Dig this - Digg Digg Digg !

Now this is interesting. Although I've heard about Digg for quite some time now, I've just begun to use it in the last week or so. For those of you who have missed this (where were we?), Digg is a news website where users submit stories for review. These so called stories normally revolve around a link to a website, and your actual "story" about what was at the end of that link.

After you have done your story, you then submit the story for "review", but rather than allow an editor to decide which stories make it to the front page, called the homepage, the users do. Readers of Digg perform their voting (a la American Idol style) of your story using a "Digg" button next to your story. The more votes or Diggs you get, the higher in ranking your story becomes. Ultimately with more votes, your story keeps climbing up in the ranking ladder until it makes it to the front page. On the other hand, if you do not get sufficient votes after a certain time, your story drops out of the review queue (i.e. it gets booted out). At the end of it all, you get a community of users who both submit, read, and vote for stories.

"So what?", you might say.

So ..... the community gets to consume news or information that they themselves have selected as noteworthy. I kinda like that because I am beginning to use this Digg concept to source for materials that I need in the course of my research and writings. Digg also combines social bookmarking, blogging, and RSS. You are just one click away from bookmarking their materials. This you do after you register your profile. Those articles or stories that you have "dugg" will then appear within your profile area as bookmarks. With one click you can also blog about the stories. RSS is also available for lots of stuff like the frontpage stories, stories that you "dugg" and so on.

Digg is also a social networking website (what ?! Another one ?!). Stories that you have "dugg" may be shared with others in the community. You can also see which stories they have "dugg". Readers may also leave their comments on any story, this is also one click away.

In essence, as an information junkie I now use Digg, del.icio.us, Findory and Bloglines to trawl the internet for information to satisfy my insatiable desire to learn.

p.s. More about del.icio.us, Findory and Bloglines later !