No, no, no… Digg is not the same as Google

One of the most discussed items I hear at conferences that relate to social media is a comparison between Google and Digg. Many of the panelists seem to believe that Google and Digg are very similar in their nature. The simple truth is that Google and Digg are nothing alike. And to be clear, when I speak about Google, I mean the Search product.

It's simple to me. Digg is hot today but there is one reason why the service might not be the hot thing in 18 months to 2 years (max). It's called: machines. That's right. Machines. And don't get me wrong, I like what Digg does as a service. But the real question is whether the current crop of users will still want to submit and vote on stories in a year or two. Frankly, I already see some have given up on it.

When you hear people like Michael Gray on a panel at SES go on and on about how easy it is to game digg both for your stories and to cripple the competition's stories, it makes me wonder if the loyals will give up on it. It takes work to find, submit and vote on stories. The gaming hurts the site but also hurts the users themselves in the long run. And will the next generation of Internet users want to do this? Remember that Digg is not user-generated content like a blog, wiki or forum. Instead it is a user-rated submission site.

When I listen to panels and read other sites, many of them speak about using social sites (including Digg) to help their clients get traffic. What happens when the clients wise up and realize that x,y,z social network traffic may not be of value to them?

Services such as TechMeme and the other machine aggregators will take over the slots which the current DNR (digg, netscape, reddit) crowd currently own. Especially since the DNR-type services can be gamed as Michael noted. TechMeme is much more complicated to game.

Google Search will be here (in some fashion) for the foreseeable future because it is machine driven. Sites that require human (non-compensated) involvement, I believe are a fad. I hope they aren't but unfortunately I think this will happen as the current crop of submitters and voters move on to the next thing in their Internet life.