chang*

one of the guises that web 2.0 sites come in is that of the aggregator. what an aggregator site does basically is consolidate news and information – sourced by its users, as well as acts as a community for the sharing of knowledge. think ‘myspace’ or ‘friendster’, but for news junkies.

digg.com is a fine example of an aggregator site, with its name derived from the act of ‘digging’ (meaning to ‘give a thumbs up’ of approval) a piece of news or info, after which that piece is counted ‘dugg’ and ranked in terms of popularity. so, users not only bring in the content, but also help to rate articles as well, filtering for other users the most interesting ones. users then get to comment and debate on articles.

unlike similar sites like wikipedia.org and helium.com, digg.com makes little or no attempt to regulate the uploaded content. the problem with this is that users are faced with an entire smorgasbord of sensational articles, as well as interesting pieces with seemingly no news value whatsoever, alongside news written by reputable papers.

that aside, digg.com is definitely a fantastic source of laughter, with the amount of incredible stories making the ‘most popular’ list daily. do not expect much in the way of credibility or verifiability. however, if you explore the site with a discerning attitude, it can be a valuable source of information and entertainment at the same time.

critics will bash the apparent unreliability of the site as a source of news but hey, digg.com never started out with that intent. kudos to a great site that has managed to bridge diversity – information, and more importantly, people.

digg it!

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