I’ll be honest. When digg first replaced shouts with twitter I was pissed. I have been using digg for years and although shouts were seen as a spam tool, that’s not exactly what it was, at least to me. I received one or two shouts from a couple of my mutuals each day, and I probably sent out 2 at the most per day. Along with each shout I sent a short message just to say hi. After all, there isn’t really any social element to digg besides interacting in the comments section of a submission.And most of you know comments on submissions are usually bombarded by the trolls. So shout truly was something I used and thought was good as an overall tool to communicate and send out requests.

Actually, I had wrote on one of the blogs myself that shouts will soon be replaced by twitter. It was a joke but a couple weeks/months later digg actually eliminated shouts and integrated twitter. Here is my version/prediction of the shout replaced by twitter which is a lot different than how digg did it.

It was a joke and I thought digg would replace shout with something else to keep communication within the platform. That didn’t happen and joke became reality.

I think digg integrating twitter and facebook is a smart move. It sort of ties three different platforms (digg, twitter and facebook) which allows users that are not aware of one of the service, or have yet to use it one more reason to sign up. All in all kudos to digg for the move. But not having a communication channel within the site is something that I find pretty dumb. They should have done something when the transition was made. Users can now share links via twitter and facebook and interact with the community members of one platform using a different platform. Smart move? Not really.

Anyways, I hated it when the shout feature wasreplaced with twitter and facebook. But boy am I glad they did. Once twitter was integrated into digg, many digg users who previously didn’t have a twitter account got on board. I have had a chance to connect with fellow diggers and interact with them on a daily basis. Shout gave the opportunity to stay touch base but with twitter I have been able to interact on a personal basis, day in and out. I am glad they integrated twitter because now I can finally interact with fellow diggers. It’s not just about digging their subs to show them I am here anymore, it’s social now. I talk (tweet) to them. It’s fun to look into their lives. To be able to share stories and build a relationship that goes beyong the “digg it” button.

Although I was pissed in the beginning when the shout feature came to an end, I can’t thank Digg enough for integrating twitter. It is sad but it took a different platform for digg to allow conversation between their users. Hopefully, they will figure something out in near future to facilitate conversation between their users within their platform. As of now, twitter seems to be serving the purpose pretty good.

Thank you digg for integrating twitter and bringing the digg community even closer. I am digging it.

Feel free to connect with me on Digg, Twitter and Facebook.

Tags: Networking, Ramblings, Social Media // 4 Comments »