June 12, 2006

Digg: Threat to Yahoo! News?

One of my favourite news sites is Digg.com - a fantastic social bookmarking news site. I've been surprised (and pleased) to watch Digg.com's growth in the UK on Hitwise. I visit the site at least once a day to see what's on the home page, read some popular stories, and to see what people are saying about stories that mention Hitwise and the online marketing industry. Digg.com has also become an important source of visits to this blog.

Today, E-Consultancy posted a great story with an announcement that Digg.com is expanding into Politics and Entertainment. The story carries a warning "watch out Yahoo! News". Does Yahoo! News - or any other news aggregator have anything to worry about?

Digg is categorised in the Hitwise News and Media parent category and News and Media - IT Media subcategory. Based on the following table, you might think that Yahoo! News UK & Ireland can rest easy, knowing that it attracts 18 times more visits than Digg. Google News UK attracts 12 times more visits - so it too can rest assured, right?

Rank Among News and Media Sites, Week to 10th June 2006

Digg's share of UK visits had increased five-fold last week compared with one year ago. That growth has been remarkably steady - as illustrated by the figure below. Digg ranked 4th among IT Media websites based on UK visits. This is up from 27th one year ago. The site ranks 85th within the News and Media parent category

Analysis of the search terms sending visits to the site reveal that the top terms sending visits to the site are searches for "digg" and for the site's URL. Digg's brand equity is increasing. Hitwise first recorded UK searches for "digg" in October. (Note, we report on any term that receives a sufficient volume of searches from our 8.4 million strong sample in the UK.) Since Christmas, searches for "digg" have consistently received enough volume for us to report on the term.

Along with searches for the URL, are searches for various news items. Last week, these included: "graffiti creator", "limewire pro", "deal or no deal", "videora" and "scary maze". To date, Digg has been a self-proclaimed "technology news site". The stories on the site have skewed to technology - as have the search terms sending the site traffic.

Digg sent almost one quarter of its UK visits (24%) to News and Media sites last week. The site provides a user created headline and summary with a link to the news site with the story so it is natural that this is happening. Wired, the BBC, NewScientist.com, Slashdot and The Inquirer were the top downstream sites in the News and Media category last week. Also interesting is that technology companies are also prominent in the downstream sites from Digg. Last week, Microsoft, Apple Computers and Symantech Corp were all among the top downstream sites, with Software sites receiving 8% of downstream visits. News releases and product announcements can be - and are - "dugg" and so Digg can also become important to any technology company's PR strategy.

While Digg does not yet pose a threat to Yahoo! or Google News, Digg.com didn't seem to threaten IT Media sites either just a few months ago. With the expanded focus for Digg, I am sure Digg will receive much criticism from its loyal - and technology focussed - customer base. However, I am sure we will also see this model of social news take off in other areas. Watch this space.

If you want to get started, you can "digg" this story here.

Posted by Heather Hopkins at 05:25 PM

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Posted by: Search Engines WEB at June 12, 2006 10:56 AM

Posted by: digital technology news at June 16, 2006 02:27 PM

Posted by: Tony at October 21, 2006 01:38 PM

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