Digg 4 Review
The time has come to finally review Digg 4, the newest revision of the popular news aggregator, Digg.com. This is no doubt the most important upgrade to the site, due to the addition of a number of improvements and new features.
Before I continue, the new Digg currently can only be accessed if you’ve received an invitation, which you have to request. To request one, just go to new.digg.com and click on “Request an Invitation.”
Let’s first get to the design of the site. There are two tabs at the top that divide the homepage into two sections, named My News and Top News. My News shows the stories submitted only by people you follow. This is a much needed feature has been lacking from the site for a ridiculous amount of time, since there was absolutely no way of viewing those stories in one page before. Top News works the same way as in the previous Digg, displaying the front-page news from the whole community. This makes everything much more organized with less of a cluttered feeling. It also gives the site much more of a social edge, which I believe is the next evolution in getting news online.
What about article submission? Has it been improved? Well, the good news is “yes.” Even though submission of content is one of the two most important things in Digg, it had always felt like it was a hassle to do something that should have been quick and intuitive. The old submission process felt bulky, slow to complete, and even worse---sometimes displayed an “Unknown Error” message after you had gone through the whole procedure.
Submitting an article, this time around, is very convenient. There is a text box that’s at the top homepage and each category page. Just enter in a URL and the submission box expands to easily allow the editing of the description and of each category. That’s it. Also, a new feature many have been clamoring for allows the submission of a site’s RSS feed URL, making it so that any future articles get submitted automatically.
The “Upcoming” page, where all articles had previously gone before having a chance to make it onto the homepage, has now been removed. This increases the chances of any article getting onto the main page and also makes Digg less bloated and more sleek.
Overall, I think Digg 4 is the most important evolution yet. It also brings features that have been lacking for a long time and feels more complete. I think many users will grow to embrace and love the changes, a feeling that I had while using the site’s latest revision.
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