Digg Really Is Listening, They Did Everything We Asked For

Today Digg’s CEO said up front that the company is listening “loud and clear” to its community, and he meant it.

Right after the launch of Digg V4 I wrote up a post that outlined the largest complaints from Digg users (I shared their views), putting them in a single place out in the open for all to see.

With the new changes that Digg’s CEO promised today, every single one of my listed concerns will have been addressed. Let’s go down the list:

• Bury – It is coming back shortly.
• Thumb buttons needed to return – Digg brought them back.
• The ability to make Top News default – This has been added.
• Overly harsh activity banning – This is no longer a complained about issue.
• Bugs were a serious issue – Most have been ironed out in the last month.

The other important feature that was removed – user profiles that include comment and submission history – is on its way back as well.

To put it bluntly: Digg took a bold, risky move, it didn’t go well, and now the company is righting the wagon and getting the oxen lined back up to drive its community forward. If you take a risk and you win, you are a genius. If you take that same risk and it turns out poorly, you are a chump. If you don’t take the risk you are dead in the water, becoming irrelevant.

Digg did what it had to do, and by taking that risk it is fighting for a real future, not a slow decline. The new design’s negative publicity has been everywhere, so much so, that even I, a Digg fan, bought into it, saying that Digg has jumped the shark. Then again, with their new CEO, and their new direction, perhaps we have all misjudged Digg. Let’s wait and see, but there is hope at the end of this tunnel Digg has dug itself into.