Slashdot v. Digg--Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0
Paradigm shifts inevitably involve a changing of the guard. Sometimes the old guard bows out quietly. Sometimes they manage to make the leap. Other times, however, they fight to the last drop. We are in the midst of such a shift as we transition to the next generation of the web.
The war was officially declared when Google partnered with Sun. The battles are at hand as we speak. AOL is on sale. Microsoft is moving to the web with Live. One of the most heavily watched battles of course is GOOG v. MSFT. This fight will inevitably result in a flurry of innovation from not only these companies, but also from smart new-comers that manage to sneak in amidst the chaos that is about to ensue. Look out because the next Amazon, Ebay, and Google are probably hiding somewhere and waiting to pop up.
While these larger battles are stirring, another battle is brewing. It is not as high-profile. The public at large may never hear of it. But, this battle is particularly near and dear to those techies that have grown up with the web--Slashdot vs. Digg. If you refer to the chart above, supplied by Alexa courtesy of Wired, Digg (blue line) is catching up, fast. For those of you who are not familiar with Slashdot, shame on you. But, being the nice guy I am, I will tell you what is in a nutshell. Slashdot is "news for nerds." Nerds submit news sites to a moderator who, in turn, posts the best of the stories for folks to read and comment upon. This is undoubtedly on the list of news sites read by anyone who considers themselves to be a technologist.Well Slashdot is to Web 1.0 as Digg is to Web 2.0. Like all Web 2.0 services, Digg is driven by the masses. There is no moderator. In their own words, "Digg is a technology news website that employs non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allowing an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do."
Will loyal Slashdot users defect en masse to this new site? Will brand loyalty prevail? Only time will tell I suppose. Regardless, it will be interesting to see who comes out on top. The fate of all geekdom is at stake.
posted by Hooman @ 1:45 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:20 AM,
numbakrrunch said…
many people find notion of community created and moderated content really appealing. being a member of and a contributor to a resource gives users a feeling of ownership that they didn't have when they were silent consumers of traditional websites. however, despite the power of community driven content, there is likely to always be some room left for editor driven websites.
I get a distinctly different feeling when I compare articles on google news vs. those on cnn.com. I always find google news to win out on substance and diversity of content. google news doesn't generate any content of its own, articles from other sites are selected based on volume by a computer algorithm from thousands of other news sources. while it is not directly community driven, it is definitely a sample of activity in the news community. however, despite google's superior content, the headlines on cnn.com, an editor driven site, always seem to have some eye-catching feel that appeals to the (repressed) ADD shiny-object consumerist side of me. editors are able to create a thematic focus (agenda based?) to a site that just isn't possible with distributed content creation. some people just want to consume and they want a leader to tell them what they should be consuming. they it very comforting, it's same feeling they get by listening to Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern every day.
while I prefer community driven content, I think there will always be room for traditional media. in a sense, the contributor rating systems that drive user moderated sites are just an impartial way of filtering out new editors to maintain the same few-to-many distribution style of traditional content.
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