Digg gets Social, Adds Facebook Type Features

• Author: smojo
• Filed under: 2.0, facebook, internet, social network, web 2.0
• Date: Sep 19,2007

Digg has to be my 2nd most visited on the net right now and it came as a surprise to come across this article in BusinessWeek which gives details about Digg adding social networking tools. BusinessWeek is reporting that the changes are to be made to Digg today. Here are a few excerpts from the article detailing some of the changes.

Instead of submitting stories for review by the larger Digg community, users will be able to send—”shout” in Digg terms—story links along with messages to particular Digg friends. - Catherine Holahan, BusinessWeek

Digg’s new emphasis on user profile pages is also designed to let users better define their presence on the site by posting multiple photos, personal interests, biographical information, and even links to a member’s personal blog, social network profile, or Web page.

As a Digg user I don’t particularly want any of these features. We really don’t need more social networking. Digg can already be used in Facebook and stories added to your Myspace page. Stories can already be shared in all the social networking sites very easiy. I’m foreseeing lots of abuse of the new system. One annoyance I can see is that people and maybe even companies will be spamming friend requests. So I’m hoping that Digg will not be emailing me every time someone wants to friend me. One thing to look forward to is the amount of messages you will receive in your Digg inbox that will all read “DIGG THIS STORY!!!”.

BusinessWeek also reported that the Pictures section will be added to Digg sometime in October. So all those people who have been asking for it will now get their wish. The reason I’m a fan of adding the pictures section is based on the fact that I hate when images make it too the frontpage of Digg. Digg’s frontpage should have actual articles on it.

I’ll be checking up on Digg all day to see when these new features come out.

Popularity: 51%

iJustine, Justin on Yahoo.com

• Author: smojo
• Filed under: 2.0, Interview, JTV feeds, Justin Kan, Justin.tv, LifeCast, iJustine, internet, iphone, press, video, yahoo
• Date: Aug 29,2007

For the second time this month Justine is on the front page of yahoo. This time it is for lifecasting. Justin and Justine are featured on Yahoo’s People of the Web. The amount of traffic coming to JTV from this article is staggering. At one point the number of viewers watching Justine was over 3,000. Which makes me cringe when I think of the chatroom. The chat goes by fast when there is under 200 viewers. Just imagine how bad it is when you have 3000 viewers trying to get Justine’s attention as they all scream “JUSTINE SAY MY NAME!!!!!!!” or “WAVE TO ME JUSTINE!!!!!!!!”
It is nice to see Justin being included in this story. He hasn’t gotten any big press in the past few months. For Justin’s interview they talked about the night he got “laid” and how that brought in many viewers. Also during the taping of the interview an unexpected thing happens. A random guy gets his cell phone stolen from him and Justin catches the whole thing on video. Justin then offers to send the archive video to the guy to see who the criminal was. It was just a matter of time before Justin caught something illegal on his cam.
The Yahoo article is titled The Real Reality TV which is a great title for this story about the 2 lifecasters. I suggest you take a look at the article and video. http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/40075/the-real-reality-tv

Popularity: 79%

Bacn, Latest Web 2.0 Buzzword

• Author: smojo
• Filed under: 2.0, internet, web 2.0
• Date: Aug 21,2007

A new term popped up all over the internet a few days ago and it is BACN. Now you may be asking yourself… WTF is Bacn?
For all those asking that question I will try and answer it for you. Now we all know what spam emails are. Emails that are unwanted junk mail. Bacn is a step up from spam. When you get an email about a person adding you as a friend on facebook. That would be Bacn. Emails from your favorite software company about an update. That would be Bacn. It’s the end of the month and you get an email with your phone bill. That would be Bacn. Bacn is all over your inbox.
Basically bacn are those emails that you want to receive but don’t have time to read or don’t need to read.

I use Gmail and it is great for handling all the bacn. I have gmail setup to label bacn emails and have it skip my inbox. So my inbox isn’t clogged because of Bacn.
For more on bacn and the group that created the term go to Bacn2.com

Popularity: 28%