The Web 2.0 Blog » 2007

Quantifying the digg Effect

I’m a huge fan of digg.com, it provides me, and millions of others, with a constant source of interesting content to ponder. And for many sites around the internet, it can provide a much valued boost in traffic. Of course, when you start talking about digg.com and traffic the infamous digg effect always comes up. Put simply, this is the latest take on being slashdotted. When a popular site allows for user generated content, specifically links, there will no doubt be a surge in traffic to that site. In many cases this results in that site becoming unavailable. I’ve recently fallen foul of the digg effect myself, with a site becoming unavailable until I moved hosts. It turns what should be an exciting time into more of a worrying one. On digg itself there have been numerous comments mentioning that a large number of sites seem to be going down. So, given these two factors, I wanted to see for myself. In this post you’ll see what I found out by recording some important data regarding the stories that make it to the digg.com front page over the course of a single day, thats 24 hours and EVERY story that made it to the venerable homepage spots. Read on for what I’ve discovered so far.

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Filling a gaping hole?

Google has announced that Google Apps for your Domain has gone all enterprise. Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) has launched and rather predictably inspired a billion blog entries already, well maybe not a billion but my feed reader is over googled. There are many questions that need to be answered. Some blog posts point out that Google apps aren’t geared for business while others question the reliability and security that Google can provide. I think these are all moot points at the moment. Yes, there have been some issues with Google and security/reliability in the past but this is a hosted, enterprise targeted service. Not something Google has done before. So this is an interesting time, not least for those who offer competing services such as Zoho. And notice I mentioned Zoho and not Microsoft. Anyone who really sits down and thinks about it will quickly realise that Google is not, and will not be for a long time, a competitor to Microsoft and Microsoft Office. The reason is more institutional than technological.

One of the interesting things about GAPE is that organisations that sign up will likely still need another solution to go along side it. For starters, they will need storage for files not dealt with through the Google apps and secondly, they are missing the oh so crucial presentation application. For anyone who has worked in any medium to large company,PowerPoint is practically a best friend. There are fairly obvious limitations to online based presentations, one of the most obvious being that many places where said presentations are presented simply aren’t internet connected. Personally, I use and like Google Apps for your Domain. i also use Google Docs, which is bundle with GAPE but not GA4YD, and they do a job. Saying that, they exist in my workflow as a stop gap. I would never sit down and write an important document using writely, and I can’t see that changing any time soon. Its not that it doesn’t work, or that its not reliable (I’ve never had any problems) it just doesn’t feel right. And this is coming from a guy who has welcomed web based applications with both arms.

For enterprises, the problem runs much deeper. Firstly theres the trust hurdle. Yes, early analysis seems to show a saving of around $200 per person most enterprises will see that as a small price to pay for total in house control of their environments and apps. Theres also a large psychological barrier for the end users who have been used to MS Office and its ilk for many, many years.

So where does this leave GAPE? Well, interestingly, in a very strong position. We have two competing industries here. We have the kings of the Internet in Google and the Kings of the desktop, Microsoft. Theres a certain barrier to entry there, consumers will have to start of one living in the others domain. And we’ve seen Microsoft attempt this previously by trying to break into Search Engine market and their other enterprises. it will be interesting to see if Google has any success going the other way.

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The dark side of the Web 2.0

One the the interesting things about the Web 2.0 is that users can easily contribute to the content they are viewing. An example of this is digg, where users viewing digg also control what appears on digg. its a very interesting concept and not one that can be recreated in other forms of media. One of the inherent downsides of this is that site owners have great difficulty in controlling what happens on their site. As seen with services such as YouTube, this can lead to inappropriate or copyrighted content appearing. The other risk is that sites are misused and abused. The classic example is digg gaming. This is where sites make it to the digg front page without diggs from genuine users. This can take a number of forms but usually revolves around multiple accounts being created to digg up certain storied or where influential users are paid to digg certain stories/sites.

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