Publishing 2.0 - Latest Comments in Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Brian Clark — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 15:13:55 -0000

>>Is Netscapeâ€™s Digg clone more successful at getting mass, and if so why?

Netscape is a relative barren wasteland, because "normal" people with lives don't interact with information the same way over-gadgeted, anti-social boys do on Digg. People who say Digg is the future of news don't understand "real" people.

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Chris Edwards — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 11:12:17 -0000

I can't disagree with the Digg analysis, other than 25 might be a bit high in terms of the average age. But, don't all forms of media come to reflect their audience; and the media their audience?

Conservatives don't go out of their way to read the NYT, except via right-wing blogs. Liberals are not going to buy the UK's Daily Mail because of its politics. And, by the same token, the publishers of the Mail are not going to mess with their approach for fear of ticking off the audience it has built up just for the chance of picking up a few readers outside its core demographic.

Neutral sites will never be able to build up an effective audience, unless they are perceived as biased to a particular ideology. And those that choose an ideology, or have it chosen for them, will be trapped by it. There is a way out for media owners and one that has worked well for the magazine publishers - have as many different properties as you can manage. Kill of those that don't work and be prepared to have new properties take over from the old if an established title starts to falter because its audience has moved on (or died).

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Matt MacQueen — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 03:15:10 -0000

Interesting Scott. How do you compare their content to AOL/Netscape front page stories "submitted by users" that all could be front page in any mainstream rag such as, basically taking a quick scan, USA Today content? Is Netscape's Digg clone more successful at getting mass, and if so why? I know they also have the "Anchors Recommend" which I guess is a play at staying mass, if boringly edited. The participation seems pretty light, I guess if it's really mainstreamed content, why not just put the AP wire pages on the front page? If Digg is too niche to their early adopter audience to be palatable to more, well, mainstream? people, Netscape's model doesn't seem to be unearthing anything meaningfully different to bother with either. What about NewsVine?

Niche groups want content from their tribe, but things they wouldn't find on their own. I think the value of it may be the very niche-iness you hate.

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Scott Karp — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:39:48 -0000

1389, thanks for the observation -- I think you're right that politics aspect is more complex and probably includes at least one other distinct niche -- it's a good bet that any politics-focused niche overlapps closely, if not entirely with a political blog niche.

And yes, it's notable that AdSense has not been sufficient to bring Digg to profitability (at least as of a podcast that Kevin and Jay did with Mike Arrington last December).

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

1389 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:23:41 -0000

You're substantially correct, but on the other hand, as Marshall Kirkpatrick pointed out above, the Digg population also includes a non-liberal "subculture" (for lack of a better term) that has enough members to get stories to the front page reasonably often. AFAIK, there's no specific political party or organization, but if you read comments posted on some of the political stories, you can get a picture of an older demographic (both men and women, typically over 30 and married with children).

BTW, people in that group do have some money to spend, and might be more likely to click on ads, were it not for the fact that Google Adsense does such a ham-handed job of identifying products and services that would be of interest to that audience.

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Greg Gershman — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 08:00:36 -0000

What's true for digg is true true for most Web 2.0 startups/sites, never really reaching beyong the early-adopter crowd. There really are only a few sites that make it past this stage and really successfully achieve mainstream adoption.

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Scott Karp — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:47:40 -0000

Marshall, conservative leaning stories are often Dugg so that they can be ripped to shreads -- I was just inferring this when I looked at the stories on the list. I went to check out the comments of those stories to see if that was the case, but of course I couldn't find them because Digg has the worst search engine on the web.

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Rob Hyndman — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 06:15:40 -0000

I'm inclined to say Digg can keep it, Scott. 5,000 diggs, for this!! This tells me more than I need to know about Digg's demographic. I've always been sceptical about the opportunity to convert this audience into anything. Now that, plus I want to go have a shower.

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Neil — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 05:00:32 -0000

It's not a question of a media company capturing an audience - it's the audience capturing itself. The 'under 25, male, liberal, interested in tech' group of people was (unsurprisingly) the first to adopt Digg. Try and find another new technology which isn't touched by this group first - they are always the first to discover and adopt things on the web.

There is room for a Digg style service to grow through the mainstream, but it's just a small matter of hitting enough of the mainstream audience first so that the subject orientation doesn't become niche. But then surely it means you'll need to get a few early adoptors on your side if you want to filter to the mainstream? In which case, if Digg has captured all the early adoptors, maybe it still has a chance to make a crossover to the mainstream.

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

alexera — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 04:58:48 -0000

you are right. altough they don't like to admit that it is niche media.

info@alexera.hu

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 03:26:48 -0000

Which of those headlines do you see as pointing to liberal politics?? The political ones all look to me like they'd fit in just fine over at Malkin's HotAir.

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Muhammad Saleem — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 03:09:17 -0000

Scott, that is a very succinct definition of what Digg is. That describes the site better than its Wikipedia entry.

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Brian Clark — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 23:02:30 -0000

That's exactly right Scott. And even though you and I see that, some fool will come along and buy it at a multiple that demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the growth potential of Digg.