The changes in the Digg algorithm over the last week have resulted in a lot of chatter among marketers, bloggers, and media.  Giving credit where credit is certainly due, I do think that Digg’s update definitely made it harder to push through non-organic popularity (read: spam).  In spite of these changes, my contention is that all these changes for “diversity” just make it harder for the littlest guy (the organic user) to participate in the process and it’s negatively impacted their product.

As Tiger Woods started winning tournaments and absolutely turned Augusta National into his personal playground, some tournament directors made the decision to “Tigerproof” their courses.  They started lengthening holes so that Tiger would have to hit long irons into greens rather than wedges.  This “Tigerproofing” was supposed to level the playing field again.

It was a phenomenal news story but it actually makes very little sense to anyone who has ever played competitive golf.  Sure, Tiger may have to go Driver -> 4-iron into a long par 4 now, but what about the other 95% of the Tour players that are faced with a par 4 that is essentially a par 5 for them now?  In the end, all this “Tigerproofing” did was favor Tiger and the longer players.  It’s all relative and a real “leveling” of the playing field would have been to shorten everything leaving everyone to score with wedges and putters (which, incidentally, Tiger probably still would have won as consistently).

So, when Digg raised the vote threshold to a pretty ridiculous standard for power accounts in the name of “diversity”, this was their attempt to “Tigerproof” their course from a select few users who had above average success in getting stories to the front page.  It’s a strategy that does hold some merit as many of those accounts were built by marketers or users with other agendas, but it’s also a slap in the face to many of their oldest contributors who never took a dime and acted as meta-guides to much of the content. 

Additionaly, these changes made in the name of “diversity” has also produced the unfortunate side effect of killing the freshness factor of their product.  In the era of short news cycles and instant consumption, it is taking almost a full day for yesterday’s news to make the front page.  Somewhere, Matt Drudge is laughing.

Now, if you raise the bar to success at Digg, who do you think will adjust and adapt…organic users who get very little benefit or power marketers who are incented to generate Digg traffic?  Over the long haul, it’s going to be the power marketers (and the one or two organic users who maintain some sort of religious affinity to Digg, aka “the never touched bewbs” crowd).

I’ve seen this type of inflection at least three times in Digg’s history.  It generally takes us a few months to recover…but we always do.  We are incented by profit.  We adapt.  The large publishing partners that Digg is getting into bed with have no problem bringing “diversity”, so they will succeed.  And the people Digg probably wishes would be there best users are left out to dry with that knife in their back.

The other question I’m fielding a lot is, “How do you think this plays into their strategy to sell Digg?”  First, it gives them something to point at when bigger, older media companies start talking about the risk of user generated ecosystems.  Secondly, it gets everyone talking about Digg again while they are soliciting buyers.  Thirdly, it certainly isn’t a coincidence that it drives many more page views for each session at Digg.  Crusty old media companies and advertisers love them some page views.

So, if you’re scoring at home:

1.  Good quality tweak.
2.  May impress acquirors of Digg.
3.  Because it appeases their risk models and page view appetites.
4.  But it pissed off their meta-users.
5.  And reinforced the chances for marketers over the long term.
6.  While ruining the “freshness” of their news.

I’m really not sure who wins here.  It’s certainly not bewbs.

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