So there’s a competition between Digg and the Netscape redesign, with the latter clearly imitating the former. That’s bad enough, but recently J. Calacanis suggested paying the top posters to Digg (and several other Web 2.0 companies) to get them to submit stories on his site.

My take is that by comparing Digg and Netscape you can see two different methods of creating and fostering community. Calacanis obviously thinks people are mainly motivated by money. True, however I would say the type of person that is going to follow money is ultimately a paid shill, and not the type of person I’m going to be interested in reading stories from. It’s just a few steps away from hiring posters to spread viral marketing ideas from big corporations that will ultimately make a site more commercial, biased, and therefore useless to the community. Plus what’s to stop some other website coming along and offering more money, and stealing these money-motivated posters from Netscape.

Then take a look at Digg Labs. It’s eye candy on one level, but after playing with it for a while, notice how the diggers’ names appear as they are digging stories. I strangely get the feeling of wanting to login, digg and submit stories just so I could see my handle floating among the blobs. There’s an aura of “I can be a part of this eye candy thing” just by contributing. So the stack and swarm can also be seen as encouragement to participate in the community. It’s inviting people to join in on this multiplayer game. Not a bad side effect from what is seen by many as just data driven special effects.

So to sum up, Calacanis thinks you’ll visit and post on Netscape if he gives posters money, while Rose thinks you’ll visit and post on Digg so you can be part of a cool interactive community. I simply have too much disgust for how money colors so many aspects of American society to be involved in the former. Digg on.

Categories: General, Technology :: Tags: :: Trackback URL
Front Page
Previous Post: Freaking Hot
Next Post: Move Almost Complete
Related Posts: Calacanis vs. Valleywag :: AOL Strangeness: Buy Out? :: Jason Calacanis on Blogging :: Highlighting The You Of Social News Sites ::