I’m basically a believer in the general value and usefulness of the Digg/Reddit model in which users submit stories and vote on them. The debate over at Edge on Jaron Lanier’s critique of the “hive mind” notwithstanding, I see these services as interesting additives to the old-school editorial world I still work in, rather than as potential replacements, and I enjoy using them.
Now Jason Calacanis (of Weblogs Inc. and now AOL) has revamped AOL’s moribund Netscape.com property as a somewhat modified Digg clone. Digg devotees appear to have taken umbrage, and registered their disapproval by flooding the site with votes for a story headlined “AOL Copies Digg” (Valleywag captured the screen). That story was the new Netscape’s top headline in the day after its launch. Another headline voted up by Netscape users reads “Digg rules…Netscape is utter Crap.”
If you’re going to empower the vox populi, you’d better be ready for, and okay with, its inevitable yen to bite your ankle.
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