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Is digg the new Slashdot?

The two services have more in common than not - just take a look at the techie and geeky headlines on each. But the fact that digg uses the wisdom of the crowds to determine relevancy, is a step further than Slashdot with its wizard-like editors. [...]
Written by Richard MacManus, Contributor

tech-recipes has a post comparing being linked to on digg to being Slashdotted (note: I found the post via digg's frontpage). digg has gained a lot of mindshare recently and people have told me that getting linked to on digg has a similar effect to being Slashdotted - i.e. a lot of links. According to tech-recipes, they are similar in other ways too - including:

  • digg users do not click ads
  • digg traffic does not generate new users, comments, or posts
  • Every site on the front page gets flamed in the comments

How is digg different than Slashdot? At the risk of incurring the wrath of anti-Web 2.0 types, digg is a very democratic and - yes - Web 2.0 system. With digg, users submit stories for review, as in Slashdot. But unlike Slashdot, digg doesn't have editors deciding which stories make it onto the homepage. The users make that decision collectively, by submitting their vote (a "digg") for each story they think is worthy.

Digg also has other features which make it blog-friendly and perhaps more 'social' than Slashdot. For example digg users can post stories to their blogs with a one-click system supported by Typepad, Blogger, Live Journal, Moveable Type, and Wordpress. digg also gives users the ability to bookmark stories under their user profile.

Having said that, Slashdot offers users journals, the "ability to define Friends & Foes" and access rights to Slashdot's moderation systems. So they're not exactly anti-social.

The two services have more in common than not - just take a look at the techie and geeky headlines on each. But the fact that digg uses the wisdom of the crowds to determine relevancy, is a step further than Slashdot with its wizard-like editors.

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