Digg Is Back

Back before Reddit became the unofficial "front page of the internet," you would dig up your next long read or binge watch on Digg. Starting in 2004, the original version of the site worked much like Reddit does today, with community members submitting content they found interesting to premade category pages and others voting on it until an algorithm eventually decided what should make its way to the front page. Aside from the lack of user-made pages like subreddits, it was generally pretty familiar to what modern users might expect—and, speaking from experience, it was a big deal to be featured on Digg.

Unfortunately, starting in 2010, the site went through a few drastic redesigns that added controversial features like the DiggBar (a clunky toolbar that would display over content) and got rid of features like burying (the equivalent of modern downvoting). It bounced from owner to owner and experimented with new formats like a manually curated front page, but by that point, Reddit had become the behemoth it's known as today. It was hard for Digg to keep up.

Now, after Reddit has spent years saddled with its own controversies, Digg is back with yet another relaunch, with a new beta from original founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian that aim to combine the best of both site's legacies.

What does Digg look like now?

Credit: Digg

Last week, Rose and Ohanian opened their new Digg to the public, debuting a new design that looks a lot like Reddit, but cleaner. On desktop, the sidebar on the left uses icons rather than labels, and generally has fewer complications, so no distracting "games on Reddit" tab. To the right of that, you get your main, infinite scrolling feed, and I'll admit, I like the classic blue-on-white color scheme (although you can use dark mode if you like). Unlike the classic Digg, this feed will include user-made communities, which work like subreddits, so you can join and leave them at any time to curate what you see. And yes, the downvote is back, along with full commenting functionality. You can also swap over from a feed that only shows communities you're subscribed to (My Feed) to one that collects the best posts across Digg (All Digg) with a button up top, which is one pretty significant difference—Reddit has the r/all subreddit, but it requires navigating away from your main feed and isn't available in the app.

But the big difference maker is in the right sidebar, which shows recent posts on Reddit, but "Digg Daily" on Digg. This shows trending posts and featured communities at a glance, so you can get caught up with news without having to scroll the "All Digg" feed for too long, but curiously, it's also got the "Digg Daily" podcast. This one addition is probably the most significant way the new Digg differs from Reddit, and also the most awkward.

What is Digg Daily?

Credit: Digg

It had to be here somewhere—Digg Daily is the site's implementation of AI. Updated once a day, this brief five-ish minute podcast recaps the biggest stories on the site that day, using AI hosts that sound like slightly more robotic versions of the ones you'll get on Google's NotebookLM. You'll get a few sentences talking about the story's original source (which, when I listened, did credit the author of the article being discussed), as well as a few quotes from readers. Unfortunately, while you can bring up chapters to jump ahead in Digg Daily and see a list of discussed topics, there aren't any links to find either the sources or Digg posts being discussed, and the "Featured Posts" bar below Digg Daily doesn't relate to what's on the podcast at all.

It's a nice idea, but aside from getting a high-level overview of what was popular on the site that day, I didn't find it too useful. Summaries are extremely short, and comments are awkward to hear outside of their original context. It might be a good first step to know what to search the site for, but links would really help it out.

On the plus side, Digg Daily might not always be AI: The company said during an interview with TechCrunch that it might swap out the robotic hosts for human ones following user feedback. Human lead curation could help the recaps feel a bit more natural, and even bring back some elements from the eras of Digg where the front page was managed by a staff rather than an algorithm.

What's missing?

Aside from the different look and minor additions like Digg Daily, getting started on Digg should be pretty familiar for anyone who's used Reddit. The mobile app also has full functionality, although sidebar features have been moved to buttons above and below the main feeds. But there are a few ways the platform is looking to grow.

The big one is probably communities, or Digg's version of subreddits. The site launched with 21 default communities off the bat, but it'll take a while for user-made communities to pop up for more obscure topics. For instance, I've been replaying the Mega Man: Battle Network games from my youth a lot lately, and while there are multiple regularly updated subreddits for that series with thousands of members each, there's not a Digg community for them yet. It sounds like a small complaint, but one of Reddit's big strengths is that you can just Google "[topic] + reddit" and probably find an answer to whatever question you might have, no matter how small. Without years of posts on topics both big and small to lean on, it'll take Digg some time to catch up.

You can help with that by starting a community, but weirdly, communities right now can only have a single moderator, so be prepared to do a lot of heavy lifting.

However, the growing pains aren't all bad. Personally, I can't stand that modern Reddit pushes users to theme their avatars around its mascot, and buries the button to just upload their own images deep in the Settings page. Especially because the best options for dressing up your avatar are paywalled. Digg doesn't have any paywall or mascot dress-up feature, so uploading your own photo to be your Digg avatar is the only way to go. Overall, it's a less bloated experience.

What's coming?

While Digg might be light on features now, it does have the basics down, and that TechCrunch interview pointed to more possibilities coming down the line. For instance, the owners might be using AI in some ways, but they're also big on fighting AI spam. They said they're not opting for one universal solution, but are looking at options on a case-by-case basis.

In the interview, they discussed possibly forcing users of a community based around a product to prove they own that product before they can post. Similar suggested solutions were using location data to see if community members had attended in-person meetups, although that raises privacy concerns.

"I don't think there's going to be any one silver bullet here," Rose told TechCrunch, but the general idea is to build trust and ensure users are authentic while remaining non-intrusive. This would help keep suspicious writing that sounds like ad copy or political brigading off the site, but would also keep users from having to upload personal data or pay for a one-time verification badge. Given that thousands of subreddits famously went dark in 2023 over a lack of trust between moderators and the site's owners, it's a noble goal, at least. It also tracks with Digg's promises of more public moderation and relaxed ownership of user-generated material, although I'll leave legal experts to comment on those in detail.

Overall, it's encouraging that most of the features being discussed here are about core posting usability, although there are a few fun ideas sprinkled in, too, including plans to allow users to customize the look and feel of their communities, as well as add integrations with other sites—for instance, allowing Letterboxd scores to natively show up on a movies community.

How to try the Digg beta

Credit: Digg

If this all sounds interesting to you, you can try the Digg beta right now, and despite that "beta" name, it's not too different from signing up for any other site. Just navigate to Digg.com or download the Digg app, click the "Signup/Login" button at the top of the feed, enter an email, and claim a username. After you authenticate using a code sent to your email, you should be all set to start scrolling and subscribing to communities.

Or, you can scroll without being signed in, if you're OK with using the default feed. You can also still visit individual communities, by searching for them in the site's search bar.

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