July 14, 2012

"The Lessons For Facebook, Twitter And Reddit In Digg's Demise."

"If one virtual community can go from being worth almost $164 million to getting sold for parts in just a few years, why not another one?"
Reddit has largely supplanted Digg as the go-to watering hole for social new, avoiding the sort of sudden moves that could have spooked its users. Its growth trajectory has been strong, but Scorcini believes it will soon hit a ceiling. “As successful as Reddit has been in the wake of Digg’s downfall, it’s kind of a dinosaur,” he says. “They’ll be superseded by the larger social networks, like Facebook and Twitter.” Still, as Matt Drudge can tell you, even a dinosaur can hang around for a long time as long as it knows its niche.

21 comments:

rhhardin said...

I don't know what Digg or Reddit are.

What I adopt stays adopted.

edutcher said...

When you're the anything du jour, the ground under you is always shifting.

Known Unknown said...

Drudge has a very singular, focused purpose with a simple delivery system.

Scott said...

Drudge is no dinosaur. He's so brilliant that people who ought to know better still can't figure out why he is a success.

And the REALLY amazing thing is that there is only one Drudge. What he does is not rocket science, so why aren't other people doing it? Front me $5 million and I will build a superior competitor that will drive Drudge into early retirement and make you a lot of money. Click the broccoli to email me.

Known Unknown said...

Front me $5 million and I will build a superior competitor that will drive Drudge into early retirement and make you a lot of money.

I sincerely doubt this. I would argue that the DrudgeReport brand is worth much more than your $5m startup costs.

Let's just say it would certainly be easier said than done.

Scott said...

What you sincerely doubt ain't worth a warm bucket of spit. :)

Joe said...

The surprise is that anyone is surprised. Calling something other than a fad doesn't change what it is.

coketown said...

They aren't social communities. They're social cliques. When the clique gets crowded, it's time to move on. Popularity is passé.

Humperdink said...

Front me $5mil and I will start a solar panel company. It will fail and I will retire to the Belize.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Anonymous said...

part of reddit's charm is that it is text-based. There are some ppl who just don't like the facebook approach. Others use both.

I do not facebook ever by choice. It reminds me of those horrible self-published christmas card "family updates" people's parents would send out years ago in the desktop publishing days. Just one big family promotional notice. Hated them. Hate FB.

Reddit will likely go by the wayside at some point, but then I'd just need something to replace it.

Michael K said...

I use facebook to upload pictures of my family, especially my kids. THey then can download them if they choose. Other than that, I rarely use it. It is useful to someone, like me, with five kids and grandkids.

I don't understand their business plan and I learned long ago not to invest in businesses I don't understand.

dvlfish13 said...

Reddit may be supplanted by something but it won't be supplanted by facebook.

Going to facebook is like going to church. You hear the same shit over and over and everybody knows you so you can't go there drunk.

Reddit is like going to New Orleans. There are a few major attractions (safe to take the family) plus an endless supply of weirdness in the smaller venues if that's your thing. And you can go by as many names as you like.

Nobody's boss is going to ask to see their reddit account(s).

gadfly said...

The world is crumbling economically and socially aggressive narcissism prevails!

Researchers have established a direct link between the number of friends you have on Facebook and the degree to which you are a "socially disruptive" narcissist, confirming the conclusions of many social media sceptics.

Popville said...

I work (3 weeks shy of 60) in social media/web 3.0/whatever. It's a complex set of apps. Anyway...

These companies, or these apps (open source software where there's no "company"), live or die with the dedication & competence of the principals. It's simple. Same goes for all tech companies (could be all companies, tho I only know tech).

Most are Bell Shaped Curve situations. The key is to get out at the top of the curve. I've done that twice.

Ilyich said...

Reddit will live forever.

Popville said...

Facebook is simply AOL 2.0. I used to run a large music mailing list, begun in the mid-90s. Those folks from AOL were the first to leave en masse, flocking (back) to Facebook safety. Sad.

rcommal said...

This is my observation: Full stop.

Ralph L said...

Those stupid plug-in buttons for facebook, twitter, etc. are hell on dial-up. Worse than popup ads, because they're always last to load and I usually can't scroll until they do.

test said...

Ironic a guy in Forbes calls Drudge a dinosaur.

Drudge will be around as long as he wants to be because he didn't take the Digg path and build an organization requiring scores of millions in income to survive. Huffpo will die before he does.

In the meantime he'll be criticized by fools like this for not building unsustainably on bubble income. His genius is that me and millions of others basically never read him, and it doesn't matter to him at all.

John said...

It is amusing that some still say, "I don't read Drudge".
Drudge writes headlines and links to original sources. Althouse writes more in a week than Drudge writes in a year - if by writing I can mean complete sentences.

Writ Small said...

Watch the first five minutes of this Kevin Rose podcast from over a year ago when the current version of Digg was being developed. Hilarious stuff but perhaps less so to the investors who put up the $45 million to start Digg.