On Subject, clearly

December 4, 2007 by pmelcher.

Social bookmarking website Digg.com has just launched, last night, an addition to their service. From now on, registered users will be able to submit images. For those unfamiliar with Digg, let me explain. You see an article you like, you submitt to Digg. If others like it, they also “Digg” it. The more Diggs, the more the article reaches the top. On the other side, a lot of people will go to Digg.com and read the most popular article.

What is very interesting here, is that it is now possible with images, creating the first social bookmarking of images. Why is this relevant to our industry ? Digg is a highly popular website, at least in the USA. It has a huge amount of traffic. This will allow us to see what images are the most popular. But with a twist.

The images that will appear to the top will be the images that most people find interesting to share, not to be confused with the ones they like the most. It is more likely that we will see more strange, funny, exotic images than groundbreaking photojournalism . But nevertheless, for advertisers looking to find the next viral marketing campaign, or publishers, seeking to populate their pages with eye grabbing content, it will certainly be a source of inspiration. For photographers too, it could become a source of inspiration.

Furthermore, it will be much different than a Flickr or other photo file sharing platform as the majority of voters will be not interested in photography. Finally, it will also be fascinating to see how many photo agencies, including the microstocks, will add the “digg” buttons under every single of their image.

With the crest of the web interaction at its peak, it will be a very compelling destination to monitor regularly for anyone curious about the relationship of photography and its users.

On a parallel note, and the second newsworthy item, is that Digg selected Idee Inc technology to prevent having duplicates. Thanks to Idee, if people vote for the same image but seen on different sites, it will add up instead of duplicating. A confirmation that the company has a real dedication to its core competence and not venturing into doubtful activities.

you can see Digg Images here Be prepare to see a lot of images of Cats and Dogs…

Idee Inc new website can be seen here. Check out their lab. very cool stuff

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