Branding, PR and Relevance

it is all about that. it is valid simply because it´s main point is to settle their relevance for good, and as Technorati has already proved the most inmediate relevance is in Blogs.

it is just PR,Branding and Relevance.

It think that alone makes it worthy for diggs, in the users case, t is the same thing, you are using the digg widget most likely if you want to put context info to your blog or because you have posts that have been dugg in digg, hence the user seeks for relevance, pr and branding too..

We did consider your post and while it is valid we have a slightly different take on it. In order for a site like Digg to really thrive it needs to have a much wider user base. The diversity of the users in our opinion will bring more to Digg. The limited user base and power users have already shown that it can dictate the Digg system. This won’t change until there is more diversity.

Additionally, there are much more consumers of information than blog publishers. While not scientific, we know many more people who read blogs and read Digg than people who write blogs or “digg” posts. Why alienate the consumers and limit traffic? This goes to the diversity point too. Also, there are many users who use Digg that belong to social networks but do not blog. What about various other start pages, portal sites, etc.

Ultimately, we feel that the widget is nicely built but it seems to lack a real point. If 95% of the widget functionality is available via RSS feeds then what real value does the widget add? If users can consume the information via RSS, blog widgets/plugins or RSS widgets, then what does this widget bring to the table?

There are a few good things and we especially give them credit for the added domain filter and ease of use. We just hope that there’s more to it than this…

Update (2007.7.26):

We decided to illustrate the power of existing RSS widgets/readers and the existing Digg RSS/OPML feeds. The top featured widget on this blog right now is the Grazr Widget (JavaScript). What we like about this widget is that it is very powerful and full of features.

In about 10 minutes we were able to go to Digg.com grab an existing OPML file from their site, make a few minor text edits, grab a GrazrScript file from Grazr.com, make a few minor edits and the result is… A very functional RSS reader with the ability to search Digg.com. Granted it’s not perfect, it does not have the Digg count nor the domain filter. So in the end, Grazr has its limitations and drawback too.

We just wanted expected more from Digg.