The Google Digg Purchase Would Mean Nothing to You.

If you read this blog regularly, it probably means you are involved in social media and most likely an early adopter. If not, then you are probably just a hardcore geek looking for a geek fix. Given that this is my audience, I am going to tell you why the possible/probable acquisition of Digg by Google means nothing to you.

Why does it mean nothing to you? Well, as an early adopter you have mostly moved from Digg being your main site of activity to other interesting social media sites like Twitter or Friendfeed or whatever. If you are a hardcore geek, you have already been complaining that Digg is being overtaken by people who do not care about technology or gadgets or Apple. I know this sounds like heresy, but there are people who do not care about these things.

There is another reason why this may not matter to Digg users. it has been reported for quite some time that Google is experimenting with Digg-style voting for search results. Many sites are moving to a voting model as it adds a “crowdsourced” indicator of how good the article is supposed to be. Google experimenting with that type of model should not be a surprise. So, if Google does purchase Digg, what will happen? Probably nothing. Remember that people also got concerned that Google was going to purchase YouTube. What happened … nothing. The reason for this is that Google must know enough not to mess with a major established presence. The biggest thing they did was integrate Google accounts. If this does happen, Digg will probably integrate Google accounts late this year. I highly doubt they would do anything more than that for quite some time.

What does this mean for Digg? Well, they finally get purchased! We all get to stop hearing about the quarterly Digg getting bought by someone rumor. More importantly, they get the Google backing and branding. Digg is not quite mainstream yet. By mainstream I mean used by something close to the same number of users as Yahoo. It is still known as a highly technical destination. By becoming a member of the Google family, they instantly get put on the mainstream fast-track. Google also gets a property that can compete with Yahoo Buzz. The biggest problem current Digg users may have is the flood of new users to the service. Digg is not overly welcoming so it would be interesting to see how that progresses.

So my dear readers, you can see that you will not really be affected. You may see a Digg link on Google one day, but that may be all that changes for you.

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10 thoughts on “The Google Digg Purchase Would Mean Nothing to You.”

  1. Well written post Rob and I wholeheartedly agree. Just tweeted the same response. You just get to stop hearing about the rumors. Unless they’re bringing new features to the service, I highly doubt it’s a serious news story.

    Also, I don’t see any changes coming out of this that the Digg community probably wouldn’t revolt against.

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  2. You’re right, I feel the same way. Most people who have a problem with Digg actually have a problem with the community. I don’t forsee Google doing anything about that.

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  7. @Corvida and @Shey
    Duncan Riley took the opposite stance over at the Inquisitr, basically stating that Google may stagnate Digg.

    The opinions are wide and varied on this one. Thanks for reading.

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  9. […] The Google Digg Purchase Would Mean Nothing To You, July 22, 2008 Is Google About To Swallow Up Digg?, June 12, 2008 New ‘Google + Digg’ Rumour, March 8, 2008 Digg Fires Google for Online Ads, July 25, 2007 Microsoft Replaces Google in Digg Ads, July 26, 2007 Google Digg-Style Experiment, November 28, 2007 Based on these facts, Digg stopped working with Google last year and now, Google is buying them? Which is it? RegularGeek, posted an unbiased reaction about this issue on his blog. […]

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