Digg and Reddit

Over the past few years, Digg has fallen from one of the top rated online success stories to the status of a relative loser. It's estimated value dropping from over 150 million to a "mere" half million. At the same time, Reddit has continued apace, and is passing Digg as a competitor. Of course, both are competing with Facebook, which also allows posting of articles and news items by users.

It was probably Facebook that did in Digg. But in a recent article, there are some other points that all online business should note. One of them is particularly interesting. The observation is that Digg attempted to improve the experience of its users, adding new functionality and eventually departing from its original simple vision. As a result, the site got more and more complicated and also opened up a greater exposure to bugs, which did occur. So the users got turned off. By contrast, Reddit stayed simple and true to its original concept.

One of the essential elements of any online business is that the website be clean, navigable, simple and useful. Users can get turned off very quickly if it is not all of these things. So when improving your site, be careful of the unintended consequences.