Interests
A few days ago, when Saddam Husein was executed i looked what were the top topics in various online environments (it just seemed to be the only thing in most mainstream US media).
So, the top story in google.news was about Husein, as well as the top tag at technorati's web page. However, when i checked out digg.com, there was no trace of Saddam Husein's execution on the entire first page. Top stories dealt with gadgets and video games. For those who don't know, digg is a website that allows users to rate the relevance/importance of news items. Some view it as the next step in organizing the huge amounts of information we are exposed to.
Frankly, i was surprised. I just wanted to see what were the different versions of coverage of the execution, but i did not expect to find no coverage at all.
So, looking at the surprising results at digg, i thought. Is it an indication of the true priorities of web users in terms of news content? Or it is a unique feature of digg users?Or it is simply that social classification of news doesn't work?
Any thoughts?
3 comments:
I think DIGG has more usership internationally; Technorati is more US or Anglophone (=US/UK) than DIGG or del.icio.us (though comparing each of these 3 sites is not really like comparing apples with apples)
In other words, I think the phenomenon would have been a function of the user base.
If that is the case, then the situation is even more worrisome - while Hussein is being executed what really interests the world are new releases computer games... hmm...
I agree with you on the point about dependency on user database, but i am not sure i i'd agree that qualifying digg's user community as more international would qualify in this case. And all in all the internet is US or Anglophone dominated. I would say that from this case it seems like digg's community consists mostly of young computer geeks, which is fine, but raises questions about this idea of social filtering of news. Don't you think?
Are you saying that new releases of computer games are not important world news!?
Seriously tho, I don't know what the news was on Digg that day, but it's interesting that you dismiss all of it as "new releases computer games" :)
Does it raise questions about social filtering of news? I think social filtering of anything is going to be a function of the userbase so in short, society gets what it is most interested in, but only ever as a generalisation.
Somehow it really doesn't surprise me that entertainment news rises to the top of the pile, pushing out news about the harsh reality of Iraq. Technorati on the other hand isn't really using "social filtering" at least not in an active sense, so it's back to trying to compare apples with oranges.
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