Subscribe by EmailThe Worst of Digg.com
January 31, 2008 by Geeks are Sexy | 11 commentsI’m not sure if I’m the only one bothered about this, but have you seen the publicity that has recently started to air on Digg.com? Acne treatment creams, Anti-Age products, Dating services, and other assorted, spam-like ads.
This really leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Usually, only sub-par, crappy sites that resort to popups display such commercials, so why would Digg management accept these on their site? Are they assuming (Or the company that serves ads for them) that digg users are lonely, pimple-faced idiots? It seems that about 25% of their ad inventory is filled with those, which in my opinion, is already too much. I know that corporations have to make money in order to prosper, but this is going too far.
Anyone cares to share their thoughts on this?
- Digg introduces Recommendation Engine
- Let Current, Twitter, and Digg Guide Your Election Night Antics
- Will Google buy Digg then destroy it?
- Google introduces Digg-style voting buttons
I’ve noticed a decline in the ads at Digg, actually. I was quite disappointed the time I heard the classic “Congratulations! You are eligible to receive a free iPod” or whatever it says. Plus, the ones above are naaasty.
Digg’s advertising partner is Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/jul07/07-25DiggPR.mspx
So what do you expect, these ads are typical of their low-quality approach to everything, especially here as they are playing catch up to Google, they’re just accepting any old crap that advertisers want to put on their network. Great job MS.
It must be tricky for Digg to make much off advertising since their readers are so web savvy. Ever notice how few Digg readers click on ads when you get dugg? I imagine it’s like that every day for them.
Maybe not with their users, but they get massive traffic from search engines.. that’s where the money is.
I like the one for oozing pustule cream.
The problem is it is too easy to post stories to Digg. You can automatically get something on there any time you post a blog entry. This makes it super easy for spammers to post their spam.
@Mike: Hmmm, you abviously have never submitted something to digg, else you wouldn’t be saying that.
Actually, it’s pretty easy to post whatever you want. I know a guy that posts regularly there to get some traffic on his blogspot blogs whenever something new comes along.
People will not delete the post, it will stay there. For sure.
I used to rely on Digg to get a feel for what’s hot on the Internet until I noticed that they tend to have a lefty bias and more prone to hysterics than 12 year old girls. I don’t go there much anymore.
“lonely, pimple-faced idiots?”
Well, if the shoe fits.. no, I’m joking.
But Digg is becoming irrelevant. Most of us don’t care any more. It’s possible that they might recover if they can figure out an algorithm that honestly gauges good content without being able to be gamed, but that’s tough to do. How on earth can you algorithmically tell the difference between an honest digger promoting good content and another digger promoting their friends pages? I don’t see how you possibly can.
I’m actually surprised that some people at Digg see ads. I’ve always though of the Digg crowd as ‘highly technical’, and am extremely surprised that there are some users who don’t use NoScript or Adblock Plus.
I think that Digg’s traffic is slowly declining. There were a few revolts over there due to the “Get a free iPod ads!” as well as the recent change in the algorithm. It seems more and more people are going over to Mixx and Reddit. But with these ads, who would blame them? I certainly don’t want to see animated pimples when I’m digging an article (Not that I do of course. I’ve got Adblock Plus.)