WEBVTT - The Digg Story 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.760 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.560 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer with how stuff 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.520 works dot com. And today's topic comes from a Twitter 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.279 message I received from long time listener and Tricks, and 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:27.360 I apologize and Tricks if I'm completely mispronouncing your name. 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:29.200 I'm sure it's not the first time, because you've written 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.199 before and we've chatted about your stuff before. But he 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:35.080 specifically had this to say, have you done an episode 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.879 on the story of dig d I g G. I 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.599 am quite. I'm actually quite unfamiliar with it, but I 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.720 know it's interesting. And here's the thing. I had not 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:48.760 yet done a story of dig episode, and it is 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.000 pretty interesting and it's a weird tale in many ways. 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:57.160 It had a meteoric rise once it debuted, and then 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.800 a very well publicized fall from grace and then a 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:03.880 more quiet attempt at recovery. So today we're going to 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.640 explore the story of dig dot com, what it was, 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:10.759 how it came about, and exactly why some people say 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:17.600 it serves as a lesson in community mismanagement. It's very interesting. First, 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:20.120 let me give you a quick overview of what DIG 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.920 was all about, and to some extent is still about, 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:28.800 though the current incarnation of dig is very different from 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.320 what was thought of as DIG back in the day. 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.560 So do you know Reddit? Okay, that's kind of what 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.360 Dig was. Dig was essentially a lot like what Reddit 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.000 is now, and a lot of people who used Dig 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.600 abandoned it for Reddit, and we'll talk about why in 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.760 this episode. But more specifically, Dig was a site where 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.040 users could share links to web pages, and it was 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:59.960 part social network, part news aggregator, and it said it's 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.560 all apart from other services with similar functions, Like there 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:07.680 was dell Ish Suss. You might remember that you old 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.160 timers of the Internet. That was sort of a bookmarking 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.840 app where you could link to a page that you 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:16.799 intend to go back to over and over and you 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.720 could easily share those bookmarks with other people. But the 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.280 whole purpose was this was a reference you intended to 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:27.040 return to repeatedly. That's not really what Dig was interested in. 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.040 They were more about sharing links to timely pieces of 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:36.080 content like news articles, for example, and then users on 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.480 Dig's site could vote, they could boost a topic further 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.440 up the main page, or they could end up knocking 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:49.400 it down. The main page boosting was called digging. You 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.840 would dig an article or a link and say that's awesome. 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.639 I want that promoted because I think it's really interesting. 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.440 If you wanted to vote it down, you buried it. 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.280 So there were digging and burying, which is odd because 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.880 if we're talking about the physical act, that's very similar. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.919 But in this case, digging means I dig it. Berry 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.600 means let's bury that story. It's not interesting, it doesn't 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.960 belong here. Ah. It was also meant to allow users 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.160 to determine which stories were the most relevant and interesting, 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.919 and they were to have control. Really, the idea was 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.760 that the users of the site determined what went on 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:31.040 the site and how that content was arranged based upon 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.400 their actions. So it gave a lot of control to 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.560 its user base, and that had a real appeal to it. Right, 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:43.000 And we'll dive more into dig in just a little bit. Also, 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.080 just in the interest of full disclosure, I should point 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:50.600 out that while I don't personally know the founders of dig, 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.720 we have never really officially met. I think I met 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.480 Kevin Rose once, but I know a lot of folks 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.960 who are friends with them, so we have a lot 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:05.600 of friends in common and uh. Over the years, some 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.320 of the stuff that was going on over at DIG 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:10.920 kind of made its way to my ears through the 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:15.040 grape vine, you know, just basic gossip type stuff. Now, fortunately, 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.920 because I'm me, I've forgotten almost all of that. I 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.800 have no I remember hearing a lot about DIG back 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:25.200 in the day, but I didn't retain any of that information. 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.960 I never really used DIG that much myself, so it 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:33.040 never took hold in my brain. However, I thought it 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.240 was important for me to disclose the fact that at 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:38.560 least I know some of the same people that the 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.640 founders knew, that we ran in the same circles, just 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.760 to disclose that. But I don't think any biases have 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:49.120 crept through in my reporting of this because my memory 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.240 is so bad. It's not that I am so ethical, 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.240 It's that my brain just didn't hold onto the information. 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:57.359 I'd like to think I would be ethical if my 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.320 brain did hold onto it. But we'll never know, now, 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:06.840 will we. Anyway. The founders of DIG included j Addlson, 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:13.200 Ron Gorea, Getsky, Owen Byrne, and Kevin Rose. They started 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.279 development on the site back in October two thousand four, 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:21.240 and they launched Dig on December fourth or fifth, two 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.520 thousand four. So let's talk a bit about each of 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.720 those guys and what they brought to DIG. First, we're 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.440 mentioned j Addleson. He came from Detroit and he grew 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.960 up in as cecil of Welcome to Nightville would say, 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.479 he grew up in Michigan. He got a degree in 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.280 film and broadcasting with a concentration in computer science from 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:47.440 Boston University in nine. After he graduated, he worked for 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:50.520 companies like the I s P, the Internet service provider 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:55.040 net Com. He helped design the Palo Alto Internet Exchange, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.600 and he later founded a company called Equa Nicks, which 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:03.280 was another Internet ada center and infrastructure company. So his 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.640 work was primarily on the inner workings of the systems 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.880 that the Internet itself depends upon, you know, not websites 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:15.039 or but rather the actual infrastructure that allows computers to 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.480 communicate with each other. He worked a lot on those 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.760 those sort of systems, uh. And it was actually in 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.760 his job at Equinox, where the company he had co founded, 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.320 where he would first meet Kevin Rose, you know, one 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.800 of the other co founders of DIG, probably the most 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.520 famous of the founders of DIG. Kevin Rose at the 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.560 time was doing a segment for a show called The 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.640 Screen Savers, and I'll mention that show again when I 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.040 get to Kevin Addison would then become the business manager 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.600 for dig once it became an official thing. He used 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:51.400 his experience to hire the initial management team for the company, 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.599 and it was Addilson who led the charge in raising 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.800 venture capital shortly after dig launched. He would also become 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.279 the company's CEO in two thouse and five, and he 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.320 would co found Revision three along with Kevin Rose also 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:11.800 in two thousand five. Ron Gordetski is a software engineer. 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.800 He studied at the University of California, San Diego, and 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.280 his role on the team was to be the system's 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:21.480 engineering manager. Gory Getsky would also co found Revision three 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.640 later on, so he was one of those members. Revision 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.520 three initially was kind of a podcasting and video arm 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.320 of dig uh It's sort of existed It's as its 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.840 own thing, and It's sort of existed as an extension 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:39.600 of dig itself. Godetski also co founded a company later 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:44.240 on on called Flick had two f's in the beginning 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.760 is F F L I c K, so flick it 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.840 was a film news and reviews site that based its 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:55.600 information off of Twitter posts. Google eventually would acquire Flick 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.400 in two thousand and eleven, and Gordetski went on to 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:04.520 work for YouTube until Owen burn the third co founder, 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.640 built the PHP code for the original Dig site. And 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.960 you might be saying, well, what is PHP? Php is 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.840 an irritating acronym because it's a recursive acronym, which means 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.960 that it has its own acronym in its full name. 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:23.040 The full name is PHP Hypertext Processor, which isn't a 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.000 very satisfying answer if I ask you what is PHP? 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:31.000 It's a general purpose scripting language, and it's open source 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.400 and it can be embedded into HTML. So essentially what 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.679 Burns job was was building out the framework for the 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.280 original dig site and to add in the functionality of 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.720 the basic purposes for DIG. So he was responsible for 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.680 making sure that he could actually develop the the the 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:54.160 basic functions that DIG had when it launched. In return, 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.319 he was rewarded with equity in the company itself, so 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.760 he had some owners ship of DIG when it first launched, 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.840 and his title was senior software engineer and co founder. 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.800 He would stay on with Dig until two thousand seven. 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.000 Then we get to Kevin Rose, who is too freaking 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:18.320 years younger than I am. Multimillionaire Kevin Rose two years 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.520 younger than I am. I gotta be fair. The dude's brilliant. 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:26.040 He's a very intelligent guy, so I can't really fault him. 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.240 It's just a case of sour grapes with me. He 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.480 has founded numerous startups, including not only dig but also 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.000 Revision three, a company called Pounce, and another one called 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:41.720 milk Now. He got his start on the tech TV 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:44.960 series The Screen Savers. He originally came on to tech 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:48.800 TV as an I T kind of guy, but eventually 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.920 he started to work behind the scenes as a production 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:56.360 assistant for The Screen Savers, and gradually he transitioned to 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.880 appearing on camera and eventually became a co host of 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.480 The Screensavers itself. When Leo Laporte left the show, Kevin 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.120 Rose kind of stepped into Leo Report's role on The 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:12.200 Screen Savers. Later on, Comcast would acquire tech TV and 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:16.600 merge it with another channel called G four, and Kevin 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.800 Rose initially would transition over with the G four team, 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.080 but by two thousand five, he negotiated his release from 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.960 his contract with G four, and of course by that 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.280 time Dig had already become a thing and had launched 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.920 in late two thousand four. It was Rose and Allison 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.200 who first came up with the idea for a social 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:40.480 news aggregation service, and Kevin Rose decided he would pay 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.280 for this initial development out of his own pocket. He 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:47.480 took six thousand dollars of his own savings to fund 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:52.960 the building of the Dig initial build, so it really 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.160 was his money. I mean, he he believed in this 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.480 enough to put his own cash down. It wasn't a 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.320 case of him asking for loans from other people. He 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:04.080 was twenty seven years old at the time. The co 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:08.000 founders settled on the name Dig because they originally wanted 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.960 d I G with one G. But they had a problem. 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:16.720 Disney had already registered the U r L www dot 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.240 d I G dot com and I don't know if 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.480 you know this, but Disney is not in the habit 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:25.679 of giving up property that it owns typically, so they 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.559 decided instead to go with two g's and get around 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.839 that problem. They launched the site on December five, two 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.520 thousand four, and on December two thousand four, Kevin Rose 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:39.880 would mention dig dot com on an episode of the 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.920 Screen Savers, so he essentially got to use the screen 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:47.199 Savers to promote this other project he had done. Um 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:49.840 he was co hosting the Screensavers at the time, so 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:51.680 he took the time to say, Hey, we've got this 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:56.079 new project called dig dot com. It's a user generated 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.360 news aggregator site and it's a way for us to 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.680 really concentrate on the coolest stories out there on the Internet. 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.400 And so the site began to gather users pretty slowly 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.800 but steadily at first, and back then the site was 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:15.520 really simple. It listed stories by brief headlines, which were 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.080 also links, so you could click on the little headline, 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.560 which was user generated. People would type out what they 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:25.040 thought the story essentially was. That would be your hypertext 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.400 link to take you to the story. They would also 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.480 include a brief summary of what the story was about. 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.640 And the more users clicked dig as in I like 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:38.160 this on a story, the higher it would appear on 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.800 the main page. And as some stories would climb up 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.559 obviously other stories had to drop down lower, and if 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.400 a story dropped down low enough, it would eventually roll 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.280 over to the second page of dig. And this is 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.840 very much like search engines a lot of people will 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.400 only pay attention to that first page. They don't want 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:01.520 to dig further down into the pages. So once you 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.000 end up on page two, it gets really you see 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.679 a massive drop off on traffic to that link. This 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.840 is true for Reddit, it's true for dig Or, it 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.400 was true for dig, and it's true for search engines 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:19.800 as well. Being on that main page is prime real estate. Uh. 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.319 And if you were burying a story enough, if enough 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.760 users buried a story, it would drop off entirely. And 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.240 the only way you could see it from that point 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.880 forward is if you enabled an option in your user 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:37.080 profile to view things that had been buried off the 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.480 page in search results. So you could search for something 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.960 that had been buried off the page and you could 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:45.840 find it that way, but only if you enabled that 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:50.920 option in your profile. It was really all about driving 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:55.720 engagement and community activity. And you might want to know 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.040 what the first few dig stories were, like what appeared 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.280 on Dig's site when it launched. What were the top 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.640 ten stories of dig dot com when it went live? 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.080 I got a list for you. Story number one was 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.800 Cherry o s delayed till Q one of two thousand five, 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.520 and that raises the question, what the heck was Cherry 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.440 O s Well, that was a power PC G four 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:26.120 emulator for Windows, which is a fancy way of saying 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.680 it was a program meant to simulate an Apple operating 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:33.520 system so that Windows PC users could actually run Apple 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:38.040 programs on Windows XP. It was an emulator. It emulated 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:43.800 the Apple operating system, or rather the Apple processor, not 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.360 really the operating system anyway. Back in late two thousand four, 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.600 it was apparently big news that the program was experiencing delays. 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.720 It would eventually come out on March eighth, two thousand five, 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.840 in case you're curious. Not that it's relevant anymore, but 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.320 there you go. It's story number two said that Creative 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:07.239 declares war against the iPod. Actually it said de Layer's 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.720 war against the iPod. It left in a typo, but 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.360 we know they meant declare. And this ties into that 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.800 topic I covered not too long ago about the history 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:22.240 of MP three players. You might remember that Creative was 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.240 one of the companies designing MP three players back in 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.280 the day, and then Apple's iPod rose up to challenge 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.400 Creative and other companies. So this was a story that 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:35.800 tied into that. The idea that these two companies were 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.200 at war with each other. Both of those first two links, 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:44.440 cherry os and Creative, were submitted by anonymous users, but 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:49.720 the third story wasn't. That story was rumors next iPod 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.880 to have downloadable games, and this was a story that 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.320 Kevin Rose himself submitted to DIG back in the early 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.600 development days for the website, when they were still building 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.920 out the site. He submitted this. It managed to become 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:07.040 popular seventy three days before it was even submitted to 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:11.720 the website, according to the statistics on the page itself, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.280 which is kind of funny because you could argue this 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:19.000 is a bit of foreshadowing for some of Dig's later problems. 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.480 But honestly, this was probably just to test out the 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:23.880 features before they launched it. I don't think there was 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.680 any real attempt to game the system this early on. 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.160 It was more about making sure the website did what 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:32.480 they wanted it to do before they launched the site. 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:37.080 Story number four was one about a torrent search engine. 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:39.680 I've done episodes about torrents in the past if you 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.680 want to hear more about that. That was another submission 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.160 from Kevin Rose, and some people argue it was Rose 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:49.600 attempting to get a leg up by dominating Google search 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.720 for torrents search because it was a very popular topic 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.920 back in the day still is to some extent. Story 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:01.080 five was about the Logitech Z fifty point one surround 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:06.520 speaker system, probably obsolete at this point. Keep in mind 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:08.879 that Rose was coming from a tech review and talk 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.960 show background, so it's not a huge shock that almost 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.719 all of the stories on dig back in the day 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:22.800 where technology related. But then comes story number six. This 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.479 was a major story one I think we all agree, 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:29.480 burst free from the tech centric nature of the other stories. 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:36.240 This was by one get one free Jomba Juice. Sadly, 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:41.240 thirteen years later, this offer no longer applies. They laughed 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:46.879 me out of the store. Story seven was called Ben's Bargains, 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:52.320 though there was no possessive apostrophe after the end for Ben. 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.320 The name Ben b e n so Ben's bargains. I 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.360 assumed they mean bargains that belonged to Ben. I wish 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:02.240 I could tell you what the story was about, but 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.399 later on it got deleted or merged into another story, 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.840 so it's all lost on me. I suppose Ben had 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:16.359 a bargain and I missed it. Bummer. Story eight was 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.159 a headline called cast skating Style cheat Sheet. So this 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:25.960 goes back to talking about development creating cast scading styles. Uh. 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:31.000 Story nine was blog box applications, and story ten was 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:37.800 I don't know because it disappeared. It was deleted and 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.639 not archived in times, So I guess story ten is 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:48.000 story not appearing in this podcast anyway. Those were the ten, 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.040 well nine stories that first appeared on Dig when it premiered. 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:56.600 Now I've got a lot more to say about Dig, 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:02.160 how it developed and how it eventually imploded. But before 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.679 I get into that, let's take a quick break to 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:16.680 thank our sponsor. Alright. So, one of the early features 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:21.360 that Dig built into its system was comments. Users could 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.080 leave comments about links. They could actually start up an 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.239 entire comment thread. So it turned Dig into kind of 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.800 a forum about news items. It wasn't just a place 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.640 to share or promote or barry news. It was also 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.520 a place to discuss it. And uh. Of course, users 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:39.960 could end up bearing a news item and make it 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.399 drop off the list entirely if they felt that it 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:47.640 was merited. Sometimes people would try to spam Dig, especially 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:49.560 in those early days. I mean really, it was true 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.600 for the entire history of Dig. Because you've got people 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.840 who just like to cause mischief. So there were people 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.240 who are trying to spam the page, and luckily the 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:03.200 berry function allowed the community to respond and to get 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.760 rid of stuff that was just cluttering things up. The 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.080 same was true for anyone who was seen to be 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:12.720 promoting something that was self serving. So, for example, if 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:16.159 I were to try and share a an article that 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:19.560 I had written on how stuff works to dig directly, 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:22.920 that would not look so great, right. It was meant 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:26.679 to be a place where people discovered stuff and shared 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.800 it with others, as opposed to promoting their own work. 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.760 That was the other purpose for the berry button was 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:37.040 to make sure that this was truly a democratized, user 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.040 generated experience and not something that was dictated to them. 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.200 More on that as we progress now. The engineers that 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.440 did created an algorithm to determine if a story merited 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.840 inclusion on the main site or, in a later revision 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:56.520 of dig, on one of its major subsections. So, like Reddit, 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:05.840 dig would eventually become divided into depart ments like gaming, Lifestyle, Entertainment, sports, science, technology, World, 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:10.600 and Business, and also the offbeat category. And of course 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:12.440 there was the main site, the main page that you 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.000 would go to if you went to Dig dot com. 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.359 That was the primo real estate on Dig. That's where 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:20.960 if you wrote a story, that's the page you wanted 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:22.840 it to show up on, sort of like the main 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.959 page on Reddit. Very much the same. Dig also created 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.040 a button that other sites could host on their own pages. 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:32.680 So you could include this bit of code in your 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:37.040 web page's htm mal file and a little button that 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.480 would would pop up on your page that would allow 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.880 you to have users click on it and submit content 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.919 directly from your page to Dig. That would let people 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:51.240 either submit a story entirely or to vote up or 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:53.600 vote up a story. Really you had to go to 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:57.160 dig if you wanted to bury it. But once upon 0:21:57.160 --> 0:21:59.560 a time you could dig stories on how stuff works 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:01.720 dot com. Um, I think we even we had a 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.399 Dig button that was active for quite some time before 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:08.159 we did a site revision. But yeah, it was one 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.600 of those where if you wanted to share what you saw, 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:13.840 then you could click on the Dig button. It's very 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:18.200 similar to the way a lot of sites use Facebook 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.520 and Twitter buttons today. In fact, you could argue that 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.720 Dig sort of paved the way for those other sites 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:27.480 to use that same kind of functionality. Further down the road, 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:33.199 Kevin Rose would also launch a video podcast with Alex 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.480 Albrecht called dig Nation that was one of the cornerstones 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:41.399 of Revision three. That that video and podcast arm that 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:44.560 I talked about, that they launched in late two thousand five. 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.240 They used Dignation to talk about some of the top 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:52.520 stories featured on Dig, and the first episode published in 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:57.080 two thousand five, several months after Dig had already launched UM. 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:00.680 Depending upon what source you look at, some people say 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:04.840 it Dig started or Dignation started in May one, two 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.760 thousand five. Others say July first, two thousand five, which 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:10.959 seems like a pretty big discrepancy. Uh. I was not 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:13.159 listening to dick Nation at the time, so I cannot 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:20.080 independently verify that either way. But anyway, Dig launched in 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:22.320 December two thousand four, so a few months later you 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:26.919 get Dignation, and one of the one of the purposes 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.320 for Dignation was to talk about stories that had made 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:32.439 their way onto Dig and just to be kind of 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:36.000 a discussion forum for it um. And so in a 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:39.600 way it became a promotion for the dig dot com website, 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:44.200 and the two hosts were really personable and funny and informed, 0:23:44.760 --> 0:23:50.919 and so it started getting popular pretty quickly. One of 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:54.240 the top stories that very first episode was to talk 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:57.359 about a major revision to Dig, which was even it 0:23:57.480 --> 0:23:59.840 was not even a year old yet and DIG version too, 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:04.000 I know, was coming out. And uh Also it didn't 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:07.160 hurt that Kevin Rose and and Alex Albrecht would drink 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:10.639 a few beers on camera because it made them more personable. 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:14.520 They didn't get tore up on camera, not typically anyway. 0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:16.640 Their shows could get a little rowdy when they would 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:20.440 do live shows at say south By Southwest, but generally speaking, 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:24.040 it just made them seem like approachable human beings who 0:24:24.080 --> 0:24:27.160 were talking about cool stories. So it was a really 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:32.440 appealing pair that had a very approachable style, and it 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:35.919 led to great success for Dignation at least for several years. 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:40.760 Uh I only ever saw them once at a south 0:24:40.800 --> 0:24:43.520 By Southwest. It was just before they concluded the show 0:24:44.960 --> 0:24:48.560 in October two thousand five. Dig reached out to venture 0:24:48.640 --> 0:24:51.960 capitalists to get some funding. Remember, Kevin Rose funded the 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:54.720 initial launch of Dig with six thousand dollars of his 0:24:54.800 --> 0:24:57.560