How to test Social News sites
Step 1: Find a blog article that you find interesting and insightful
Step 2: Submit it to reddit/digg/newsYC (the title of the submission should probably just be the blog title)
Step 3: Wait 24 hours, has it been upvoted more than a dozen times?
The submission is almost always ignored entirely. Because there are just too many submissions. They can’t all be on the front page, so readers “vote up” content that is:
- Attention Grabbing (eg, GOOGLE TAKES OVER DIGG!)
- From a mainstream site (eg, Breaking on BBC..)
- Gimmicky (eg, kittens)
These aren’t bad things. But chances are your well written, interesting blog post is more interesting to at least some readers. What are sites doing to counter this?
Digg - Social Recommendation System (see here)
Reddit - Sub reddits & relying on users to a) submit to correct subreddit and b) assume readers are subscribed to it. (for example)
Mixx - Tags (for example)
Is this enough for readers? Should sites be doing more to link readers with interesting and relevant articles?
