The future of Digg-like websites
New social content websites are appearing every day, but I don’t see any of them gaining a really big following. I’ve done a little research to find if there is a secret ingredient that can make a new social content website successful.
If you’ve compare the traffic of the big 5 social news sites - Digg, Reddit, Care2, Netscape and Shoutwire, like I did in my Top 5 social news sites roundup, you can see that the top 2 are growing. Care2 seems to be slowly losing momentum, Netscape’s real quality traffic is indistinguishable from the huge amount of traffic they get on their name alone, while Shoutwire seems to stall (and if they keep having 2-3 days old articles on the front page, they’ll probably start plummeting pretty soon).
But what about the newcomers? Are there still some cookies left for them, or have the big ones scooped the entire bowl, leaving only scraps for the little sites? Unfortunately, it seems so.
As you can see by this fantastic list over at 3Spots, there’s more than enough new social content services around, and new ones are probably being created every day. But a quick Alexa check shows that not only are most of these sites poorly visited (which isn’t that surprising, given that they’re, well, new), but their traffic doesn’t have a strong tendency of going up - it mostly just stalls with occasional peaks when news of these sites appear on Digg or some other big site.
Still, careful examination of these sites can give us some valuable info on what works and what doesn’t in the social news arena.
First of all, let’s divide these sites into some broad categories so we can notice the trends easier. Bear in mind that, for simplicity’s sake, I’m leaving out many new somewhat similar services like Spotback, Megite, or Tailrank, and focusing only on the more or less “standard” social content websites.
1. English Digg-like social news sites. This means sites which cover a broad range of categories, and are in concept similar to Digg, with standard browse-submit-vote-comment functionality. This includes Pligg sites, which aren’t that much different from Digg, but tend to be similar between each other.
2. English specific social news sites. These are sites with functionality similar to Digg, but instead of covering all possible topics, they focus on one category.
3. Non-English social news sites. From Meneame to Fresqui.com, these are the sites that cater to the social news needs in a language other than English.
I’ve extracted the Alexa traffic data for all of the sites on 3spots list (yes, all of them), and I’ve compiled a list of top 5 sites for these three categories. (*I’ve excluded pornography sites, because I their rate of success probably depends on vastly different factors than other sites. I’ve also excluded the five big sites I’ve covered in my recent article.).
In the first category, the list is:
1. Newsvine.com - traffic stalling
2. Blinkbits.com - medium growth
3. Hubpages.com - medium growth
4. Thebeststuffintheworld.com - medium growth
5. Wikio.com - slow growth
The second category looks like this:
1. Flurl.com - theme: videos, slow fall
2. QJ.net - theme: gaming, slow growth
3. Dzone.com - theme: developers, medium growth
4. Bestweekever.tv/ble/ - theme: TV, slow growth
5. Bad.webpagesthatsuck.com - theme: bad web sites, medium growth
NB: at this point between 50 and 100 in Alexa’s charts you can find as much as 50 new topic-specific social content websites. I’ll name some of the ones that are doing well: dogster.com, videosift.com, indianpad.com, blosker.com, dealigg.com.
In the third category, instead of making a top list I decided to just randomly pull out some of the big growers, as it is difficult to me to discern which of these sites get most of their traffic from the social news component and which get it from completely different sources (btw, the obvious winner is Meneame.net):
- Meneame.net - fast growth
- Fresqui.com - fast growth
- Fuzz.fr - slow growth
- Overmundo.com.br - medium growth
- Mywowo.com - traffic stalling
- Wykop.pl - slow growth
So, what have we learned from this exercise? The top 5 lists might not show all that much, but sifting through all of the websites I’ve learned a lot.
1. There is no viral growth. If you make a social news website, do not expect exponential growth or a boom of new users overnight. Like any other website, the users you get are the users interested in your topic(s), they will only stick if you have quality content, and you have to fight for every one of them.
2. Growth is hard to come by at all. Of all the sites mentioned here, only about a third is actually growing at a noticeable rate. Moreover, huge spikes (probably from Digg or Slashdot traffic) didn’t help them at all, the traffic almost universally goes back to the same volume as before the spike.
2a. Non-English websites are the only ones that are universally experiencing growth.
3. Specific topics don’t do much better than general topics. This came as a huge surprise to me, as I was pretty certain I’ll see a pattern of growth amongst websites that cover specific topics. But, lo and behold, there aren’t many that made it big. However, there’s definitely more specific-topic sites appearing, and they have a tendency to grow - up to a point. My conclusion here is this: if you have a big web portal or a service behind you with an established community and lots of traffic, you might do well with a site that covers a broad area of interest. If you’re a startup, go with a very specific topic.
3a. Technology news are not dominating, nor is any other specific topic.
4. Websites in other languages do much better than English-based websites. However, I think that this is simply due to language barrier winning over Digg. It means that non-English users, if given an alternative, will rather use a good Digg clone in their own language than Digg itself. Consequences of this are easy to predict: if a country doesn’t have its own Digg yet, go ahead and make one; you’ll do well. But if a good Digg-like site exists and has at least decent traffic already, then it’s the same as fighting against Digg itself.
4b. Social news sites are most popular among the Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese population.
5. Technology, design and approach DO matter. Sites that are more technologically advanced, better designed, or have an original approach, tend to do better than run-of-the-mill Digg clones. Examples of this are Newsvine, and thebeststuffintheworld.com. This might seem natural, but on the Internet design and technology often yield to virality and content; just remember MySpace.
Conclusion:
The prospect for upcoming social news websites is grim. It seems that it takes a combination of an interesting specific topic, great design and functionality, and an original approach to achieve at least moderate popularity. And even then there’s a chance your website will just stall at the same traffic volume for months, and maybe years, before it finally shuts down. There’s still some room for growth if your website is non-english and/or covering a specific geographic area. Of course, I cannot rule out that some ingenious site will show up and take the world by storm, but from what I’ve seen in this research, none of the newcomers show signs of greatness.
The way I see it, the concept of social content websites does not work on its own - except in rare cases of Digg and Reddit. It’s a great addition to a website that already has good content, or plans to build good content in the future, but it’s definitely not driving growth by itself. For now, the Digg effect seems to be reserved for Digg only; the future lies somewhere else.
*Disclaimer: the data used for the comparisons in this article are taken from Alexa and need not be correct or exact. Furthermore, I did not use any exact statistical means of comparing data; all comparisons in the article are my own interpretation of Alexa’s data and many other individual factors.
December 26th, 2006 at 11:12 am
[…] 7. A mini-boom of social content sites will happen. As content management systems which offer out-of-the-box social content functionality, like Pligg or SuperGu, get more and more advanced, users will create thousands of mini-Diggs. I expect the vast majority of these to be focused around a certain - possibly quite narrow - topic, and I see less than 1% of them actually gaining a big following. If you’re interested why, read my analysis here. […]
January 11th, 2007 at 1:44 am
[…] What’s the Future for Digg-like sites?, http://franticindustries.com/blog/2006/12/12/the-future-of-digg-like-websites/ […]
January 22nd, 2007 at 2:29 pm
[…] I’ve already done an analysis of the most prominent Pligg sites I could find and their foreseeable future. However, I’m constantly finding (or receiving by mail, keep it up, I appreciate it) new, interesting Pligg-based sites which have gone the extra mile to move away from the standard Pligg templates and truly become a community. […]
December 13th, 2007 at 8:06 am
notebook pda buy notebook today 5113 as5715z 1a1g08mi nout
February 13th, 2008 at 7:24 am
[…] The future of Digg-like websites at franticindustries - web 2.0, social networking, IT technology tr… (tags: interesting) […]
March 30th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
?????
March 31st, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Seems worth while to me
April 8th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
midwifery jobs in london
assassins creed arm weapon thing
April 9th, 2009 at 12:05 am
This topic is quite hot in the net at the moment. What do you pay attention to when choosing what to write about?
April 9th, 2009 at 10:01 am
mineral cosmetics
found in stimulant tobacco
April 15th, 2009 at 9:57 am
If you want to read a reader’s feedback
, I rate this post for 4/5. Decent info, but I just have to go to that damn msn to find the missed pieces. Thank you, anyway!
April 15th, 2009 at 10:05 am
cect i9 applications
furniture quebec canada
April 17th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Such a usefule blog?wow !!!!
April 24th, 2009 at 6:22 am
Were did you get your blog design?
July 1st, 2009 at 4:32 am
I found your blog while searching the net for tooth whitening london and your post on franticindustries - web 2.0, social networking, IT technology trends. » Blog Archive » The future of Digg-like websites looks right on!
July 5th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
What is captcha code?, pls provide me captcha code codes or plugin, Thanks in advance.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:30 am
PianoFan…
[…] Good piano performance. Thanks heaps for this!… if anyone else has anything it would be much appreciated. Great website http://www.de.Grand-Pianos.org Enjoy!…
November 11th, 2009 at 11:25 am
This brings back to mind something that my dad used to say…
Of course its definitely not appropriate at this time…
November 11th, 2009 at 11:54 am
This reminds me of this thing my grandpa would always say…
Then it is probably not appropriate just now…
November 16th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I’ve really enjoyed reading your articles. You obviously know what you are talking about! Your site is so easy to navigate too, I’ve bookmarked it in my favourites
November 27th, 2009 at 2:00 am
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
November 27th, 2009 at 2:47 am
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
November 27th, 2009 at 7:01 am
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
November 27th, 2009 at 10:26 am
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
November 27th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
November 27th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
November 29th, 2009 at 4:22 am
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
November 29th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
November 30th, 2009 at 5:28 am
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
November 30th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
December 1st, 2009 at 9:27 am
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
December 1st, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I Don?t Usually Comment on Posts or Articles But I Will in this Case. Awesome, What a Great Article and Informative Post, I Always Wanted to Write in My Site Something Like That. Thank You!
…Please Take a Minute to Visit My Stock Market Website as Well: http://www.snurl.com/stockassault
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
Important gift for anyone who needs backlinks for no cost. Anybody need free one way backlinks for their webite? I figured I would distribute some great info I found a little while ago. Free one way backlinks for your website. I have been using this for my websites and it really works great! Just click my name to get what I mean. Not selling anything, it’s completely free and it works.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Thanks for the fantastic post - I enjoyed reading it! I always love reading this blog.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:25 am
Hubpages is great specially when you are just starting out to learn how to earn online. Hubpages is spidered frequently so you know that the pages you create will get found by the search engines soon enough. When writing a hub, concentrate on finding a profitable topic and don’t worry about promotion when you’re just starting. Soon you’ll see a trickle of earnings. The trickles will turn into real income if you just keep at it.
December 10th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Cheers for the great info - I had fun reading it! I always enjoy your blog.
December 15th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Thanks for the useful article - I had fun reading it! I always love browsing this blog.
December 15th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Cheers for the informative info - I had fun reading it! I always enjoy looking at your blog.
December 15th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Thanks for the useful information - I enjoyed reading it! I always enjoy reading your blog.
December 15th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Thanks for the great info - I had fun reading it! I always enjoy reading this blog.
December 16th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Cheers for the great page - I loved reading it! I always love looking at your blog.
January 1st, 2010 at 1:33 am
It’s always good to stumble across a new blog this fantastic! I will be back here for sure
January 2nd, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Hi! xTgjbB
January 14th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Ñîâðåìåííàÿ ÑÒÎ ýôôåêòèâíî è êà÷åñòâåííî âûïîëíÿåò ñâîè ôóíêöèè ïðè ïîìîùè ðàçëè÷íîãî âèäà îáîðóäîâàíèÿ…
àâòîðåìîíò…
January 15th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
thanks for explaining this so clearly
January 19th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Øèðîêèé ñïåêòð ñîâðåìåííîãî øàõòíîãî è ãîðíîîáîãàòèòåëüíîãî îáîðóäîâàíèÿ íàñ÷èòûâàåò áîëåå 100 íàèìåíîâàíèé…
âèáðàòîðû, ãðîõîòû, æåëåçîîòäåëèòåëè…
January 21st, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Hi, I was searching the Internet for romantic ideas and came across your site. good job.
January 26th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
àñôàëüòîóêëàä÷èêè, àâòîêðàíû, áóëüäîçåðû, ãðåéäåðû, êàòêè, ïîãðóç÷èêè, ýêñêàâàòîðû…
Ïîãðóç÷èêè èñïîëüçóþòñÿ äëÿ çàñûïêè, ðàñêîïêè, âûðàâíèâàíèè è äðóãèõ ðàáîò ñ ðàçëè÷íûìè ìàòåðèàëàìè…
January 28th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Try and try, that is the key to success, giving up shouldn?t be included on our dictionary (i think).
January 31st, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Good Post. Can you email me back, please. Thanks so much.
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:16 am
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?
February 8th, 2010 at 1:25 am
Êàê çàðàáîòàòü â èíòåðíåòå…
èíñòðóêöèè ïî çàðàáîòêó â ñåòè…
February 8th, 2010 at 2:35 am
You For This Post, blog was added to my bookmarks.
February 9th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Great site I?m happy I stumbled onto it through my friend?s blog. Going to need to add another blog to the morning routine
February 10th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Have you got an rss feed? I can’t find the icon can you give me the link to subscribe to, thanks.
February 13th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Âèäû âåíòèëÿöèîííîãî îáîðóäîâàíèÿ…
Ñèñòåìû âåíòèëÿöèè…
February 15th, 2010 at 7:36 am
Ãîðîä Ñèäå ðàñïîëîæåí íà ïîëóîñòðîâå â 75 êì îò Àíòàëüè…
Îòåëè ãîðîäà Ñèäå…
February 15th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
hey this blog is great. I’m glad I came by this blog. Maybe I can contribute in the near future. PM ME on Yahoo AmandaLovesYou702 Thank you day154
February 16th, 2010 at 10:57 am
Ãîà íàõîäèòñÿ íà çàïàäå Èíäèè…
Ìóçûêà, òàíöû, ïðèêëàäíîå è óñòíîå òâîð÷åñòâî ãëóáîêèìè êîðíÿìè óõîäÿò â äóøó Ãîà, à ðèòìû ïóëüñèðóþò â ñåðäöàõ åãî æèòåëåé…
February 17th, 2010 at 6:30 am
Êëàññèôèêàöèÿ è íàçíà÷åíèå êàáåëåé…
Ýëåêòðîêàáåëè…
February 18th, 2010 at 5:57 am
Îòåëè Àëàíèè…
Êóðîðòû Òóðöèè…
February 19th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Great article. There’s a lot of good information here, though I did want to let you know something - I am running Mac OS X with the circulating beta of Firefox, and the layout of your blog is kind of bizarre for me. I can understand the articles, but the navigation doesn’t work so great.
February 19th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Ïèëîðàìû…
Áð¸âíîïèëüíûå äèñêîâûå ñòàíêè…
February 19th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Keep posting, I enjoy hearing what you have to say! I’m bookmarking this page. Do you have any other blogs?
February 19th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Keep posting, I enjoy hearing what you have to say! I’m bookmarking this page. Do you have any other blogs?
February 19th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Keep posting, I enjoy hearing what you have to say! I’m bookmarking this page. Do you have any other blogs?
February 19th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Keep posting, I enjoy hearing what you have to say! I’m bookmarking this page. Do you have any other blogs?
February 19th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Keep posting, I enjoy hearing what you have to say! I’m bookmarking this page. Do you have any other blogs?
February 19th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Keep posting, I enjoy hearing what you have to say! I’m bookmarking this page. Do you have any other blogs?
February 21st, 2010 at 10:53 am
Ïàðèæ - ñòîëèöà Ôðàíöèè…
Ïðîâåäèòå îòïóñê âî Ôðàíöèè…
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:37 am
Very nice information. Thanks for this. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:57 am
Ïðàãà - Ãîðîä ñîòíè øïèëåé…
Ïðàãà - ñòîëèöà ×åõèè…
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:01 am
Êàíàðñêèå îñòðîâà…
Âàëåíñèÿ…
February 23rd, 2010 at 10:00 am
The Top 10 Best Xbox Games should be a exceptional, an sweet to collect listing of new games that stole our priceless time away from finals, our girlfriends (or wives), and our occupations (and in our instance, this is our job).
February 24th, 2010 at 9:04 am
Ãèäðàâëè÷åñêèå íàñîñû…
Íàñîñû è ãèäðàâëè÷åñêîå îáîðóäîâàíèå…
February 25th, 2010 at 10:33 am
ïíåâìîàâòîìàòèêà…
Ïðîìûøëåííîå èñïîëüçîâàíèå ïíåâìàòèêè íà÷àëîñü áîëåå ñòà ëåò íàçàä…
February 26th, 2010 at 6:53 am
Ìåêñèêà ? âîïëîùåíèå èäåàëüíîãî òóðèñòè÷åñêîãî íàïðàâëåíèÿ…
Ìåêñèêà ðàñïîëàãàåò ïî-íàñòîÿùåìó óíèêàëüíûìè âîçìîæíîñòÿìè äëÿ âñåõ âèäîâ òóðèçìà…
February 27th, 2010 at 9:07 am
Ìåäèöèíñêèå èçäåëèÿ…
Ìåäèöèíñêàÿ òåõíèêà…
February 28th, 2010 at 3:19 am
×åì òóðèñòîâ ïðèâëåêàåò Èñïàíèÿ…
5 äîâîäîâ çà îòäûõ â Èñïàíèè…
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:53 am
Îáùàÿ èíôîðìàöèÿ î Òóíèñå…
Äîñòîïðèìå÷àòåëüíîñòè Òóíèñà…
March 3rd, 2010 at 2:49 am
Îáùàÿ èíôîðìàöèÿ î ×åðíîãîðèè…
Äîñòîïðèìå÷àòåëüíîñòè ×åðíîãîðèè…
March 4th, 2010 at 7:17 am
Êëàññèôèêàöèÿ ñòàíêîâ è îáîðóäîâàíèÿ ïî ìåòàëëó…
Ìåòàëëîðåæóùèé ñòàíîê…
March 5th, 2010 at 12:58 am
alNiFk
March 5th, 2010 at 3:08 am
mOypsW
March 5th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Ïóòåøåñòâèå â Òàéëàíä…
Âåëèêîëåïíûé îòäûõ â Òàéëàíäå…
March 7th, 2010 at 12:41 am
Óëüòðàçâóêîâîé íåðàçðóøàþùèé êîíòðîëü…
Óëüòðàçâóêîâûå ïðèáîðû…
March 12th, 2010 at 8:52 am
thanks for that
March 13th, 2010 at 7:00 am
Òàõåîìåòðû ýëåêòðîííûå…
Òåîäîëèòû ýëåêòðîííûå…
March 14th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Êîìïüþòåðû äëÿ ìîíòàæà â ïàíåëè óïðàâëåíèÿ…
Îäíîïëàòíûå ïðîìûøëåííûå êîìïüþòåðû…