Google Has Digg on the Brain
Google Has Digg on the Brain
Chris Crum | Staff Writer - WebProNews
Google has released a gadget called What’s Popular for iGoogle. You
may draw some connections between it and a certain site called Digg,
and some are speculating that it is even an indication of a broader
plan from Google to creep into Digg territory. What would a
Google-owned version of Digg mean to you? Tell us.
Google says the What’s Popular gadget uses algorithms to find
interesting content from a combination of user submissions and trends
in aggregated user activity across a variety of Google services,
like YouTube and Google Reader.
Users can rate items that they like or dislike by clicking the
ratings buttons next to each item. The gadget then looks at what users
liked and disliked to adjust the ranking of items.
Users can directly submit URLs, and if they become popular, they can
rise to the top of the list. You can associate your Google user name
with your submissions, and edit titles and descriptions. You can also
keep track of what you have submitted in the “My Adds” section. Yep,
that sounds about like Digg.
What Happens if Google Launches it’s Own Digg? (What do you think?)
Well, you know how marketers are always struggling to get their
content to reach the front page of Digg. And obviously they look for
any way possible to get better results in Google, so it’s hard to
imagine a Digg-like Google service not being constantly spammed. I
would guess that with a Digg like site, you would have Digg-like
problems as well.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. For one, this is only a
gadget right now, and there is no indication that getting your content
ranked in it will have any effect whatsoever in getting your content
ranked in Google itself. But if Google turned this into a
full-fledged site, would it be out of the realm of possibility for
popular content to appear in Google’s universal search results,
similar to say, YouTube, which actually has been known to improve
search engine rankings? There’s also the social media leads to links
scenario.
There has long been chatter about “what if Google bought Digg?”
“If you can’t beat them (or don’t feel like putting out the cash to
acquire them), then join them,” Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal
comments about the service.
It is certainly interesting to think about Google running its own
version of Digg while seemingly getting more social all around.
Recently they have added the ability for Google profiles to be linked
to vanity URLs, and have them show up in search results. Friend
Connect of course is out there, and a number of other social functions
are already residing within your Google account.
Google’s whole foray into social media is quite fascinating to me as
it unfolds almost from the inside out without many people realizing
it is happening. If you ask me, Google already has a leg or two up on
other social networks too as it holds the largest brand on the web,
and obviously search market share, and searches begin a lot of web
sessions, not even taking into consideration the number of people who
use Google as their homepage.
Do you think Google will take the What’s Popular gadget concept and
turn it into a Digg-like site?
