Digg.com is just wrapping up it’s first ever town hall webcast.
Hosted by Digg founders Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose, the virtual townhall was born out of some growing concerns among the social voting site’s users. For an hour and a half, the two tech idols sat and answered user-submitted questions that covered everything from the newest algorithm changes to spam issues.
At its peak, the Ustream webcast had somewhere around 1,900 viewers. There was also a live chat set up at diggtownhall.com (not sponsored by Digg) with some of the site’s most popular users participating.
For those of you who missed it or had trouble streaming the feed, here are some of the highlights from Jay and Kevin’s answers. I know I missed some, so feel free to add them in the “Comment” section.
1) “Super-users” do not exist. There’s apparently no such thing as a Digg user with super Digg or Bury powers, as has been speculated over the past few months. However, there’s always an administrator or moderator on duty to uphold the site’s Terms of Service.
“We rely on the users to police the site; not secret moderators,” Jay said.
2) The site currently receives 26 million unique visits per month.
3) Since launch, the site has received over 200,000,000 Diggs.
4) There is an anti-gaming system in place to detect and remove spam from the Upcoming sections of each category. But there’s no auto-bury feature currently built into the site.
5) Digg is adding several forums across the site that permit users to discuss site issues and/or talk about topics that interest them (i.e. Tech).
6) The site will continue to hide the list of those users who Bury each story. But they will be adding in a listing of the number of Diggs and Buries each story receives.
7) They are working to fix the long broken “Search” functionality.
8 ) Neither Kevin or Jay seemed to be concerned with how the “Shout” functionality currently works, so it doesn’t sound as though we’ll be getting any changes there.
9) Neither Kevin or Jay would comment on the site being for sale.
10) The site is open to the idea of having more focus groups for the testing of new features on the site. They’ll be discussing this more at the next town hall session….
…which just happens to be on May 28th.
All in all, it was a really nice webcast that addressed a number of growing questions/concerns that were on top of many Diggers’ minds.
I have to say that Jay and Kevin did a really superb job in opening up the lines of communication with their users.
It was just a little over a month ago when a minor revolution was taking place among Digg’s most powerful users. A select group of Diggers were unhappy with changes that were being implemented at the site, and complained of a lack of communication from the support team.
But, thanks to a willingness to engage in a free-flowing dialog with their users, Kevin and Jay seem to have quickly put out a fire that was still smoldering.
As with all popular web destinations (especially ones that appeal to the more tech-savvy crowd), it’s impossible to please everyone. However, Digg’s founders have really made a concerted effort to keep the communication flowing and seem to be taking a number of the users’ suggestions into consideration.
As word of mouth marketers, tonight’s town hall a prime example of a company recognizing that their customers are their most valuable assets. Without a steady user base and support from their most passionate loyalists, Digg.com would just be another tadpole in the Web 2.0 pond.
Nice work, Digg.
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Thanks for the update guys!
Did they discuss the Greasemonkey autobury script that comes pre-loaded with a bunch of the top users?
Great article-though who would ever comment on a site being for sale? everyone has a price so obviously they have been given decent offers and just waiting for something better. But nice to see these web masters improving their functions for the users(shouldnt be such a rare occurance)
Did they address on how some stories are buried by bury brigades who wish to suppress free speech? Of course not
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.
Your post DIGG TOWNHALL WEBCAST WRAP-UP | MGH Word of Mouth / Social Media Marketing- Baltimore, MD was very interesting when I found it over google on Sunday by my search for jay peak. I have your blog now in my bookmarks and I visit your blog again, soon. Take care.
To medium amounts, lolI would occasionally?Buy This is, lower than what.Is they would, can submit to.I love golf Digg, game This way it The.Before you kick, to post multiple.,
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?
i’ll bet that this is the first time someone has ever truly been impartial about this particular subject…
This makes me remember something funny that my grandmother used to say…
Then it is definitely not appropriate right this moment…
This makes me remember something funny that my dad always said…
Then it’s surely inappropriate right this moment…
This reminds me of something that my dad always said…
Then it is totally not appropriate at this time…
This brings to mind something funny that my sister pretty much always said…
Obviously it’s probably not appropriate at this time…
This reminds me of this thing my grandfather would always say…
But it is definitely not appropriate right this moment…
This brings back to mind something that my mother used to say…
Of course it’s most likely inappropriate right now…
This makes me remember something that my mom pretty much always said…
But then it’s surely not appropriate right now…
This reminds me of something funny that my brother pretty much always said…
Obviously its surely inappropriate right now…
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Most of the time I do not place comments frivolously, just that I wished to say “Happy Thanksgiving” to everybody!
26 million visits a month?? Man, they’re a powerhouse. And, I like the “digg this button” at the end of the article! Quite appropriate!