Patrick Tulskie

I spend a pretty equal amount of time on both sites.  On Digg I mostly go to read whereas on Mixx I go to participate in a community.  Both get me my news and both deliver different content, but it got me to thinking… what makes these two sites so different?

If you Digg this then you Dugg this.

The typical workflow at Digg is that you go, submit an article, people digg or bury it and if it’s popular and makes it through their algorithm it makes it to the front page.  If you aren’t up for submitting something you can just read the articles, make comments, and digg or bury them.  The comment stream at Digg is really great.  Sure there is a lot of stupid stuff, but the user participation is fantastic.  It’s not uncommon to see a few hundred comments on an article.  Furthermore – you can actually digg or bury the comments.  If people are saying stupid stuff then they can be burried so no one has to look at them.  If you leave a good comment then it can be dugg up so you and everyone else can see what the community is thinking about things today.

More after the jump…

From a general media standpoint, this sort of behavior is extremely valuable.  Not only do you get to see what people care about but you can also see what the majority of people think about a given article.  Since there are so many people on Digg, you can see a huge demographic of people.  The blend of news one gets when they visit the front page ranges from humorous YouTube videos to very serious world news.  This variety means that if you stop by an hour from now there will be more stuff for you to consume, fueling this new found addiction to current “stuff.”  Digg is the drugg dealer and they do it well.

Ok.  Now Let’s Mixx it Up.

Mixx’s approach to the news is very similar to Digg’s.  You submit something, people can vote it up or down, and if it reaches a popularity point then it makes the front page and also appears in the popular section.  This is what people have come to expect from sites like reddit, Digg, and now Mixx.  That’s where the similarities stop though.

When submitting an article you can also fire it off to your followers to alert them that this is something you think they should read.  This is a great way to get tons of up front votes from people you think share your opinion.  To further add to this, there are Mixx communities too.  These communities are often aimed around specific topics, but there are also those like the Mixxing Bowl that provide a fairly even blend of news.  You can also fire off your new submissions to a group and while these people might not be your followers and may even hate your face, they did just get a notification that there is something that they might want to look at.

Mixx’s partnerships with other news outlets enable them to submit stuff to the site fairly rapidly.  This gives those news sites an eye into what people on Mixx care about that they are reporting on.  This sort of thing is pretty valuable but may not be as valuable as something like Digg’s comments… uh oh.  What did I just do?

Round One.  FIGHT!

Mixx and Digg are both plagued by one huge issue – blind voting.  Blind voting is when someone reads your little summary or maybe even just the headline and then votes.  They didn’t read the article – they just voted for some reason.  Maybe because they are dumb heads.  The difference between the communities is that on Digg, people actually write something in the comments about an article.  On Mixx, it’s not uncommon to see an article become popular that no one has even commented on.  Does that mean it just got lucky and received a lot of blind votes?  This sort of trend makes Mixx less valuable to everyone, including the blind voters and especially big media outlets that are trying to get a feel for the public response to their content.  Digg certainly has its fairshare of dumb comments but at least people say something.  This is one of those cases where it’s far better to say something stupid than to keep your mouth shut.  Despite the total lack of comments and gross blind voting, Mixx tends to sway towards a more community oriented site…

Digg Wins.

Round Two.  FIGHT!

In terms of the community aspect of things, Mixx gets it right.  Their communities can greatly enhance the coverage and attention articles get.  Digg has nothing like this short of their new (beta) suggestion system.  Mixx’s groups do a much better job of “suggesting” articles though because the suggestions are coming from the community instead of a random algorithm or a panel of edittors in the Digg offices (wherever they are coming from).  These communities add an extraoridinary amount of value to one’s overall user exerperience on the site though.  If you’re a Mixx user and you’re not in a community then you really should consider joining one.  Communities might be Mixx’s slingshot.  I’m obviously being somewhat extreme here as I don’t think a single feature is going to overthrow Digg.

Mixx Wins.

Round Three…

So people use Digg and Mixx for different reasons and that’s fine.  Mixx has so much potential that is being punched in the balls by the uncaring community that Mixx aims to please.  It’s a shame to see so much in terms of features wasted.  Maybe if Mixx implemented a voting system for comments it would be more attractive to leave a comment rather than simply blind voting.  It’s hard to say.  Digg on the other hand has been rather stale in developments lately and it will be very interesting to see how their new suggestion system plays out in the longer term.  Both sites seem to be aiming down different routes but they could definitely benefit from looking at each other in terms of the user base and features.

Looking Forward.

I do not think that Mixx is going to drag away all of Digg’s users in a single day, but if Digg continues to have problems with their content and begins having rebellions like they did earlier this year then there is a good chance people might stumble over to Mixx and find that they like the features better and just choose to stay there.

Hopefully we have a change in the overall mentality over at Mixx so that there is more participation around articles than simply blind voting.  Whether or not the staff can push through this change or the user base needs to just do it is up to debate.  Something like requiring a higher number of comments for an article to go popular might be a good idea.  Time will tell what direction these sites take though.

Recap

Digg’s user base needs to start using the features it has, comment the hell out of articles, and embrace the community-geared futures so that everyone can benefit.

Digg needs to keep doing what it’s doing and not screw up and piss off the mob.  They could also benefit from some more community-geared features of which they lack today.