Intro to Digg: And Testing the Digg Button
Have you discovered Digg?
Digg is basically just another Web site (JAWS) but it is kind of interesting. Digg has been around for some time. I don't actually know for how long. I came across it about three years ago—so it has been going at least that long.
I go to Digg regularly to see what intersting things other poeple have found on the Web that maybe I should have a look at. I go to Digg at least once a day.
Following is a tiny tiny extract from Digg showing the top Digg count links for the last 30 days (as they were when this post was done anyway).
If you Ctrl+Click the above image it will open the top link, "How to Suck at Facebook - The Oatmeal", in a new Tab. If you Ctrl+Click here then you can go to the bottom link shown—"Sex Explained by Pens (PIC)" on the BuzzFeed site.
What is Digg?
The idea of Digg is that people who find an interesting Web site, or something interesting on the Web somewhere, can put it in the Digg list. Then, as other people check it out they will either find it totally boring or they will find it interesting; and if they find it interesting they might Digg it. Digging it will up the Digg count.
As there are not a huge amount of people with Digg accounts who spend their days checking out sites or pages linked to by Digg the counts tend not to get really high. A link on Digg with a count of around 300 is kind of popular. A link with 1,000 Diggs is getting really popular. And a link with 3,000 or more Diggs is seriously popular.
So if you go to Digg [Ctrl+Click to open in new Tab] and start going down the list of sites or pages that have been put on Digg then, if they have a high Digg count, they were found to be intersting by a lot of people. If they have a low Digg count, like 100 or less, . . . well I am sure you can work out what that means.
By default when you go to the Digg site is shows the "Recent" list of links posted. But you can select the last 7 days, last 30 days, or the last 365 days from the menu at the top.
The Digg Button
Some sites or pages you go to may have the Digg button on them at the top or the bottom of the page. If they do, and you are a registered Digg user, you can push the button and up the Digg count for the link by one. If you are not a registered Digger then you can go to the Digg joining page and register. It is pretty painless. No credit card required—I promise. Basically you need to choose a username-tag, a password, and put in a working e-mail address.
Notice the Digg button at the end of this post. If you were a Digg member you could push it and up the Digg count for this post. Go on—>I dare you :-)
For sites or links that do not have the Digg button on them you can up the Digg counter by clicking on the "thumbs up" Digg counter for the link you want to support.
Basically this post is for me to test inserting the Digg button, and what better way to do this than to quickly introduce Digg to any readers of my site that have not come across it yet?
