Official: Social news has failed
The .com bubble 2.0 is collapsing, and it's starting with social news.
The Lord and his Holy army of Angels (Steve Jobs and Apple) have announced some new iPod related stuff today. Great, if A: it wasn't in the least bit expected and B: everybody cared.
I don't care, but I'm a known anti-Apple person anyway. But I'm not an idiot; I can understand the hype. Apple sells the most popular mp3 player in the world, with a hugely successful and influential music service to boot. And it's in danger of making Nokia look elderly and senile.
But the web 2.0's continued obsession with the fruitful company is a little OTT.
Monents ago I visited Digg, just in case there was a link to something worth reading on there (it sometimes happens, I swear). I was met with this:
http://img.hexus.net/v2/blogs/steve/digg_fail.png
May as update the DNS entries for digg.com to be an alias for engadget.com. And that's no dig (just one g) at Engadget - the site provides excellent technology coverage.
But what it does serve to show, is that if the bulk of your readership is 2.0 crazy, and you have a large enough readership, you can more or less have complete control of a social news site.
Long live Slashdot. It may have its critics, and it may have lost some of its punch over the past few months, but it's still the better secondary news source. It'll bounce back once the bubble collapses, mark my words!
Re: Official: Social news has failed
i never really got the point of Digg. It never tells me anything new.... probably because i visited Engadget 5 minutes before :)
Re: Official: Social news has failed
I encourage everyone to Digg this, for irony's sake.
I might put the word iPod in the title, just to make it more likely to make it to the front page.
Re: Official: Social news has failed
are you suggesting that web 2.0 isn't in fact user driven, but manipulated by careful orchestrated parastic marketing practices?
surely not?
Next we'll have record companies promoting their artists on myspace claiming their not and acheaving the faim and acclaim on their own skill.