized this whole fake thing about digg a long time ago. So I never used it. I have always remained a delicious power user and that will continue because of the top notch quality content that it serves…Simply Delicious! Recently I do use twitter because of its simplicity and ease of communication.

  3. The problem with Digg has existed for years now. While I continue to promote a few links on Digg, I prefer StumbleUpon over it anytime.

  4. Jeff is just an author of the site, which has little to no impact on design.

    Just because there happens to be a digg icon has no relevance to the content of Jeff’s post.

  5. Jeff is just an author of the site, which has little to no impact on design.

    Just because there happens to be a digg icon has no relevance to the content of Jeff’s post.

  6. Good take on the current status of Digg.com. I think it’s grown beyond it’s intention… that is as a user defined list of good sites.

    I personally never go to digg for anything. Only if I click a friend’s recommendation. And that’s rarely.

    Digg has become a parody of itself. Stumbleupon.com and Fark.com and others assume it’s “crown”.

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