Digg 3 review

The Digg process is designed to be democratic and allows hidden nuggets from around the Internet to surface and potentially attract masses of readers. This setup has its upsides, such as bringing to light otherwise buried news and views. On the other hand, the whims of the crowd tend to bring attention to quirky items that you may not care for, such as a "human can opener" video. On the other hand, more intellectually challenging stories also get plenty of attention. We like the mix of serious and silly content. And if you want your own favorites to bubble up to the top of the list, you can always keep ranking the news you like.

Digg 3 lets you customize the news and videos you want displayed when you log in.

Unlike Google News (whose top picks are selected by algorithms rather than people), Yahoo News (whose editors select headlines), or even the revised Netscape beta (whose editors make the final call about crowd picks)--like Slashdot--Digg relies solely upon readers worldwide to find and surface the most interesting content. Because the majority rules, Digg averts potential censorship by letting its audience self-select. This can be viewed as a downside, say, if you prefer the idea of trained editors following up on an area of expertise. We're curious to see how the expanded-content Digg 3 will develop in contrast to the many dozens of Digg-like clones for niche subjects.

We expect that only savvy users or those with friends hip to the latest Web trends will set Digg as their first stop for the latest news and videos, instead of a home page designated by Comcast, Netscape, Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo and their ilk. However, you can also add Digg feeds to personalized home pages, such as My Yahoo, Windows Live, and Google Home, as well to your own blog or other Web site. And Digg is planning to open parts of its code to allow third-party developers to tweak the incoming features as they see fit.

The number of users, or Diggers, has been doubling monthly as of late and now numbers more than 300,000 (with 8 million visitors). Can Digg maintain or expand that kind of growth, or will it slump as quickly as its star rose when another tool attracts more attention? We look forward to tracking Digg's progress in the months ahead.