All You Can Eat Buffet

I have come to love Digg.  It is a site that reminds me of a chocolate labrador.  Chocolate labs are known to be the biggest spazzes in the labrador family.  Good luck trying to teach them to shake, sit, get the paper or simply stop jumping on company coming over to visit.  Digg.com is much like a chocolate lab, a little scatter-brained, a little bit of a spazz and often has difficulty staying focused on important tasks that need to be done.  At first when I started to explore the site over a week ago, I knew right off that it isn't a very scholarly or organized site, which are qualities that I thought I would immediately hate.  But quickly, I developed a rather likeable taste for its slight disfunctionality.  Just like a chocolate lab, Digg.com is loveable and the more disfunctional and odd it becomes, the more I want to love it.

Another criteria that I want to include in my list of grading the site is social access.  Beyond the disfunctionality is is organization throughout the site.  Although there are a few random stories here and there regarding umbrellas and cool pictures of Jello (Image taken from Chicagonow.com), there also exists useful information about important thing within the technology realm, the environment and world news.  Because of this multi-faceted quality, the site allows every user to have social access.  Users have access to the latest breaking news stories because other users have conveniently provided them with a quick and easy link.  Users of the site are not only able to access the site to see and hear about popular news stories but the site also provides social networking.  Users have the chance to interact with other users by using the comment feature and within the comments for every article post there is also an available option for users to digg the actual comment written about the original article that was dug.  Opinions are everywhere which is one of the qualities I love most about the site.  One opinion/comment leads to another and another, thus creating a virtual social world.

                                               (Image taken from http://www.ageofarmour.com/3d/images/present.jpg)
A criteria quality that I thought about in class today is accessibility.  Does the site allow users to access what they need to know and in a time efficient manner? Absolutely.  Instead of having to poke around through a bunch of different windows, Digg conveniently provides a main page where the most popular dug stories can be found.  There's no need to take quality time out of your day to search three different sites for the news and information you need because everything is sealed up in a tiny neat little package on the main page.  Too bad everything in life can't be put into such a neat package.

In the end, my review of Digg.com all boils down to this:
-Random/Obscure
-It is both a writing space and a writing tool.  Space-wise, you have the oppurtunity to show others something you personally find intriguing.  And Digg acts as a tool because it is a site that is both useful and allows readers to find what they need to know when they need it and within a time efficient manner.
-It is a site of leisure.  Some people consider this quality to be a bad thing but I digg it.  It does offer stories and information that are meant for purely entertainment means and pleasure but it also provides stories that are more serious and fact/knowledge based.

                                            (Image taken from http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/virginia/2009/07/10/den-summer-webinars-updated)

 My favorite overall quality about the site is that it doesn't tell You what you have to read, but rather you have the opportunity and relationship space to explore whatever you please.  There are no strict guidelines directing you like a nagging spouse but rather you have Freedom.  And freedom is such a beautiful thing.  Personally I give the site a solid A. Look past the scatter brained chocolate lab qualities that the site can often have at first glance and imagine the world of Digg as if it is a food buffet with endless choices and possibilities.     (Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/unnamed/47093936/)