I have a confession to make: Digg is actually a totally new-to-me 2.0 Web site. I have never even visited the site, despite the fact that I see the little "Digg it" chicklet everywhere. I admit, I start to become overwhelmed with all of these 2.0 tools. Every day, I check Facebook, Google Reader, e-mail, etc. I've got a Goodreads account and a Delicious account. Now, for this class, I've added checking the wiki for updates and looking at my Twitter page. Eventually, the tools you use to make information more manageable begin to require a lot of management themselves. So, I just kept ignoring Digg. And, after checking it out, I still don't feel like I was missing out on anything, so I'm going to go back to ignoring it.
That's not to say that Digg doesn't seem like a neat site. I love the whole "by the people, for the people" thing it's got going on. For those of you who may also be new to Digg, it allows people to rate Web sites and news items so users can find the most popular articles about a given topic. Items that receive an exceptional amount of "diggs" appear on the front page. I see now why people include "Digg it" links on their pages, this can really help raise their visibility.
Still, I don't see much use for it in libraries. Sure, it can lead you to "popular" news articles, but popular is relative. It also isn't necessarily an indicator of accuracy or quality. Just because something is of interest to a subsect of the population that uses Digg, doesn't necessarily mean it has widespread appeal.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
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2 comments:
I've also never found Digg to be that useful. I usually get my news and "top stories" from a few select blogs. I don't use the "Digg this" option on any of those sites, so I've never found a need to check Digg for the posts I've already read.
Perhaps if there was an internal (or consortium-wide) Digg-esque site for libraries, patrons/staff could alert each other to important news and events.
It's new to me also. I am completely overwhelmed with all of the social software options available. I keep thinking of the preview for that movie He's Just Not That Into You where Drew Barrymore makes the statement about being rejected by several portals that it is exhausting.
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