Why Digg Users Hate Your Website
I’ve heard Digg users called many BAD THINGS: dumber than goldfish, revolting, cry babies, control freaks and – of course! – 25 year old virgins.
Others were less kind.
Like Michael Moore on a budget, I was overcome with a faux-naif sense of wonder. Just why are Digg users so damn unpopular?
I decided to digg out (arf!) my natty deerstalker and use a little ol’ fashioned detective work to find out for myself.
My first port of call was the Digg Top 100 users list. Digg, bless ’em, are sufficiently embarrassed by the behaviour of this motley crue of geeks that they’ve stopped publishing the list.
Perhaps, I thought, profiling the most successful Diggers would offer valuable insight into their complex, analytical minds. After all, successfully judging a website without visiting it must require staggering reasoning skills. Those sub-tabloid headlines and semi-literate 20 word summaries don’t write themselves, you know.
I hit pay dirt pronto. I discovered that a depressing number of the Digg stereotypes are true, assuming the power users to be a representative sample:
- 89% are male
- 72% are American
- 68% are under 30 years old
- 73% live with their mothers*
(* Only one of these is made up. The rest are based on Digg profile info, FaceBook/MySpace/Pownce profiles, info given on personal blogs etc).
Unfortunately, the ’25 year old virgin’ stereotype was a little harder to test (unless some of the profile pictures are an indicator). So I started to take a look at Digg Power user’s ‘favourite links’ for more insight into this mysterious creature – and more importantly, their agendas.
At least three run shonky homebrew Digg clones (and I don’t mean Mixx.com).
At least three of the top 100 are employees of Digg or the cheap Calacanis clone Netscape Propellor.
At least four of the top 100 are spammers ‘social media experts’ who specialise in manipulating sites like Digg for pleasure and profit.
At least one Digg power user is active – for cold hard cash, perhaps? – on a spammy Digg clone called, er, PaydayAdvanceUK.com (I kid you not) owned by Canadian company Blizzard Interactive.
At least one is a grown man who loves Warhammer 40,000 and is happy to admit as much in public.
Understand now why this bunch of misfits might not be interested in Digging your content?
PS. Er, best not to Digg this post.
Some great research here, but I have to pick a bone over one of your stats.
I think the live with mother one is a bit out – maybe 92%… of them
I had a plan late last year to try and start using Digg for promotion purposes.
Gave up – as you would have to spend literally hours and hours of your day schmoozing and building up a network with these creepy guys – only for them to not Digg you, as you’re not some weird social media addict who never leaves the house and gets tucked in by Mummy.
Cheers John
Dugg (only joking 😉