Digg's Battle with Top Users

Starting tomorrow, Kevin Rose has announced that there will no longer be a top user list and instead there will be a new system in place to suggest friends with similar interests to you.

A PR/marketing firm confirmed with me that they had a number of the top 50 users on digg now on the payroll--and this wasn't a totally insignificant firm. The problems that digg is facing now is that a portion--certainly not all--of the top users feel like they should be getting paid for the 3-4 hours they spend on the site each day. Since digg will not pay them for their work they are finding other ways to get compensated.

Digg starts fighting its top users, this is no great surprise as it is exactly what I predicted would happen. The web 2.0 crowd loves to think that digg is something new and revolutionary but at the end of the day all it is, is a forum with a different user interface. Digg like forums before it is still subjected to the same infighting, trolls and instead of thread hijacking you have vote rigging.

The most recent changes to the Digg algorithm are aimed at grouping users who tend to act as a single voting block, effectively neutralizing their ability to move stories to the home page by simply acting together. One user, noting that the result was a significant decline in the home page stories by top users, said “it looks like the Digg staff is looking to get rid of its frequent posters.”

When folks think of Digg, they're often misled into believing that the content seen on the homepage is representative of what a wide base of Internet users think is news-worthy and important. The numbers tell a different story - that of all stories that make it to the front page of Digg, more than 20% come from a select group of 20 users. Digg isn't shy about hiding this fact, their top users page plainly displays the statistics:

Late last night Techcrunch wrote about one Digg.com user who was selling his profile on ebay.

Kevin Rose, Founder and Chief Architect of Digg.com, explains some upcoming changes to Digg. He addresses issues of gaming, the top user list, and some new features that are in the works. A snippet of the article is pasted below.

I recently spoke to Digg user #33 Curtiss Thompson about yesterday's changes at Digg.com. He wrote about how he and many of his fellow users in the Top 50 have been unfairly railroaded as a result of yesterday's announcements. He also talks about how top users are bailing from the community after finding their posts buried by an angry -- and misguided -- Digg militia.