Online Community Digg

DIGG
Online Communities
Instituto de Empresa, Madrid
Master in Digital Marketing 2009/ 2010

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.
DISCOVER
SUBMIT
DIGG or BURY
SHARE
DISCUSS

The Virtual Circle for an online community: how to get the tipping point?
The goal is to reach "the level at
which the momentum for change
becomes unstoppable.”
The Tipping Point is about reaching
the Critical Mass.
Malcolm Gladwell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point

Life circle of a successful community:the case of digg
CONCEPTION
There are billions of stories out in the World Wide Web. Digg is the place to rank the most popular ones by the user.
Digg is a service to define story popularity on the Internet.
ADOLESCENCE
Digg started as an experiment and grew very fast. Today Digg works with categories and is add financed.
Digg is a tool to generate web success (“Dig Effect”).
MATURITY
Digg is adding several new features such as the Facebook connection or the DiggDialogg.
Will Digg manage to grow in the future?

The Virtual Circle for an online community:What has happened to digg?

Digg reached its Tipping Point

at the beginning of 2006

Digg got to the peak in late 2006
From 2007 on several new

players entered the market
(There are over 100 similar sites.)

Digg cam under criticism concerning

moderation, diversity of individuals
participating and tools like Digg Bar.

Digg does not meet the requirement

to change very fast.

The Success of online communities:A comparison between twitter and digg
Twitter has increased popularity among visitors
between 25 and 34 up to 45%, whereas Digg just
count on 20%.
Twitter receives traffic mainly from Social
Community platforms, whereas Digg relies on
Google referrals.

typical life cycle of a community member:How does it work?
READ
submitted articles
DIGG or BURY
selected stories
COMMENT & SHARE
certain stories and friends
SUBMIT
own stories and be top-ranked
LEAVE
the community

typical life cycle of a community member:Who is contributing and how?
Digg started in 2004, but from 2006 on the
numbers of registered users increased to
more than 2,500,000. But who is actively
contributing and how?
Digg is dominated by a few. It has been
reported that the top 100 Digg users posted
56% of Digg’sfront page content, and that a
niche group of just twenty individuals had
submitted 25% of the front page content.
Far from being a mass of opinion, Digg is
insteadshowing, primarily, the content
opinionsof just a few, select folks.

typical life cycle of a community member:What are the top 100 digger doing?

Membership length average is about 20 months;

Peak is about 33 months

91% of the Top 100 are very active within a month
1,369 stories have been submitted on average,

whereas 281 gone popular

25% of the stories hit the front page

Motivations and barriers to contributeto the digg online community
A little Digg love …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLLRsn_nr6s&feature=PlayList&p=39139A0FB522C3B5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=15

Motivations and barriers to contributeto the digg online community

too many stories and less chance to come on the front page
opinion of a few rather than the mass
unclear moderation and undemocratic votes
less functional for marketing due to Digg Bar and lower Page Rank

PEOPLE ARE KEY

make your story popular
receive the “Digg Effect”
read what is popular
be interactive: rate, comment and share
search for categories
be with the current trend
advertise “home-made”, cost free and fast

CONTENT IS KEY
MOTIVATIONS
V
S
BARRIERS

The “Digg Effect” was yesterday, but happensin the future?
Digg has to manage the
contribution problems and to
constantly innovate in order to
fight against competitors and to put
CONTENT rather than people into the focus again.
As many Web 2.0 concepts, Digg still is looking
for a sustainable business model behind to monetize
the service.

Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg
http://digg.com/how
http://jawadonweb.com/?page_id=922
http://www.pluginhq.com/analysis-top-100-digg-users/
http://forthardknox.com/?s=reddit
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/top-100-digg-users-control-56-of-diggs-homepage-content
http://telligent.com/communities/business/w/wiki/roles-and-user-types-within-a-community.aspx
http://www.socialtimes.com/2008/02/do-social-networks-follow-the-traditional-business-cycle/
http://www.slideshare.net/innonate/how-digg-can-double-its-revenue-and-not-piss-off-its-users-presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/kkjjkevin03/digg
http://www.slideshare.net/web25/15-ways-to-get-popular-on-digg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLLRsn_nr6s&feature=PlayList&p=39139A0FB522C3B5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=15