Comments on: Why Reddit is Better than Digg

By: Kathy

Kathy — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:45:18 +0000

I’m new to Reddit (gave up on Digg) and I find it sends me a lot of traffic (sometimes over 1,000 visits per day). But the comments. Ugh. The comments. I’m training myself not to read them. More often than not they’re unduly mean and antagonistic. I have to remember they’re coming from people outside my normal circle of readers. Still, they sting sometimes.

I believe StumbleUpon is a better way to get new subscribers over the long run. Reddit is simply a traffic boost.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:45:00 +0000

I believe StumbleUpon is a better way to get new subscribers over the long run. Reddit is simply a traffic boost.

By: SaiphArrai

SaiphArrai — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:19:57 +0000

I like Reddit for the relevant and interesting material I can find there. Every other article on Digg seems to be a top-ten list.

By: SaiphArrai

SaiphArrai — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:19:00 +0000

I like Reddit for the relevant and interesting material I can find there. Every other article on Digg seems to be a top-ten list.

By: Capitol62

Capitol62 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:20:51 +0000

SHHHH!!!! Don’t tell people this stuff!

Also, don’t pressure Reddit to “pretty” up. A lot of us who have been there awhile like it the way it is. If you turn off the damn thumbnails it gets even more vanilla, aka, better.

By: Capitol62

Capitol62 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:20:00 +0000

SHHHH!!!! Don’t tell people this stuff!

Also, don’t pressure Reddit to “pretty” up. A lot of us who have been there awhile like it the way it is. If you turn off the damn thumbnails it gets even more vanilla, aka, better.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:43:00 +0000

I have preferred reddit over Digg for at least a year now without ever really pushing myself to figure out why. I think that your reasons are quite good. However, I’d like to add that the commenters at reddit can be way more hilarious and less spiteful than diggers. There is also an established way of getting the funniest reddit comments to the front page and that really enforces the sense of community there. Casual redditors can easily understand why commenting through reddit and participating in the discussions can be a rewarding experience. Whereas, the comments on Digg tend to only be for the super power users.

By: mike

mike — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:43:00 +0000

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:22:53 +0000

I’ve been using Reddit for a few months now and it is much better than Digg but it’s still a long ways from perfect. I got a blog post to the front page once which never would have happened on Digg and I received a lot of comments, some of which were useful. However I think a system that in any way gives some users higher status than others (ex. friends, points, comment points…) is flawed because, over time people will learn to manipulate the system and what will end up making the front page are not the most interesting or popular stories but those that were submitted by users who have put in the most time and effort into manipulating the system and inevitably these users will be the same ones who are making profit off of driving traffic to the submitted story. Clearly this has already happened to Digg and in time it will happen to Reddit which is unfortunate because it works pretty well right now.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:22:00 +0000

By: adome

adome — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:40:15 +0000

Yea too bad there are 50,000 repeat stories or else you might actually be right.

By: adome

adome — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:40:00 +0000

Yea too bad there are 50,000 repeat stories or else you might actually be right.

By: davers

davers — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:57:27 +0000

I completely agree. Digg is broken. If I want to read xkcd, I’ll go to xkcd.com. Or digg.com.

It’s pretty much bullshit now – all of Digg is Huffington Post, xkcd and cracked.com spam sniping, and submissions stolen from Reddit and 4chan. Great.

By: davers

davers — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:57:00 +0000

I completely agree. Digg is broken. If I want to read xkcd, I’ll go to xkcd.com. Or digg.com.

It’s pretty much bullshit now – all of Digg is Huffington Post, xkcd and cracked.com spam sniping, and submissions stolen from Reddit and 4chan. Great.

By: tenqoring

tenqoring — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:37:21 +0000

You’re exactly right that spending your time trying to manipulate Digg is wasted effort, but if you’re also correct that the problem is because too many people are trying to get onto the front page, what makes you think that this wouldn’t hold true for Reddit and StumbleUpon as well? If everyone starts submitting to Reddit, it’ll start to suck just as hard.

The best way to generate quality traffic is still to put your effort into creating content that adds something to the visitor’s understanding. Spending too much time on SEO and marketing takes away from doing this, and it’s just not needed. If your content is useful and novel, it will be picked up and spread by your readers more effectively than you can achieve by any amount of self-promotion.

By: tenqoring

tenqoring — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:37:00 +0000

By: Ari Herzog

Ari Herzog — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:03:01 +0000

@Some Audio Guy: If your friends are the same on Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster, why do you keep all three profiles? Why not dump two and only use one? Or only have friends on one and have status messages on the other two to find you on the third?

Or… are you the kind of guy to have your car serviced by one mechanic who works at three auto body shops so you bring it to all three shops?

By: Ari Herzog

Ari Herzog — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:03:00 +0000

Or… are you the kind of guy to have your car serviced by one mechanic who works at three auto body shops so you bring it to all three shops?

By: Sheamus

Sheamus — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:51:07 +0000

Where Reddit separates itself is, as others have said, how easy it is for anybody to make the front page. A new user just cannot do this on Digg – heck, a user who’s been a member for a year can struggle to get any attention at all unless they’re very much ‘in the club’. I have no interest in making 100+ ‘friends’ on Digg – it’s too much work and I’m not sure I really like the system, to be honest. It’s like a kind of backward members club.

On Reddit, meantime, I’ve had two of my own blog posts hit the front page and generate 20,000+ visits, and many other links I’ve submitted have done very well, too.

At the end of the day, however, nearly all social media traffic is useless to a blogger. Most people are in and out in less than 30 seconds and you get very few return users (well below 1 per cent, irrespective of content quality). Furthermore, be prepared for a massive increase in spam and trollers. And as was hinted above, the comments area on Reddit is as bad if not worse than Digg – it’s littered with trolls and the powers-that-be at Reddit do absolutely nothing about it.

I personally think the only worthwhile traffic comes from Stumbleupon – for some reason it’s of a much higher quality than the other social media sites. People tend to be more interested, leave better comments and more of them (relatively) subscribe. They also click on your ads too, God bless ‘em!

By: Sheamus

Sheamus — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:51:00 +0000

On Reddit, meantime, I’ve had two of my own blog posts hit the front page and generate 20,000+ visits, and many other links I’ve submitted have done very well, too.