Digg has removed the Shout feature from its site, citing several reasons for the change, including user feedback and its own conclusions reached through crunching numbers. The Shout feature, which allowed users to send stories directly to other Digg users, is being replaced with share options for Twitter and Facebook.
Interestingly enough, Digg is also getting rid of the Blog This option, saying that the feature showed low usage from its userbase. In a sense, Digg has replaced both of its dropped features with share options for Twitter and Facebook.
But is the indirect sharing of Digg content with others across the social web any better than the Shout feature? It’s certainly less spammy. The way in which Digg has decided to modify the content sharing process also reflects the ability for third party social networks to provide conduits that can be considered useful, effective and agnostic.
The ability for Twitter and Facebook to be somewhat agnostic means that they can further become platforms for other sites and applications. And for both of these sites in particular, along with a number of other social media sites, the potential for such platforms are still exploratory but are integral in the long-term priorities of these companies.
And even if Digg users lose some of their “spamminess” the social bookmarking tool could in fact benefit from replacing the Shout feature with sharing options for other social media sites. Time will tell to what degree this could be helpful for Digg, and whether or not Digg users will just find a way to more directly reach other Digg users through the use of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. But we’re all watching, right?
by Michelle Lentz
Yahoo! has launched the redesigned, speedier delicious, the original (and probably still the best) social bookmarking site. For me, perhaps the best thing to come out of this re-launch is the new URL: delicious.com. I can’t even explain how often I got the old del.icio.us wrong. (The old URL, and your old login, still work.)
Easy typing aside, there are definitely some other upgrades to the site:
Speed: We’ve moved to a new infrastructure that makes every page faster. This new platform will enable us to keep up with traffic growth while ensuring Delicious is responsive and reliable. You may not have noticed, but the old backend was getting creaky under the load of five million users.
Search: We’ve completely overhauled our search engine to make it faster and more powerful. Searches used to take ages to return results; now they’re very quick. The new search engine is also smarter, and more social: you can search within one of your tags, another public user’s bookmarks, or your social network. Now it’s easier to take advantage of the expertise and interests of your friends, not to mention the Delicious community at large.
Design: Finally, we’ve updated the user interface to improve usability and add a few often-requested features (such as selectable detail levels and alphabetical sorting of bookmarks). Our
goal has been to keep the new design similar in spirit to the old one, so all of you veterans should be able to jump in without any confusion. At the same time, we’re hoping that newcomers to Delicious will find it easier to learn.
When you visit the new Delicious, you’ll need to log in again to reset your cookie.
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Events, news, apps, and more – let me know at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, via Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology.