The Digg Revolt
This story about Digg interests me. Another news source reporting the story initially grabbed my attention while I was heating up my lunch in the breakroom and surfing the net on my cell phone. When I read the complete story about the HD-DVD hacking incident, I wasn’t surprised. As a sometimes (but not as of late) Digg user, I have seen posts about things that weren’t so legal when it came to technology. What else do you expect from a crowd of users who are 99% tech geeks? It also didn’t surprise me that Digg CEO, Jay Adelson, posted his explanation as to why they removed the stories. What is somewhat surprising to me is how the Digg community overreacted.
I’m not a “rabid” Digg user. When I first registered, I would spend nearly 20-30 minutes or longer per day digging and reading stories. It was fun for a bit, but it got old after a couple of months. I never reacted with the Digg community by commenting, but I am aware of how they can be after reading some of the comments they posted about other users and stories. Digg users are very passionate and a bit on the fanatical side. I understand that they want to keep the editorial control that they have, but who are we kidding? The Digg team has ultimate editorial control and always will have it; however, it seems that the Digg community went ape nuts when that editorial control was exercised after Digg received a cease-and-desist letter to remove the HD-DVD hack story. I actually agree with the decision to comply with the order, but it seems many of my fellow Diggers did not. Instead, they revolted and founder Kevin Rose gave in. That was a huge mistake.
Digg is ultimately Rose’ baby, and he’d rather see his site possibly shut down because he caved into crowd peer pressure. Not smart. It seems that Rose is more concerned about staying “cool” with the Digg crowd rather than making a grown up decision to keep his business running. Not smart. Adelson says one thing, and Rose says the opposite about the HD-DVD hacking incident at the Digg blog. Trouble in paradise? Who knows. What I do know is that in my jaded mind, it wouldn’t shock me to discover that Rose will be one of the many start up founders tossed out of the company he helped to build.
Rose’s decision to cave to the peer pressure of the Digg community gives way too much control to that community. Today, it’s the HD-DVD hack. Tomorrow, it will be something else. And the next day, it will be something else. At what point will Digg draw a line in the sand and say “no, we won’t allow this content on our site” because it violates someone else’s intellectual property rights or violates Digg’s term of service? By caving in and Adelson backing Rose’s (at least in public) decision, then this opens doors for Digg users to post other content that violates Digg’s terms of service. All they have to do is revolt, and they’ll get what they want. That’s blatantly obvious after the HD-DVD hack incident. To me, this was a misstep for Digg’s growth as a company. Instead of proving that they’re a company that’s ready to become mature, they proved that they’re still kids playing in the sandbox.