The Diggnation PR Machine

When I became a fan of Digg in the past (something I have since moved away from, but that’s not the point) I was really interested in the Diggnation podcast, and all the peer appeal I found within. At that time Digg was already well on the track to shadiness in its business practices, but I was unaware of this, simply not having been exposed to Digg or social media at large. When I watched Kevin and Alex dude their way through each “frat-tastic” episode I felt it to be an entertaining look at Digg stories from the inside. It seemed to be a real enough experience, listening to commentary from the “kid” who created Digg; he seemed to be analogous to my friends and I, and I found connection in that very aspect.
Now when I look back at my attitude during those early months with Diggnation I feel a bit foolish. Having since learned more each day about the common practices at Digg I started to feel my young adult male connection erode. Honestly it’s less about the rumors of the auto bury list, bury brigade, shady super users, or heavy handed bannings, and more about the ideals driving those actions. Obviously those things don’t endear me to Digg, but the motivation to risk user revolt/alienation by employing these actions can only be related to tidying up the community for sale. Digg is obviously cleaning out the frat house before the serious bidders take the next walkthrough. It’s fairly well established in all the articles about Digg always being up for sale, the price tag having risen from around $50M to $300M during this time.
This is where my discontentment with Diggnation comes into play. During the past year or so, when the shadiness was being planned and executed, Diggnation was a constant source of “drinking buddy down the street” PR. Always out there to reassure all of us 15-30 year old users that your old drinking buddy from Diggnation would always be just that. Kevin Rose was a guy who sat on a couch, drank beer, ogled hot chicks, and made goofy observations, just like you. I must say the mercenary angle of it all does appeal to my business instincts. Diggnation is certainly not a bad thing for Digg to rely on for positive user relations; hell it’s really a textbook example of what a podcast should be: youthful new media. The textbook just can’t teach much on sincerity. In the end though, I think Diggnation is forever gone from my iTunes podcast subscriptions, I just don’t think I can buy into it any longer. I just see Kevin as the real, or imagined, emperor of Digg, making all these recent decisions based only on the almighty dollar. Like I said, a good bit of this is really just cut throat business strategy, but does anyone really believe Digg is a “digital democracy” anymore? A better analogy might be a populous third world dictatorship scrambling to clean up appearances for the United Nations, in hopes of attracting investment in its oil fields.