By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Digg has introduced a new beta feature called the “Recommendation Engine” which aims to match up users with other users based on their “Digging” patterns and show them other stories that they may be interested in Digging.

As with all other algorithms, this is something that is not too accurate to begin with, but it improves the more you use it. So the more you digg stories, the more the algorithm learns and the more accurate results it eventually brings back to you.

The Recommendation Engine is two-fold.   First it identifies other Digg users that are submitting and digging the same kind of stories as you are.   It then shows you those stories so you can digg them too if you want.

It also presents those Diggers with a compatibility scale rating so you can decide whether or not you want to befriend them on the site.

In theory, the Recommendation Engine is supposed to eventually filter out all the crap that you won’t like and show you with only the stuff that you WILL – in other words, the thinking caring Digg that anticipates and thinks about your interests and needs beforehand and gets the page ready for you.   Hmmm, OK.  We’ll see how that goes.   It’s only a beta right now.