Social media is extremely powerful and scalable. It leverages the crowds to spur rapid growth. However, the very mechanism that enables this growth is often exploited in a counterproductive manner via cheating and “gaming”.
The basis of social media revolves around user participation and crowdsourcing. The ultimate goal is to provide the best quality content via a combination of user-generated content (UGC) and a filtering process. In theory, the larger the user base, the more likely the best content gets highlighted.
There is a fundamental problem with Digg. The site tends to favour content from big blogs and media publishers. Meanwhile, content from less prominent blogs and web-publishing entities remains in the shadows, unknown to most. This isn’t the fault of Digg itself, as the site relies entirely on user voting and participation. The flaw in the system can be traced back to the perception of users.
I read an amazing article the other day that reflects my thoughts on the blogging world to a tee. Famous author and blogger Doc Searls distinguishes the difference between blogging and flogging. It all comes back to the short attention span of bloggers and the high output of thoughtless posting.
Almost every blog has a blogroll. It is the notable list of links to other blogs that the author finds interesting and/or valuable. Most bloggers find it easy to add blogs to the list. But for some political reason, many find it hard to delete such links as they want to steer clear of potential tension created with the affected party.
Aidan Henry is an Internet strategy consultant, designer, and web entrepreneur.
aidanhenry (@) hotmail.com
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