The “Shouts are Removed at Digg” – Discussion with the Top Users

As most of us Digg users confronted a maintenance going on, it was the beginning of the end for sending shouts to your fellow (mutual) Friends. I headed over to digg’s blog and saw this statement: 

“Hey all –

We’ve been working on adding new ways for you to share the content you find on Digg – Facebook Connect launched earlier this month, and in April we added the ability to share stories via Facebook and Twitter directly from the DiggBar.

Starting today you’ll notice a few more changes to sharing options on Digg. We’ve listened to your feedback, crunched some user data, and decided to remove shouts. As some of you know, shouts have been a controversial feature since their inception and considering the ever-changing landscape of the social web, we’ve elected to remove them in favor of more popular options. We’ve added easier access to sharing via email, Facebook and Twitter. As always, we want to encourage sharing and communication within our community and will continue to look into features that address these needs.

On the homepage you can now mouse over or click on the “share” link to open a dialog box that offers sharing via email, Facebook or Twitter. For example, if you click on the email icon, we’ll open a new mail message from your default email client and all you’ll need to do is enter email addresses. If you click on the Twitter icon, we’ll open Twitter in a browser window and populate the update field with the story title and URL (note that you’ll need to be logged in to Twitter at the time).

On the story list pages, you’ll see those icons directly under the story description (no need to click on “Share”).

A few of you may also notice that we removed the ‘blog this’ feature, which had really low usage. We think these changes better reflect how folks want to share content, and while we understand that some folks will miss the shout feature, we hope that you’ll give these new options a try.

As always, we’ll continue to iterate on features based on your feedback.

Have a good one -

Jen”
(Direct link) 

Frankly speaking, it did screw up some users & made some happy. Discussions started going on, alternatives started coming into play in which Twitter had the most votes and I could see why: “Twitter is Over Capacity”.

Anyway, I thought, why not listen to what the Digg’s top users have to say about this? So I headed over, got their opinions in and here they are. Yes, I know I didn’t get a few like MrBabyMan, LouiBaur, BadWithComputer, Chris and many more because of the timezone and (another valid reason) – I don’t have them in my list .. Still I’ll try to get what they have to say about it in this post sooner.

MSaleem

I don’t think the move is a bad one in the larger scheme of things. Shouts were being abused to promote content rather than as a tool to facilitate conversations between people. They need a site-mail that people can use just to talk to each other, otherwise its a social site where users can’t really socialize. As for the twitter aspect, I understand why they moved the sharing aspect to twitter, it’s the hot new property and its growth is outpacing all other social sites so why not leverage it to your advantage?

its very much inline with what they did before, with the launch of the diggbar.

Vtbarrera 

Digg’s shout system was no doubt a focal point of controversy. Some users loved it, some hated it; but the reality was that essentially it was a feature that rewarded new users while punishing legacy ones. Digg found a middle ground in Twitter, the fastest growing social networking platform. I honestly wasn’t surprised, but I think Digg went the right direction on this one.

As Twitter goes more and more mainstream, Digg will be riding the wave of growth and buzz that Twitter will be able to afford.

TalSiach

I have been digging for a while and I must say although I 100% agree with the “Twitter” move, In a way its weird to see Digg without the shouts.

I do believe that digg recommendation engine system and the integration with other sites such as facebook is helping to determine a popular story not only within digg but in the net as a whole. So there is no doubt in my mind that digg have all the tools to know if a story is popular or not without the shouts.

By taking the shouts out , digg left IM,facebook and Twitter to be the sole communication tool between users and took communication outside the site which I am not sure its good. Maybe they have future plans for that.

If people will open new twitter accounts just for digg only, in a way I think this is a problem since it will keep the situation as it was but just take out the action away from the site.

I want to add there that i think shouts were redundant to see if a story is popular or not but not as a comunication tool among users.

SirPopper

For me shouts were very useful and necessary for my success on digg, i need to say that i’ve used the shout function on digg very often and it worked very well 4 me. I have done fan shouts means all fans who shouted to me got a reshout also I shouted to all new fans on digg I shouted to the beginning to my friends shouts were very impotrant, now it is different and you need a strong twitter or gtalk account. I have no idea about how digg and facebook work together but i will miss the shouts because it also was a good way of communicating with my mutual friends on digg.

Also, digg has changed the shout power a few month ago with every algo change they also removed more and more power from the shouts so msaleem and vtbarrera are right with the answer that the shout function has not much power anymore for most of the people.

Irfanmp

Although many times used to promote spam, Digg’s shout system was a very convenient method to communicate with fellow diggers. I’m not planning on being active on Twitter, nor do I plan to use Facebook as a means to share content on Digg, so I guess the social aspect of social media is mainly dead to me.

Divine Diva

If you check others submission on diggs like your mutuals than those people will check yours and you will get diggs and comments easily so check each and every one now to make your story on FP now. Regarding sharing at Twitter, yes it’s very useful, start doing that also.

Greg Voakes

At the tail end of shouts, people were shouting their twitter user profiles to get their shout recipients to follow them – but I have a feeling my Twitter user experience is going to suffer because I won’t be reading anything but Digg links. I am glad they got rid of shouts though, it was almost as bad as my spam folder in Gmail.

John Boitnott

This change could contribute to the massive growth taking place at Twitter. By taking many of Digg’s top users, as well as the page views they create, and thrusting them into the twitter universe, it lends an air of credibility to Twitter (and Digg) and increases Digg’s connection to that site. It also may open Digg up to the “outside world” so that more and more people can use it.

Jenocide

Twitter users gives a shit what music I am listening to at the moment and the fact that I like Pie. Diggers don’t give a shit about me.

Extravagant

I think people wont move to twitter for digg, it is isn’t efficient. ppl want a higher twitter follower count then it becomes impossible to keep up with tweets – as far as shouts, i think people don’t digg shouts, they digg for mutual friends, i think its best to just digg almost everything in the sub RSS, and not even IM cuz IM takes too long.

Another Power User (Can’t reveal name)

Most power users including me never shouted anyway content is the key to making front page. As long as you can find good content it dosent matter if shouts stay or they are gone, life goes on. Regarding Twitter, twitterers are more likely to RT than digg, a digg link on twitter is spam link.

GameBittk

I’m seeing people are using Twitter now for shouts, and I think it could work as an alternative, but I’m thinking twitter in general is lame (IMO serves no purpose). I dont understand why digg would axe a communications tool without providing an alternative on-site. Now we’re forced to use something not too many diggers use.

Domfosnz (Dominic)

I’m not bothered about the shouts being taken out. I reckon the most important things about successful digg posting are good network of friends on IM and Twitter, great submission title, good pic, and good description.. pretty much in that order.

SunShine

By removing shouts, Digg has become more anti-social than ever. They have the algo to where we are basically ‘punished’ for sharing files for having a certain number of friends, for having the ability to read more than 200 articles, pics a day. Secondly, I wont’ digg from a twitter link, digg should have their own way for their own users to be social with one another. People should not be forced to use another website in order to be social with those on digg.

(UPDATE: More Reviews)

Chris

Well I must say this change would effect new users.. I’m not bothered about the shouts coz I have never shouted in my entire digg career. Now a day’s people are using Twitter for shouts, and I think it could work as an alternative.

BuzzEdition

I rarely ever looked at shouts and over the last few months I only used them for friends who asked for a little help on a submission. I hate that they are gone though, because now I find myself inundated with Tweet requests on Twitter. And honestly, sometimes the quality of the article means I have to say no. But what makes for a great story on Digg, does not necessarily make for a great Twitter submission. It’s simply a different type of platform. People do not want me to clutter their twitter stream with comics and pictures or NSFW type submissions. I am also not on Twitter to send people to a Digg landing page. Not sure exactly what this will mean for Digg, it may improve the quality of what actually makes it to Digg, it may not, but I do know that I will not be tweeting many of the Digg submissions that currently make the front page.

Annjay

I really want to THANK Digg.com for removing shouting system. I believe it was really helpful but I was not using this to send my stuff because to get the shouting system work best for me, I should always keep an eye on others shouts that sent to me and it was very time consuming. But I never refused anyone to shout stuffs for them. Few months ago, when there was no rumor for removal of shouting system, I started use of twitter to interact with my friends and specially to share stuffs with them. For me Twitter is more than just an alternative of shouting system

You have anything to say? do you agree with what these guys have to say? mention it in your comments & we’ll take it off from there.

Again, Thank you everyone who participated and shared their thoughts. Appreciate it.

Tags: digg removed shouts Twitter