ispotastory.com: Is Copying Digg Really The Next Big Thing?

By pdo | Published: June 12, 2010

Honestly, I don’t really get this.  It’s been 5 years since Digg was founded.  It’s been 4 years since Time Magazine declared user generated content its person of the year.  The web has Reddit, Yahoo Buzz, SlashDot, Mixx, etc. and local clones like the Windy Citizen.  What’s going on?  Does the web really need ispotastory.com?  At this rate, there will be more sites that allow user generated content than there will be willing participants in about 6 weeks.

Reddit Graffiti
Creative Commons License photo credit: blmurch

User generated content was the web’s first big take on user generated traffic.  The Digg model harnessed its reader to bring traffic to the site and it was wildly popular … in 2005.  The web has evolved since then.  Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter took the successes of Digg and abstracted them further.  Discussion on the web could now happen in the reader’s own social sphere instead of the inside the greater Digg community.  This was a huge shift and is now a pain-point for sites like Digg.

Sites like Mashable, CollegeHumor.com, FunnyOrDie.com, and BuzzFeed are the new revolutionaries.  Mashable is very systematic and successful at covering socially-viral stories.  CollegeHumor.com and FunnyOrDie.com make a business of creating viral videos.  They’ve figured out what it takes to replicate viral content successes on the internet … and they don’t need small-time UGC sites to get exposure.  CollegeHumor.com’s CEO even went so far as to say that the myth of users generating good content is the biggest myth of the internet.  Meanwhile, BuzzFeed automates their viral coverage through their widgets — rendering the concept of pushing a button to ‘Digg’ something entirely useless and quaint.

So what’s going to happen to ispotastory.com?  If they can climb up the radar a bit, maybe they’ll get bought by Reddit, but I don’t think that’s likely.  Hopefully it’s a site built to serve a passion and the team has a wildly fun time giving it a go on the internet.  Best of luck.

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  • Hey Paul,

    Interesting points, though I feel you're missing a main feature with iSpotaStory in this post. We aren't just user generated content, we have human editors curating the content. I believe the company that you work for, Newser, does something similar.

    Thank you for writing about the site, and it seems you're very passionate about the subject; I would love to talk to you in more detail.

    Please email me at limor@ispotastory.com.

    Limor Elkayam
    Founder & CEO , iSpotaStory.com
  • Limor,

    Glad you found my post. Digg has "editor" influence as well (http://valleywag.gawker.com/346263/diggs-secret-editors). There's an interesting quote in this post: "The craze among investors these days are for startups where users generate the content, for free, while paid workers do as little work as possible." The article was posted in January of 2008. The user generated content arena is wildly crowded and sites that push the idea further will likely have the most success. And with Google entering the curation fray by showcasing editor-selected stories (http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/06/google-news-experiments-with-human-control-promotes-a-new-serendipity-with-editors-pick/), it's certainly an interesting time to be in the news business.

    All the best,

    pdo
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