Gawker Media (my former employer) is a paragon of transparency. They left up a post I wrote slamming the company over its pay system and regularly "leak" internal memos. Why then, did Valleywag correspondent Nicholas Carlson gleefully expose TechCrunch's internal "Digg Army" mailing list, and leave Gawker's similar list out in the cold?
Scorned former TechCruncher Duncan Riley leaked a screen shot of his inbox to Valleywag, which poked fun at TechCrunch and rightfully pointed out that this sort of behavior may be taboo among Digg fanboys. But in the real world this is just smart business for anyone posting content on the web -- at least until Kevin Rose figures out how to disable it (which he has done fairly well. After a algorithm shift earlier this year, Diggs from friends began to count less towards "popularity").
What I can't understand is why Carlson danced around admitting that Gawker has an internal mailing list for this very purpose. He just says "The question isn't whether TechCrunch should do this — it's why your site hasn't, you lazy punters."
Ah well. Here's a screenshot from the Gawker Digg list, showing many Gawker writers (including yours truly, and Nicholas Carlson) begging our fellow writers for Diggs.
Nick, come on. The first rule of Digg Army is you don't talk about Digg Army. You're so out of the club.
[ Valleywag ]
Update: From an IM conversation with Nicholas Carlson:
Nicholas Carlson: Where's Industry Standard's list?
Jordan Golson: we only have like 5 staff
Jordan Golson: so it consists of IMing people
Nicholas Carlson: what I don't like is your story is getting diggs faster
Jordan Golson: bwahahahahaha
Nicholas Carlson: the standard's digg army is way more effective!
Comments
Isn't it just accepted from the big guys, yet frowned upon when the little guys do it? There are paid groups who'll Digg, cabals who vote up their favorites. I know Profy was perma-buried at least for a while, and I'm still not sure exactly why. Rose is fine with it as long as it's the Valley elite who get the hits. I'd have been more surprised if you told me that the Gawker properties DON'T do any of that.
Oh lets not forgot our Digg army.... you're looking at em... right here... yep all three of us.
Where do I Digg this story?
http://digg.com/tech_news/TechCrunch_and_Gawker_s_Secret_Digg_Army
This post is the best, so glad to be a part of it. I'm also glad everyone gets to see how much we all suffered from Gizmodo digg spam. Some sites use that list a helluva lot more than others.
Well done, Jordan.
Jordon
I didn't leak a screenshot to Valleywag, I posted it on my personal blog (duncanriley.com) where I presume they found it.
PS when did you pop up here, and when is this site turning on full feeds :-)
Ah, true. I'll fix that wording. Thanks.
I started here June 2.
I'm looking at a comments section with Jordan, Nick Carlson, and Duncan, and yet it's NOT Valleywag? I'm so confused. All it needs is a little Rachel Marsden now and The Standard will have pulled a Jekyll & Hyde. ;)
Duncan: We're working on the feeds ...
Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard
That subject list is amazing.
I agree with Duncan, Full Feed is badly needed.
Funny how people will slam a person for self-posting blog entries, meanwhile this stuff is really the way Digg works every day. It's OK when the big boys do it, quietly.
My take is this: if you're going to self-post, go ahead and be up-front about it. My digg and reddit names are the same as the domain name I own where I host my blog, so it's pretty obvious (and, of course, immediately alerts people to the fact that my post is an attempt at self promotion.
So, here's an idea. Based on voting patterns and friending it ought to be fairly simple to separate people into "soft" voting cabals. Whenever someone diggs something, display their list of cabals so that people can discriminate (i.e. decide.) for themselves. Then let the voting take over. If people get sick of one cabal's self promotion, they can bury a story based on cabal.
"Then let the voting take over. If people get sick of one cabal's self promotion, they can bury a story based on cabal."
What happened to digging and burying based on merit?
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