There has been a lot of negative news about Digg coming out of Camp Conde lately and the reasons behind it are becoming clear.
Starting the year off with a prediction that Digg would become the new Friendster, Wired magazine (owned by Conde Nast Publications, also owner of Digg competitor Reddit.com) has continued to report, and according to Mike Arrington, manufacture negative news about Digg.com.
[The] bigger problem is that Wired isn’t simply reporting news about Digg. They’re making the news. And they’re going negative. In the first example, they make a prediction that Digg will fall, comparing it to Friendster. No news was reported – it was just an out of the blue roundhouse punch at Digg. In the second example the reporter actually creates the story she writes about, and willfully violated the Digg terms of use in the process. And this was done for commercial gain – the Wired story describing this has received a ton of traffic (and is actually the number 1 story on Digg right now).
As Arrington mentions, the press has immense power, but that power used irresponsibly must have consequences, otherwise the integrity of the media will go to the sewers. Conde Nast owns both Wired magazine as well as Reddit. Is team Conde playing unfair to get at the competition? If so, what should Digg do?
Team Arrington has more.
Originally posted on March 1, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
Wired has done a service to the blogging/social media world. I can’t believe there is outcry over Digg being exploited when the Bury Brigade does it to people they don’t like all the time.
I’m all about a fair shake but when Digg isn’t giving others a fair shake, I don’t believe they’re entitled to one themselves.
All’s fair in love and war.
I don’t think Wired was out of line. In my opinion, this needed to be done for the better of the community. Digg may be actively working against these groups of scammers, and making progress, but the Wired story just shows how much work the system needs.
I’m not a reddit user, never have been, but I’m curious. Does anyone know if this scam could work on Reddit?
There is not the “system” of groups around Reddit that exist to game the system like Digg has. But yes, Reddit is not immune.