I went to the Digg launch party for their next version last night. Saw lots of friends and met a bunch of new folks. It was nice to get out.
The new Digg looks great and is a logical next step for them. They're increasing their categories from beyond tech by including World & Business, Entertainment, Video Games, and one or two more (i forget). They also are providing nice category navigation, customization of the navigation, and some awesome visualizations designed by the hipsters at Stamen Design. More on the visualizations... they're terrific eye candy that display real time activity in a very stylized manner. Dropping "Diggs" fall from the sky and stack up on stories to represent the instant popularity of a story in a time-line. Another one shows floating vector circle amoebas that grow as the popularity grows and presents how users are interacting with the story and how each story is connected through Digg critical mass. While it will bear out how useful these really are, one thing is certain, they are engaging and entertaining.
Digg now has 700,000 to 800,000 unique visitors a day... a number that out paces the NY Times. Adding more categories... one can only imagine.
(photo by Scott Beale - Laughing Squid)
