Digg Updates

Hey all,

So we launched the profile feature on Digg today. I hope you enjoy it. After working with Leah on Pownce I really got an idea of how I wanted the Digg profiles to look and operate. You can see some definite relation between Digg and Pownce profiles. I'm very pleased with it. With that said, we'll be taking a look at your comments and suggestions over the next few days because ultimately, the people have the final say on what we will do even if it does take some time to implement. We hope you enjoy it!

+fkrose

Revision 3 Gazette And Subscription Model

Hey all,

it's been a while so I decided to make a post on this story over at Digg concerning our new content for subscribers only. Basically, we need to provide something for the people who are supporting us through monetary means, support them with something just for them. Revision3 Gazette is one of the things we're doing for our members and internally we're pleased. Over at the forums, people seem to be receptive in a good way. I'll address some concerns in the Digg comments.

As much as I love rev3, I refuse to pay for something which should be free...

Who are you to tell us how to distribute our content? Who are you to decide what should be free? Because you want it to be free means it should be free? I wish assholes would stop commenting on digg but we can't get it all, can we?

You may ask - "why should it be free?!!?", well, because rev3 is a BUISNESS, they have had Microsoft as a sponsor on Diggnation, Godaddy, etc..


Being a "BUISNESS" means you give things away for free? Please, guide us on more things we should so. We're thinking of taking the Oprah approach and buying cars for anyone who visits the site.

If kevin rose asked you to pay to use parts of Digg, would you acctully agree? Acctully, silly question..

Glad you realised it's a stupid question. Digg is not Revision3, Revision3 is not Digg.

Just dont feel the need to pay somebody, when they are making money out of me already!
Ahh, there we go. Lazy, "gimme gimme" attitude. How exactly are we "making money" out of you? You aren't paying us a thing. What you should do is not pay, accept that some things in life aren't free and in the case of Revision3, it's not expensive either.

i thought kevin said rev3 was going to ditch the subscription model? when is that actually going to happen.
I'm not actually in charge of Revision3. I helped start it but I'm way too disconnected with Digg, Pownce and other stuff. I recall saying this on Cranky Geeks but you know what, I can't randomly make announcements like that because I don't call the shots on this on my own. Not to mention I'm usually drunk or somewhat loopy when we're asked about this stuff. It may never happen.

i refuse to pay for rev3 content as long as they will continue to put sponsor ads in their podcasts. i agree with the double dipping mentioned above. rev3, decide how you want to make your money because you cant have it both ways. i downloaded the mov from a mirror and i recommend that everyone else does too.

Oh, refusing to pay? Shocker. To be honest, people asstingy A as yourself are not the target demographic of our shows, people with a little disposable income are. Again, who are you exactly to say how this business is run? We're hardly stiffing anyone. All our meaty shows are offered freely. We're putting some stuff out as a thank you to those who want to financially support us and because you can't put aside some allowance to become a member it's a problem? Here's a crazy thought: watch the free shows, live without what you aren't paying for.

Whenever Kevin & Co. hire a former TechTV employee, I think of these lyrics from "Still DRE":
"Hook my boys up with jobs, no more living hard, bbqs everyday.."
Stupid yeah, but the same song runs through my head each time.

Same here. Ramzi thanks you.

The reason Revision3 don't like sites like Mirrornation is simple, Revision3 makes money from its sponsors by saying how many people have downloaded episodes off the Revision3 website. Mirrornation doesn't tell Revision3 how many people have downloaded Revision3 shows off them early, this means Revision3 aren't making as much money as they should be getting from sponsors, in fact they are losing money. Just because it is a television network doesn't mean they're all evil corporate beings, they're all geeks like us.

Just remember that.

That's mostly it, yeah. For some reason or the other we don't like to lose money. We're evil and corporate like that.

I Digg The So-So

Steve is gonna love this one. :)

Where's The Love, Techcrunch?

Duncan Riley did a story called "Attack Of The Fake Bloggers" and neglected to include the person responsible for changing the way sites like the one he writes for gets a lot of their news: me. Not to sound like a douche or anything but come on! You can do better than that! Looks like we'll have to implement a new feature at digg. Users will get a hoot out of the "Techcrunch sucks" section. Uncov would be proud.

Future of Web Apps Conference

Coming up pretty soon I will be speaking at the Future of Web Apps Conference in jolly old England. I guess I will talk about this in more detail at some point in time coming but I just want to mention it because when I do go there, we want to do an episode of Diggnation and need you to come down because the venue we have will be taking up around 1000 seats, so if you're anywhere in Europe, find yourself down there.

You can also come see me at the FOWA conference talking on October 3rd, so check that out as well. I made a handy chart of what to look out for. Oh yeah and I'm trying to comment on anything I come across dealing with Digg, Revision3, Pownce, etc. So feel free to email me: fakekevinrose@gmail dot com.

Digg and Facebook Code

People sometimes want stuff without knowing how to handle it.

I'm reading Adario Strange's take on the removal of the Facebook code from Digg and the fact that people (thanksfully) didn't go all up in arms over this. First off, I really hate the fact that people have to fish for angles in blog entries with something like this. The fact that the code was removed by Google is a clear indication that this is way different than the HD-DVD scenario. Tell you what, take 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0 and keep in mind you can crack HD-DVD copy protection with it. Now, take the Facebook code and give it to a coder. Two different things. Just about anyone can get access to the code but it's not like anything could be done with it. Do something with the code. I dare you. But if some coders were to get hold of that Facebook source code, people could learn about the behind the scenes of Facebook. This is also very illegal since Facebook had no intention of letting this out and we have to abide. If the Digg code leaked and it wound up on Digg we wouldn't sit back and let the people do what they want, regardless of how the democratization of their news has affected their view of things. At the very least, we draw the line at anything illegal. If you can't get that then you have let the "power of the people" thing go to your head, in which case you need to go rock climing or something. Get a cat, take your attention off the internet a while.

We love the users over at Digg and I think they can understand where we are coming from. Yes, we will fight for something we believe is right. Illegal source code on the site is not something we will fight for. Just because a lot of people want something doesn't make it right. That's like saying because a lot of people read TechCrunch it's a good blog.

+fkrose

Patrick Norton at Revision 3

So there has been a lot of talk recently about Patrick Norton leaving his gig over at ZD, hosting DL.TV. There has been even more chatter that he might be coming over the Revision3. All I can say on this situation is that we have nothing to announce at the moment. Maybe somewhere down the line we will finally be able to announce that Patrick is not coming to Revision3. Hey, if Oprah can announce she is not gay then we can announce not anything we want.

I know this is not the sort of news you want to hear. You want to hear that we are taking Patrick over at Rev3 and going to make The Screen Savers 4.0 or something. The fact of the matter is that Pat is already over at Rev3 and you can see him helping out Dave Randolph on episodes of SYSTM. Hopefully Pat will be able to stick around to do more episodes and help us out with some other projects (we could use some extra hands building our new sets) but you certainly have to wait for a non-announcement announcement.

I can give you the inside scoop though on what I think Pat will be up to. From what I hear he will be going on to blog full time. As you can see, he's already warmed up. Hope he keeps up the momentum. Remember, you heard it here first :)

+FKR