Confessions of a Digg Defector

Recently I've been a redditor.  I used to be a loyal digg fan, but something over there has changed and i'm not talking about the design.  It's the community really, or lack of community to get more to the point.  Also, because of a combination of it's large community and the site's design, reddit's "front page" moves much faster than digg.  The comments are much more abundant as well, even if they tend to mostly agree with each other.  As I see it there are three things that give reddit a distinct edge: the community, the community's size, and the reddit karma system. 

So when did I leave digg? Well, at the risk of sounding like a follower I left in January 2011 with a lot of other folks if you'll belive this google trends graph.  Since January reddit has also been having some server problems, or i guess it's really Amazon having the server trouble.  If i understand correctly it's not because of the increased user base, but because of flaws in Amazons cloud storage service.

Why did i leave digg?  Well, the content on reddit is just more compelling.  The discussions have to be my favorite part.  As usual on the internet however, one must always be wary of the trolls.  The AMA (Ask Me Anything) subreddit has been fooled on multiple occasions.  Which reminds me -- subreddits are specific focused groups of posts on narrow topics.  Subreddits and the ease in which users can create (and self-moderate) them gives a great deal of power to the user.   When i find a story that interest me on reddit the comments on that story are filled with comments which can really add to the experience.  Because of the reddit karma system, users are encouraged to post constructively and follow a code of behavior referred to as reddiquette. There's also a trophy system which is linked into the karma. 

I've been really happy with reddit and don't miss digg much at all.  The mobile situation at reddit is better as well.  They have a great mobile site and there's some nice apps available in Android, my mobile OS of choice. The only think that would prevent me from sticking around is if the community bailed or if the server issues somehow get worse.  The mobile apps don't work at all when reddit is in "read only mode" which is kind of a bummer.  

-FB