Why I prefer Reddit over Digg

My guiding principle with "social media" tools: if it looks remotely interesting, I'll give it a go, but I'll only stay with those which are constantly useful. In other words, peer pressure shant affect my keep-upness.

Digg and Reddit are similar in the most basic of ways: submit stories, vote up the ones you like (or the reverse), and comment. That's where some similarities end, and in my ongoing experience, this is why I prefer Reddit:

It's easier to get noticed

For specific instance, I've submitted several of my Flickr pictures to Reddit, and even if it gets downvoted to 0 in a few minutes, I've noticed 100-400 extra hits during that brief time. 1,000+ if it gets hot, as shown for this cheeky image:

But Digg is a tougher one to crack if you're not a writer of, well, Cracked.com (which has done the genius thing of reinventing themselves as an Internet humor leader after a long drubbing of being a MAD knockoff on paper).

Note that what I've observed entails not getting friends to upvote my stories. Also, I've had a couple occasions where I left a well-placed Digg comment on a story that was dugg 1,000+ times, and in those cases, the majority of the referrer traffic came from Digg. (Thanx Flickr Stats!)

This may be another interpretation: Digg gets the lion's share of the press glory and if you succeed there, then the Digg effect may very well kick in. But for the "long tail" of tales, Reddit is the place to be.

It's easier to submit

Reddit's submission form is super-simple: URL + title, and that's it. Digg, on the other hand, makes you go through multiple pages. It requires a description, and also does dupe checking near the end of the process, which doesn't make sense. Result: frustration having wasted cycles.

What if you want to describe your Reddit submission? Just be the first to add a comment.

You can create your own categories

Digg has an appallingly inflexible amount of categories: there's a Technology > Microsoft but no Google? What gives? And why is "Pets & Animals" strictly classified under Offbeat? Isn't that reinforcing the lolcat stereotype? :p

Seriously, Reddit's flexibility to create sub-Reddits is much healthier for specialty niches. If you don't see what you want, you can make your own and grow a community.

It's simpler

Reddit has a plainer interface, yes, but the rich content I want to see is in the life-changing and/or regrettably ridiculous stories I link offsite to.

Remember kids, the Internet rewards stupidity

I won't go into the quality of comment cultures, because on both, I've found, like much of the Internet, I'm rewarded for making stupid, snide, sarcastic comments. My quality blurbs, well-articulated and resourceful, tend to be downvoted or unnoticed. You can be the judge. I sometimes fear this is making me a meaner person — but as long as I retain a perspective of wacky fun, then I can save myself a direct ticket to Dumbassville.

That being said, I regularly read top stories from both Reddit and Digg via popurls. I participate more on Reddit.

Which do you prefer and why?

Tagged as: General