Regular readers of Slashdot will say that it has not changed much over the last few years.  Sure, there were a few tweaks here and there but all in all, it’s the same Slashdot.  Digg decided to change, a lot.  Digg now allows news of all kinds, most of it pointless and not real “news” at all.  It’s interesting and quirky but when you need to get a feeling for the tech industry, Digg is no longer the place to go but it used to be, when it started.

At the beginning, Digg was a real fountain of tech news and industry information and that was good reading.  It has changed so much that I don’t even recognize it today.  Few tech stories rarely make the front page but a monkey allegedly doing something that I can’t mention here was right there.  That sure is what I want to dig through when looking for real news.  Or not.

Digg has changed it’s algorithm and how a story with just fewer than 100 Diggs makes the home page is beyond me.  Not only have the front page tech stories died off but so have the tech story submission themselves.  According to Mashable, tech story submissions to Digg are down and have been going now ever since those “other” stories were allowed.

Slashdot on the other hand changed almost nothing and tech story submissions are up and it’s the fountain of tech information that everyone (that’s interested in tech/tech news/industry info) should read.  Change nothing, get more users.  Change everything, get what amounts to a pile of junk.  That’s what Digg is.  There is the occasional gem but Digg was once nothing but gems.

If you aren’t happy with the way Digg is going (and I know many people who aren’t since it’s been invaded by teens and tweens with NOTHING better to do except maybe post to MySpace), go read Slashdot.

Digg might have more users and be more popular than Slashdot according to shear numbers but for “techies,” Slashdot is the place to be.  Goodbye Digg.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 11:21 am under Internet, Opinion.

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
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