Digg CEO Jay Adelson talked about the new features offered by the popular social bookmarking site at the “Bigg Digg Schindigg” hosted by the South by Southwest Interactive Conference (SXSWi). Despite being unavailable at the moment, users can sign up for the Alpha version of the site by visiting Digg New.
In addition to personalized feeds, the new and improved Digg will also be revealing an updated version of its popular website buttons. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and OpenID users will be able to log into Digg from their chosen account.
According to an interview conducted by Mashable, “Users will be able to Digg and submit stories anonymously. Adelson says that this fundamental change will move the site from 20,000 submissions today to millions.”
Readers flooded online bulletin boards with comments and concerns. This is what they had to say:
meruru on 03/15/2010: “So as a user with no Digg friends, no facebook account, and no twitter account is my home page just going to be blank?”
mrjingleheimer on 03/15/2010: “Brace yourself for a facebook and twitter user invasion. It will not be a fun invasion. Don’t see why digg can’t just be digg, but at the same time I do: advertising revenues.”
radicaldementia on 03/15/2010: “I’m worried that Digg will be moving even further away from its roots and turning more into “generic social media site”. I don’t use facebook, twitter, or any of that nonsense, and I’m starting to get the feeling that digg is catering so much to those crowds that people like me will be left in the dust. But until I actually try out the new site, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume all upcoming changes will be loaded with awesomeness.”
Despite concerns, Digg’s Steve French had this to say: “Top to bottom, the entire company has been in overdrive for this project. There are amazing things coming, and I’m glad the screen shots and presentation didn’t spill everything we have in the works for you guys.
My favorite new feature… it’s blazing fast. There has been a lot of effort that’s gone into the architecture and monitoring of performance.” We all look forward to seeing this site take off and reach the top of the internet marketing realm.
About Brandon Leibowitz
