Crenk

There is famous and there is infamous, and StumbleUpon (SU) can make you both. In a recent event, Darren Rowse of Problogger got a first hand look at what SU did to make him infamous.

Darren has been a big supporter of SU, thus using it very heavily to rate sites across the net. In return for his dedicated support of others sites, a great number of his readership returns the support by stumbling his articles, creating a supportive community. Yesterday, he was notified that StumbleUpon had not just blocked, but banned him for abuse.

This misunderstanding hit the media networks in approximately an hour and a half the entire situation was resolved thanks to dedicated fans, but more importantly a customer friendly, transparent company willing to be open on the errors they make.

While many feel that SU was in the wrong, I find that measuring a business by how it admits and handles its errors is more important than assigning blame. SU did a fantastic and prompt job responding to Darren and Problogger was reestablished.

What is StumbleUpon?

StumbleUpon, similar to Digg, allows you to vote for sites, increasing the popularity based on user support. Once a site has been stumbled, a chain reaction through the social network is viral, and many sites see an increase in traffic.

A toolbar installs into the browser header once downloaded. This allows them to “stumble” a site, a basic “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” If you “thumbs up” a site, you are allowed to provide a brief description of the site and your rating. If a site has already been stumbled then you’ve simply boosted the sites rating, which affects the frequency in the rotation of random sites that SU will display. StumbleUpon is heavily monitored for abuse to provide a level playing field for all sites involved.

I for one enjoy and fully support StumbleUpon, and encourage you to explore the application and while ranking sites is always enjoyable, clicking the “stumble” button can take you to sites you may never have found otherwise.

Photo Credit, tris

With Digg currently being rumoured to be in talks with Microsoft for an acquisition, I thought I would check out and see how the Digg competitors are fairing. One of Diggs’ main competitors is Mixx, now Mixx has been gaining a lot of traffic of late, but I still have a lot of problems with their site compared to Digg.

It seems like everytime I go to Mixx the site isnt function right. Today I headed there to promote a few of our articles, but I could barely launch the site and when I went to submit an article it wouldnt even load the page. So with all the growth, funding and syndication deals, how come Mixx still isnt up to scratch?

I just thought I would let everyone know about my number 6. from my 2008 predictions. “Digg will be sold but I think for only about $200 million and not the $300 million they are looking for”.

Well know the Digg CEO Jay Adelson states, “Sorry to burst any drama theories, but they aren’t true. We remain focused on improving Digg and rolling out great features.”

There have been a lot of rumours lately that havent come to fruition, but as Mike Arrington mentioned over at Techcrunch, I think we should sit back and ’see how this one plays out’. I think Digg will definitely be sold this year, it is only a matter of time!

This has to be the biggest news since the Microsoft bid for Yahoo. Digg is still up for sale and Techcrunch reports that they are close to finding a buyer. If you dont already know, investment bank Allen & Co have been shopping around on Digg’s behalf to find a potential buyer. A source very close to the deal mentions that four companies are in heavy due diligence with Digg - two media/news companies, and two big Internet companies - Google and Microsoft. And Google and Microsoft are on the verge of making their bids.

Originally, Digg was looking for a price tag of around $300 million, but it is reported that Google are likely to bid approximately $200 million for Digg. Microsoft however will be offering a figure lower that the $200 million, solely because they already have a three year advertising deal with Digg.

Even at $200 million is Digg overpriced? I think it is. Digg has received a lot of rewards for their technology and product, but the community is the key. If Digg is bought by Microsoft will the community continue to use the product with the same intensity as they current do? I think not.

So far Digg has only raised $11.3 million in funding, so this will be a great out for Kevin Rose and friends.

Mixx has just announced that they have taken $2 million in Series B funding from InterSouth Partners. Mixx is a user generated content system, similar to Digg, Reddit and Propeller. Total funding to date is $3.5 million, in which they have high profile investors on board, such as the LA Times.

It has been reported by Valleywag in December and now again by Silicon Alley, that Digg are working on a white label version of their product for the IAC. “I’ve seen it, and it looks great,” silicon alley correspondent writes. We inquired with Ask, and got a “no comment at this time”, but we got something slightly more encouraging from Digg’s Jay Adelson: “We have no comment on our relationship with Ask, but will keep you updated!”

If I had a pound for every time I hear “Digg Killer”, then I would def. be rich and owning my own island in the caribbean. However, since the sort of failure of Netscape (now Propeller), there has really been no service to challenge Digg. Now this white label will be on the scene, i dont think it will be a Digg killer mainly because it is getting written by Digg. Thus, how can it really challenge, or are IAC just trying to gain some extra pageviews and fill out their portfolio before they spin off Ask.com into an IPO?? Only time will tell, but im looking forward to seeing this new service soon.

Diggnation live from the FOWA Conference in London. Enjoy!

Holy cow. The extreme modders at Computer Choppers are selling their behemoth of a casemod - the Digg case. For those of you who haven’t been keeping tabs on the modding comunity of late, you probably won’t know all the details - but I’ve gone to the liberty of posting ‘em up here for all too see. More photos after the jump.

The Digg case mod is a one-off project by Computer-Choppers.com finished in April 2007. It was modeled from the Digg.com logo (popular social news website) and has been used as a show-computer piece for most of the summer at various computer events in the northwest. It has just about 30 hours of use on it in total. The system will be featured in a future issue of CPU magazine later this year or the start of 2008. The case is fabricated from the ground up using MDF (fiberboard) and has been finished with a blue pearl custom paint job. The letters on the front of the case light up in blue and can be switched off and on at any time. A newsreader under the lettering takes the top news stories from Digg.com and displays them on the front of the case.

Bidding currently stands at only $2,500! For the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor inside, you’d expect to pay more than this for even just a basic rig, let alone a super-modded component-packed master model like this. I’d place a bid, but a rather daunting several thousand dollar shipping bill to the UK doesn’t sound all that appetising.

Via: Techzi

At the end of September last year John Chow released his a list of the Top Google Whores, and this post is going to try to update this list. Any readers who might know of anyone who should be on the list make sure you let me know. Additionally, if you are on the list and need the amount update, please let me know.

1. Markus Frind: PlentofFish.com - $300,000 per month. Plentyoffish.com receives up to 500 million page views per month and make over $10,000 per day for Markus, who runs the site from home.
2. Kevin Rose: Digg - $250,000 per month. Do I really need to give Kevin Rose an introduction. Kevin Rose started Digg in December of 2004 with just $1000. Today Digg is one of the biggest news sites on the Net, with over 400,000 members and over 200 million page views per month.
3. Jeremy Schoemake: ShoeMoney - $140,000 per month. If ever anyone can be considered an Internet marketing superstar, ShoeMoney would be near the top of the list. Jeremy Schoemaker is a search engine marketer who knows how to take advantage of both Google AdSense and AdWords.
4. Jason Calacanis: Weblogs, Inc. - $120,000 per month. Before Jason Calacanis sold Weblogs to AOL for $25 million, he got the network of blogs making over $4,000 a day from Google Adsense.
5. David Miles Jr & Kato Leonard: Freeweblayouts.net - $100,000 per month. This was claimed by the Washington Post in an article. Freeweblayouts.net gives away designs that people can use on their Myspace page.
6. Tim Carter: AskTheBuilder.com - $30,000 per month. Tim Carter is a licensed master plumber and carpenter with his own radio show. He also makes frequent television appearances. He founded AsktheBuilder.com in 1995, The primary focus has been catering to an avid following of fellow builders on the site.
7. Andrew Leyden: PodcastDirectory.com - $30,000 per month. Andrew receives nearly a million hits a month on his podcast directory.
8. Shawn Hogan: DigitalPoint.com - $15,000 per month. According to the New York Times back in January 2005 Mr Hogan makes $15,000 per month from Google Adsense by using a very unique revenue sharing model.
9. Max Goldberg: YTMND.com - $10,000 per month.
10. Steve Pavlina: StevePavlina.com - $10,000 per month.
11. Matt Daimler: Seatguru.com - $10,000 per month. Matther Daimler, 28, developed an obsession with finding the most comfortable seats on the long airline flights he took for business.

Digg’s Kevin Rose has announced plans for a Digg facelift this week.

The change comes in the form of a home page that can be viewed in three forms: just news, just videos, and both at once.

The new home page will “pave the way” for Digg to start cataloging images, which will be rolled out around October.

Digg also plans to overhaul the comments section so it’s “easier and more lightweight.”