Mixx v Digg

I’ve known about Digg for quite a while, but never really got into it until April 07. Since then Digg increasingly worked its way into my browsing habits until it was basically my favorite site. I was especially fascinated with the Digg Labs interfaces, most notably Stack & Spy. Apparently I’d joined the party at what seems now like a “time of upheaval” with bannings and the associated fallout with all those other gray areas of operation. I read more stories from Diggers who I knew as big time contributors being banned for shady reasons, or no reasons at all. It was from these high profile refugees and their unknown brethren that I learned of Mixx. Specifically it was the blog post on cGt2099.
To me, Mixx is everything I really ever hoped for in Digg. It’s really that simple. While the volume on Mixx may not be quite what I’d like to see, the future of the community more than makes up for that temporary issue. The community was quick to accept me as their friend and posted friendly and thought provoking comments on submissions. No matter how good a story was on Digg that mysterious mob of a-holes would almost invariably appear with mean spirited/vacuous comments. From that group of users I inherently found little sense of actual community. I readily admit I am most probably a victim of circumstance as it pertains to the Digg community. Digg is now something akin to a swirling cosmos of matter and anti-matter where you can easily grow lonely amongst the chaos, something I’m sure was not an issue just a few years ago.
Anyway, if you haven’t checked out Mixx, you should. It’s the social news equivalent of your friendly neighborhood mom-and-pop shop versus Wal-Mart. You love mom and pop, right?