Digg gets into the toolbar, URL shortening market
By Patricio Robles	 April 3rd 2009 05:10
Digg, the popular content sharing website that lets users 'vote' for their favorite content on the web, is a favorite of online publishers. Get Digged enough and you might hit the Digg homepage, which can drive tens of thousands of visitors in short order.
Currently, there are two ways to Digg content: on the Digg website or through a button that publishers place on their web pages.
But all of that is changing with the launch of the DiggBar. The DiggBar, as the name suggests, is a bar that gives users easy access to Digg directly from the browser interface. With the DiggBar, users can Digg stories without having to leave the site they're on, making the process easier and quicker.
But that's not all. In addition, the DiggBar lets users do a number of other things, including:
Create shortened URLs.
Share stories via Twitter, Facebook and email.
View comments about stories without leaving the website they're on.
Find related stories without having to go to the Digg website.
View analytics related to how many times a story has been viewed.
Here's how it works: to generate a DiggBar, simply type http://digg.com/ before any URL (eg. http://digg.com/http://econsultancy.com) and Digg will automatically generate the shortened URL and the DiggBar. To avoid having to generate the DiggBar manually, there's a bookmarklet you can add to your browser.
Digg is providing an API for its URL shortening functionality, which will let developers leverage Digg's new service in their applications. With URL shortening, an API and analytics, Digg is setting itself up to compete with other URL shortening services like Bit.ly, which just raised $2m, and could see itself become a bigger part of the Twitter ecosystem.
The DiggBar makes a lot of sense and it's implemented in a nifty fashion, although I think a dedicated browser add-on (not just a bookmarklet) would have been nice too. If it works out and enough people use the DiggBar, the site should see more Digging.
That said it's unclear what this really does for Digg as a business. In fact, if Digg's users use the DiggBar in droves, Digg could conceivably lose ad revenue as users would be interacting less frequently with the Digg website where advertising is displayed although Allen Stern of Center Networks thinks the exact opposite might be true. I guess it depends on how many people end up using the DiggBar and how they use it.
So far I haven't seen any shortened Digg URLs on Twitter but it's been less than a day so it's too early to tell whether this will be a boon for Digg or a bust.
Blog Community Management Content marketing Digg Facebook Social twitter URL shortening web browser
Should brands ignore social media criticism?
Social media has given brands a new medium in which consumers can be engaged. Most agree: there's something really important about this, even if we disagree on just what that is.
At the same time, social media has given consumers a powerful new tool for interacting with brands. It's now possible to provide feedback, issue praise and voice complaints in a manner that can have a real impact very quickly.
April 2nd 2009 06:58
Blog Affiliate Marketing
Twitter has a really bad weekend
Twitter, the wildly-popular microblogging service that's the topic du jour amongst digital marketers these days, had a really bad weekend.
First, on Friday it came to light that a Twitter-oriented advertising network called Magpie was being used by affiliates to promote spammy affiliate links on Twitter. The affiliate links were presented as 'testimonial' tweets and the users who sent them did not directly disclose that their tweets were paid.
Digital agencies on Twitter (or are they?)
You might imagine that many of the top digital agencies will be fearsome Twitter users, not least because many agency staffers regularly use the platform to communicate.
So have the majority of agencies claimed Twitter accounts for their brand names? Are they tweeting about their innovative campaigns and web projects, to spread the word and gain kudos?
I was perplexed to discover that many agencies haven't yet bothered, and I'm not sure what message that sends out to the client-side.