Reddit: A New Digg-like Service
I’ve just discovered a new social bookmarking service where users have editorial control similar to Digg, called Reddit.
Although Reddit currently has nowhere near the levels of usage that Digg does, it does introduce some new ideas to the genre.
Reddit decides which articles are displayed on the homepage based on their popularity. Popularity is calculated by adding together how many times an article has been recommened and how many times an article has been flamed, and seeing what is left. This is slightly different to the approach that Digg takes in that flames are hidden on Digg, and users can’t see which articles have been flamed, they are just removed behind the scenes.
A ‘hottest’ option is available which shows the fastest moving articles each day which is a very nice feature. The newest articles and highest rated articles of all-time can also be viewed.
Reddit has a nice way of calculating who the top submitters, by measuring not just how many articles have been submitted, but by also taking into account how many times each post was recommended or flamed. This calculation generates each user’s ‘Karma’.
Reddit does have some drawbacks. There is no facility to leave comments on articles which is a shame, and also all articles are just dumped into one pot without any categorisation. This is acceptable at the moment as Reddit doesn’t feature a lot of articles, but will need sorting out if usage grows to Digg-like levels.
There is also no way to email interesting stories or to automatically blog them.
All in all, a site to keep an eye on in my view.
More: Silicon Valley Sleuth
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Comment by College Student on 15 August 2005:
umm..i dont like the layout at all,…too cluthered.