The new version of Digg has changed the playing field for two of its biggest constituents: power users and publishers. We discuss this with a long-time Digg power user.

The latest version of social news site Digg is currently in restricted beta, with a further 20,000 users added at the beginning of July. The new version adds the ability to 'follow' people or publishers, via a feature called "My News." This will be the default Digg homepage and it's prompted many to compare the new Digg to Twitter and Facebook. Another big change is that publishers may now automatically submit their content. This changes the game for both power users and publishers, because previously the secret to getting onto the Digg front page was for a power user to submit the story. That's no longer the case.

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Power Users on Digg

Up till now, the definition of a 'power user' on Digg has been someone with the ability to make stories popular simply by submitting content or 'digging' it up. There was also a lot of back scratching that happened behind the scenes, among both power users and/> [...]

Wed Jul 14, 2010 06:08 am

Millions of downloadable app fans can’t be wrong

Since the explosion of Web 2.0, there’s been this sense in the industry that downloadable applications for PCs and Macs are dead. Web 2.0 programming languages turned static web pages into web applications. The advantage of this now dubbed “webware” was that you didn’t have to go through the process of downloading and installing an application, often cited as a major hurdle for usage. Web 2.0 applications could work in everyone’s browser (PC or Mac), no matter the configuration (usually).

If it’s true that “people won’t download and install applications,” how come all of us have downloaded and installed applications running on our computers right now? And how come millions of people still download and install applications?

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Mon Jul 05, 2010 19:50 pm

Amazon.com said today it would start offering electronic versions of books by business author Stephen Covey exclusively in its Kindle Store.

Electronic versions of Stephen Covey's best-selling books, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and "Principle-Centered Leadership" are available in the Kindle Store for $7.99. The e-books are being published through RosettaBooks.

Previously the print editions of the books were published through Simon & Schuster. The new deal with Amazon will give Covey more than half of the net proceeds from sales of the e-books.

Covey also has plans to release an upcoming book "Great Work, Great Career" exclusively in the Kindle Store.

"This is the first time these books have been available in a digital format, and I'm happy to be able to offer them exclusively on Kindle," said Covey.

"With so many readers using Kindle, this is a very effective way to reach people who want to easily download the books and begin reading them instantly."

Amazon said the books could be downloaded on Kindle, Kindle DX, Kindle for iPhone and Kindle for PC.

Covey is the 13th best selling author of all time on Amazon.
 

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Tue Dec 15, 2009 07:35 am

"In Google we trust." That may very well be the motto of today's young online users, a demographic group often dubbed the "digital natives" due their apparent tech-savvy. Having been born into a world where personal computers were not a revolution, but merely existed alongside air conditioning, microwaves and other appliances, there has been (a perhaps misguided) perception that the young are more digitally in-tune with the ways of the Web than others.

That may not be true, as it turns out. A new study coming out of Northwestern University, discovered that college students have a decided lack of Web savvy, especially when it comes to search engines and the ability to determine the credibility of search results. Apparently, the students favor search engine rankings above all other factors. The only thing that matters is that something is the top search result, not that it's legit.

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"I Googled It"

During the study, one of the researchers asked a study participant, "What is this website?" The student answered, "Oh, I don't know. The first thing that came up."

That exchange sums up the overall results from this study: many students trusted in rankings above all else. In fact, a quarter of the students, when assign information-seeking tasks, said they chose a website because - and only because - it was the first search result.

Only 10% of the students made mention of the site's author or that author's credentials while completing tasks. However, in reviewing the screen-capture footage of those re/> [...]

Thu Jul 29, 2010 09:25 am