One of the best parts about my job is that I get to talk to a lot of the top users over at Digg.  This is important because the Digg algorithm is always in a constant state of tweak (a statement that can be construed properly several different ways).  It changes as fast as, if not faster than, Google and other search engines.  Two questions always pop up with either me asking top users or other users asking me:

“What does it take to get to the front page?”

The answer has two parts: time and tools.  We can go into the time issue later, but for now, let’s assume that you have the time.  The second question is:

“What are the right tools?”

There are dozens of lists of Digg tools out there.  Most of them are nice and quaint, but do top users really use them.  Normally, no.  Here are the tools that they do use.  Some are obviously loose interpretations of the word “tools” but anything that helps to achieve the goal of hitting the front page often should be listed. [Read more...]

When the Recommendation Engine was first introduced on June 30, 2008, the front page was instantly transformed into a 20-man show.  During the first week of July, 31% of the front page stories were submitted by 10 people and 51% were submitted by 28.

By its very nature, the Recommendation Engine pushed these numbers even higher.  The more a submitter’s stories were Dugg, the more they would be recommended, which would get them more Diggs, which brought more recommendations – in essence, it snowballed for heavy submitters with lots of friends until its peak in the first half of August when 46% of the front page stories were submitted by 14 users.  The top 30 users controlled over 2/3rds of the front page. [Read more...]