Changes, changes, changes.  Somehow, Mixx is able to make changes 10 times faster than any other major social media site on the Internet.  All of the changes (except one) look to improve the functionality and user experience immensely.

On their blog, they explain these changes in detail.  As with any major change to a website, my natural inclination is to a) test it inside and out, looking for flaws, and, b) try to break it.

Tests went fine.  Haven’t been able to break anything yet.

This comes in response to a “Wish List o’ Features” that Mixx asked for in conjunction with their first birthday.  The promise was to have the new features up and running before 2009.  As usual, Mixx.com beat their deadline and produced the changes with plenty of time to spare.  Here they are, straight from the blog post:

1. Moving Notifications from email to Site Mail: Our top vote earner, on-site notifications allow you to get notifications likes “You have a new friend!” right on Mixx. Then we’ll give you a little nag—just once a day—so you can check in. We don’t want you to miss out on any notifications. If you are currently getting notifications in email, you’ll need to go to your settings page and tweak the settings just the way you want them.
2. Improved Friend-ing: The second favorite suggested feature, the upgraded Friend feature makes it easy to see which of your friends are mutual and which only go one way.  Check out your fans (go to www.mixx.com/users/<yourMixxID>/fans) and friend them back!
3. Show All Mixxers: This is a really cool little feature that will let you see every Mixxer who voted on a story, photo or video. We expect to have it up and running very soon.

They went beyond the three winning features and added a few more…

• Community Widget: Run a Community on Mixx? Now you can grab all of the headlines that reach Popular in your Community and send them directly to your website.  Check it out on the Make Your Widget page.
• Simplified Submit Flow: So maybe it didn’t make it to the top of the list, but many of you have asked for it, so now it’s easier than ever to get your content into the Mixx and right where you need it to be.
• Submit Button: Tired of looking for the Submit button? Search no more—you’ll now find in the header area of every page.

They only new/improved feature that appears to still need some work is the submission flow.  They delivered very well on the concept that there needs to be an easier way to submit, a “quick submit” option, so that people on the go can still do their social media submissions seemlessly without having to go through the long process.  For those with the time and attention to detail, they can continue past the initial step of URL, Title, Description, Category and enhance their submission.

The flaw mentioned earlier is that it is now much more difficult to submit to multiple communities and groups.  As far as we could tell, you can only do it one at a time.  Knowing Mixx, I’m sure this will be adjusted quickly.

One thing not mentioned in their blog post was the return of the ability to vote for stories from the Friends’ Activity pages.  This was a controversial feature before because it allowed for “blind voting” and the popular section would occasionally get spam submissions hitting.  I don’t anticipate the same problem now that the functionality is back.  There are more users and a stronger “top user” base that should be able to self-police it.

Overall, the changes should draw huge Kudos from users and the general public.

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Read more about social media sites on Soshable.

Over at Social News Watch, we’re trying to compile a complete list of social media sites.  There are so many out there — tons of brand new ones and a ton of old ones that might have been forgotten.

Whether for marketing or simple enjoyment, it’s good to have a complete list.  While submitting to thousands of sites might prove to be counter-productive, we plan on breaking down the list into several different versions so that everyone has a chance to find the ones they really like and want to use.

Head over to SNW and see what you can add to the conversation, or simply post the sites that you know (or lists of sites already put together) and we will begin the long process of finding, checking, and classifying the sites into something manageable.

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Read more about social media websites on Soshable.

With the recent happenings at Digg and the apparent rise of Mixx, it would seem that the balance of power in social media is shifting.  The question is: why do Mixx front page stories still not drive any traffic?

With huge gains in all of the traffic reports, it would seem that Mixx would be at the very least close to Reddit’s ability to drive thousands of visitors to a website from the front page.  As recently as last week, we tested a story that hit the front page of Mixx to see if it was finally there in the way that it sends traffic.

It’s not.

What’s the deal here?  What happened.  Is it possible that Mixx is sending less traffic to sites than it did before?  There are more visitors and users at Mixx than ever before, but now it seems that front page stories are not taking people to the site.

The reason for this is right there – “front page stories are not taking people to the site.”

The first problem is in the custom nature of the front page.  Users who are logged in are served a page based upon their preferences when they go to the homepage.  The “front page” is actually the popular page, an inner page of the site.  Those who are not logged in will get the popular stories served to them, but logged-in users may not unless they choose to.

The second problem is actually based upon a brilliant marketing move.  The headline link used to take visitors to the source media and there was a “view details” link next to it that took people to the Mixx page for that submissions.  Now, it’s the other way around — the headline link takes you to the Mixx page and now there is a “view story” link that takes visitors to the source.

In reality, this is a move that will bring more visitors to the site because it is more search engine friendly for Mixx itself.  Having the large link to the Mixx page for a submission increases page views and is done so from a keyword-rich link.  This makes it more likely that a search engine will index the Mixx page itself and rank it for searches that are relevant.  Google traffic has a chance of being higher than user traffic on the site.  It’s a good move for the future of Mixx, but a tough move for those who are looking for the server-crashing visitor boost that sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon offer.

If they fix one, the other probably wouldn’t be necessary.  For now, users are stuck knowing that their front page story is sending dozens of visitors to their target site.

It’s a real catch-22 for the executives at Mixx.  Do they continue to optimize their website for future visitors, or do they entice users with ways to increase traffic?  Both ideas have merit.

The right thing to do is to stay with what they’re doing.  Google traffic will trump social media traffic any day because of relevance and trustworthiness.  Still, the need to make changes to the overall layout in order to make the site more sticky.  It has tremendous potential with innovative features, butif they can’t make the features easier to get to and more cleverly positioned to draw attention, people will come and then they will go.  Either way, they have a long way to go before they are a traffic driver to rival Reddit, let alone Digg.

Read more social media opinions on this blog.

There are many social media addicts in this world.  You see it every day on Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon.  Even Propeller, Mixx, and Newsvine have their share.  What you may or may not know is whether or not you are one of them.

It’s often tough to recognize.  Perhaps the joy of seeing your first story on the front page of the site was enough to set you off.  Maybe it’s a desire to promote your point of view, a political candidate, even your own blog or business.  For some, it’s something that passes the time (until too much time has passed).  Read these signs below and seek immediate help if 3 or more apply to you.

1. When you hear breaking news on the radio, you immediately pull over and whip out your laptop or cell phone to see if it has been submitted.  Sometimes, you whip out your laptop or cell phone without pulling over.
2. This sentence makes sense to you: “I almost FPd a Jobs fanboy submit, but the brigade buried it off upcoming.”
3. One or two nights a week are spent listening to The Drill Down and the Social Blend at The Mixxing Bowl.
4. Your GTalk is loaded with people you’ve never met, never actually spoken to, and whose name may or may not be real, but somehow you feel a close kinship with them.
5. Any time you play cards, a spade makes you think of a guy named Muhammad.
6. You had plants, as far as you can recall, but there are now just baskets of dirt with dead brown leaves in them.  You vaguely remember having a dog as well.  Also, there’s a strange smell in your apartment.
7. Some (or all) of the following groups of apparently random letters and numbers means something to you: QGYH2sbutkicGt2099dexlovex27hlmoojj.
8. Regardless of what kind of computer you have, you claim to have a Mac.  If you are bold enough to admit that you own a PC, you at least run Firefox as your browser.
9. Story, video, and image quality are important to you, but not as important as the headline.
10. The Presidential race may or may not be important to you, but either way, your main reason for wishing the primaries were over is to stop reading headlines about Ron Paul.
11. Within 0.03 seconds, you can look at a cute picture of an animal and know whether or not it was photoshopped.
12. Your feed list is longer than your grocery list

In the real world, we pick our friends based upon certain traits and conditions.  We want people we can like who have shared interests and who have a certain proximity to us.  The Internet has changed the proximity aspect of friendship, but we still need to be able to interact with our friends in some way to truly be friends.

In social media, “friendship” is more of a way to get votes for your submissions than to interact with others.  There are certainly those who make real friends through social media.  Some of the people I interact with on a daily basis were people I met on social media sites.  Still, the bottom line in social media friendship is “vote for my submissions and I’ll vote for yours.”

There is something skewed about this concept, but we’ll ignore it for this article.  Instead, we’ll accept the fact that most social media friends aren’t really friends and focus on how to be a good one, as well as finding other good ones.

Good Social Media Friends Submit Good Content

It seems like a no-brainer, but it needs to be stated.  I submit stories that I think are worth reading and I expect my friends to do the same.  If someone submits the occasional crappy story or self-promotional piece, I don’t mind as long as the majority of their stuff is good.

Good Social Media Friends Vote for MOST of Your Submissions

I remember getting a message from a social media powerhouse one time that said “Vote for all of my s__t and I’ll try to vote for most of yours.”  Arrogant, pompous, but hey, at least he was being honest.  The idea of blind-voting for all of your friends’ submissions is a flawed one for some sites.  Digg and StumbleUpon take the number of stories you Digg or Thumb Up into account when determining the quality of your submissions, so hitting everything submitted is definitely a bad idea.

I have been running an experiment over the last couple of weeks with this, just to make sure that it was true.  A week and a half ago, I was putting 1-4 stories a day on the front page of Digg and getting a decent level of stumbles on my submissions.  Once I started ramping up my Diggs, hitting everything submitted by my hundreds of friends, I started noticing that it was taking longer and longer to hit the front page.  Once I had a great weburbanist submission get 194 diggs in the first 24 hours and NOT make the front page, my over-digging theory was confirmed.

Reddit, Propeller, and Mixx, on the other hand, seem to not mind blind voting.  In fact, it helps your status to vote more on Propeller and Mixx.  Still, many people watch for blind voters and either sink them or avoid them altogether.

As a general rule, vote for the submissions that are good.  If you would have considered submitting it, it’s worth your Digg/Stumble/Upmod/Vote.

Good Social Media Friends Keep Messaging Their Submissions to a Minimum

Sending stories on social media sites is okay if used only when necessary.  If it’s really, really, really good, you should consider spreading the word.  Don’t spam, and don’t accept friends who spam you.  If you’re getting every submission from a user sent to you, send them a message and ask them to slow it down.  If they don’t remove them.  Don’t be a spammer and don’t reward spammers with your friendship.

Good Social Media Friends Communicate with Each Other Every Now and Then

One of the best ways to really be a friend is to communicate.  It may take some time, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of friends, but take the time occasionally to drop your friends a line.  Thank them for voting for your submissions every once in a while.  Compliment them for finding a particularly incredible piece of media. Just say “hi” from time to time.  Some won’t appreciate it and will think you are trying to game them.  Most won’t mind it at all.

Good Social Media Friends Defend Each Other

This is a minor point normally, but in some cases, it’s a big deal.  If one of your good social media friends is getting bashed by a troll, help your friend out.  Bury the troll’s negative comment.  Write one in reply that defends your friend.  You wouldn’t let your best friend in real life get bashed and you shouldn’t let your social media friend get bashed either.

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The best social media submitters have friends.  Lots of them.  Making the right friends and working with them the right way is possibly the most important aspect of being successful on social media.  Someone with no friends can submit a picture of Elvis walking around in the forest with Bigfoot and it will never make the front page of any social media site.  It’s a flaw in the systems, but it’s one we have to deal with for now.  Might as well make the most of it.

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Social Media blogs are everywhere.  Heck, you’re at one right now!

Most people who submit content to social media websites like Digg, Reddit, Mixx, or Propeller do so because they believe what they are submitting is worthy of making it to the front page where it can be viewed by a gazillion people.  It could be something that interests them from the news.  Perhaps it’s a story they worked exceptionally hard on from their blog.  Maybe it’s a hilarious video they found.

So, new to the world of social media, they submit it and wait for their name to appear in the popular section.  It’s a great story, afterall.  However, in most cases, it does not make the front page.  Undaunted, they try again.  And again.  Eventually they start to look at what hits the front page and they see a discouraging trend — the same names keep popping up, and it isn’t theirs.

What do they do?  They click on a profile.  At Digg, they might click on Suxmonkey, a front page regular.  They scan down to the stats and their eyes pop out of their head.  34,000 Diggs!  Oh ____!  Perhaps they check out Reddit next and click on QGYH2 to see a karma score over 100K.  Moving right along to Propeller, they check the Top Contributors section to find that they’ve all submitted hundreds, even thousands of stories and comments.

If you are one of these people, don’t give up!  You don’t have to spend hours a day, every day, to become a regular to the front page of social media websites.  You simply need a strategy that fits your schedule.

Each social media website is different.  They have different techniques that work (which is probably why very few make it to the top ranks on multiple social media sites).  Here is a breakdown of ways to make it to the front page on a tight schedule.

Reddit

We’ll start with Reddit because it’s the easiest for a part-timer to hit the front page.  On Reddit, you don’t need a huge friend list.  You don’t need to upmod (vote for) dozens or hundreds of stories a day to get noticed.  You need four things: quality content (even though low quality content can sneak in sometimes), excellent headline writing skills, an understanding of what the hot topics are on Reddit, and luck.  That’s it.

Read the first few front pages.  You’ll start to notice trends (which often fluctuate) of topics that are hitting.  Some easy topics to push through are Bush-bashing stories, RIAA-bashing stories, and cop-bashing stories.  Not into bashing?  No worries.  Get there with the headline.

Because Reddit does not have a way to leave a description, the title itself must be the description.  You have more space than most social media sites, but you must choose your words carefully.  Be creative, tell the story quickly, don’t mislead, and you’ll be fine.  Here are some that are on the front page at the time of this story:

• Dolphins Finally Invent Wheel
• Russia will preemptively use nuclear weapons if their allies’ (including Iran) sovereignty is threatened
• This is how Al Jazeera International reported the results of the Nevada caucus (image)

Notice that even if you don’t read the stories, you still probably learned something from the headine itself.  Note of warning about headlines: do not get sucked into the “Vote this up if…” style headlines.  For every one that makes the front page, another 50 were downmodded to oblivion.

The luck comes in when you least expect it.  You might submit 3 stories, with the 2 most promising going nowhere and the one you regretted submitting making it to the top.  Reddit is quirky, but remember, you don’t have to be a power user to make it to the front page.

Digg

On Digg, it’s almost impossible to make it to the front page simply on merits of the story.  An exclusive interview with Jimmy Hoffa coming out of hiding may not make it to 10 Diggs if submitted by the wrong user.  Luckily, the Digg algorithm does its best to keep the part-timers in mind.

Most Diggers who make the front page on a regular basis Digg dozens, even hundreds of stories a day.  Many people establish a large list of friends and Digg most of their submissions.  The hope is that they will reciprocate, thus driving their stories up as well.  While this is the best strategy for those who can be active, a part-timer is not left behind.

For those who are part-timers because they can only Digg on certain days, there is hope.  Look at Tomboy501.  She normally only submits on weekends.  She takes a little time during the week to Digg some stories, but saves the story hunting and mass digging for weekend bursts.

If you can Digg regularly but only in short spells, you can still make your submissions go popular.  Keep a tight list of friends, small enough to be able to digg most or all of their submissions in the time that you have.  Submit regularly, but not necessarily a lot — 1 every day or two is fine.  The Digg algorithm takes into account how many Diggs you get on your average submission, so if you are submitting regularly but not getting more than a few Diggs, it will be easy for one of your submissions to make it to the Hot in (category) section with an above-average number of Diggs.  Once it’s there, the quality of the story takes over.

If your story is front-page-worthy, it SHOULD make it up through the levels and eventually to the front page.  Once it moves from Hot in (subcategory) to Hot in (category), if your submission is good and you haven’t hit the front page lately, it has a good chance of making it to the Hot in (news, videos, images) section and on to the Hot in All part.  Now, it’s ready to fly.

Be sure to prune and replenish your friends’ list regularly.  If you only have a few friends and a few submissions, it doesn’t take long.  Check to see if any of your friends haven’t been digging you recently and see if any of your non-friends have been.  Digg likes variety, so having the same people voting on your story will eventually lead to their Digg being “devalued” somewhat as a vote for your submissions.  Then, it will take more Diggs to make it to the Hot sections.

Either way, it isn’t hard to hit the front page as a part-timer.  Some top diggers will tell you it’s easier that way.  Considering you can get to the Hot sections with 10-15 Diggs and they have trouble showing up at 50-100, you can understand where they are coming from.

Propeller and Mixx

Like Digg, Propeller and Mixx each favor new people.  This time, it isn’t the algorithm as much as it is the members themselves.

On both Mixx and Propeller, you can make a large friends’ list, even if you don’t have much time.  These sites make it extremely easy to vote for your friends’ recent submission.  For Propeller, just click on “Friends Online” and then on “Friends’ Submitted Stories”.  For Mixx, click on “Your MixxFriends”.

You will be able to see the headlines, vote for the ones you want, and move on.  A fast reader and faster clicker can go through a dozen pages of stories in minutes.

Again, submit regularly, but not too much.  Keep adding friends who have common interests as you and who are active.  If you have the time, check your messages often and vote for the stories sent to you that you like.  Don’t “share” stories unless you’ve got one that you really want to hit the Front Page.

When you’ve got a winner, Share.  On Propeller, this can be time consuming, depending on the number of friends you have, but you can share your story and a message to 5 friends at a time until you make it through your list.  On Mixx, it’s as simple as sharing and checking off all of the people that you want to send the story to.

Two warnings:

Don’t share every story you submit.  In fact, only share the ones you really think are front page material.  The more you message people your stories, the more likely they are to block you or remove you from their friends’ list.

Check your messages.  Sometimes, people will send you something to the effect of “Stop messaging me your stories.  I check through all of my friends’ submissions, so if I like it, I’ll vote for it.”  Be courteous and you should be able to keep your friends voting for your stories.

Even though both get less traffic than Digg or Reddit, they are still fun and worthy social media websites to check out.  Both have features unique to them, so stop on by if you haven’t already.

StumbleUpon and Newsvine

I don’t know yet.  That’s the short answer.  Both need more than just a few minutes a day to really make an impact.  Since neither have a traditional Front Page structure, we’ll skip them for now and come back with better data next time it comes up.

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Making the front page of social media sites can be a rush for many people.  It’s neato, to coin an antiquated phrase.  Be careful, though.  It can definitely be addicting at times.