I might get banned from Digg for this article. I've read many horror stories of Digg Bullies burying submittals they deem 'spam' or even badly categorized. Then again I may get kudos and creds from the folks at Netscape. Cause, quite frankly, IMHO Digg sucks and Netscape Rocks.

What are the basis for my claims? It's simple really. Digg is stuck in a Techcentric Universe in which articles are very, very slanted to it's high tech crowd. A cursory examination of their category offerings will make that abundantly clear. This is their heritage, their "crowd" and they aren't going mainstream with categories that actually make sense. My specialty is Sarcasm Blogging. My Category choices are: Off-beat news at Digg. That's about it. If I were to attempt to place one of my rants in Political News it would be roundly flamed as not authoritative thus it must go in Political Opinion. Here it will likely be sneered at as amateurish. Apparently Opinions are only for the Elite Bloggers. A downright funny piece on a Celebrity in Entertainment/Celebrity? Well, it better not be too funny because it will buried by those without a sense of humor right away. In fact there's no Humor or Satire category at Diggs at all. That should tell you something.

Netscape, on the other hand, thinks like "normal" folks think. Plenty of categories. Loose definitions. A wide ranging audience of 'scapes? that aren't hung up on the trivial aspects of your post. They don't get mad because you wrote something that made them think outside their box. Most Digg commenters seem very anal to me, pushing their views on you regardless of the idiocy of that view - it's a Digg Mindset, I suppose, which is firmly entrenched due to their core audience being tech oriented. Netscapers aren't like that. They're Joe Average, by which I mean they come from all walks of life. They just want to find interesting things to read, not nit-pic it to death. They like the Off Beat. One of their categories is "Do No Evil". A catchall category for "General" with a touch of Opinion. If I can't figure out what one of my articles would best be categorized as, I can always go with "Do No Evil" and feel that it will be well represented.

My webstats show more than 2:1 readership from Netscape over Diggs for the same submittal. Perhaps this is because I rarely write a pure Technical piece. But I still submit to Diggs. It's my right as a Blogger to present them to as wide an audience as possible (providing, of course, that I don?t spam in the process - which I do not do). I think the large difference in readership goes to the core audience of each. Techheads (Diggers) aren't interested much in Politics or Satire or anything that isn't gadget oriented or is so obtuse as to give you a migrane. At least this is what I perceive the Average Diggers interests are. It's the difference between a Generalist and a Specialist. That Specialist (Digg) is going to know a heck of a lot about their field and will take great interest in any topic that approaches that narrow focus. The Generalist (Netscapers) will know a little something on the subject perhaps and will be less inclined to get in a huff if it doesn?t quite fit their world view.

To sum up, I like Netscape readers better. Additionally Netscape?s Layout is much friendlier and more customizable. They don't "bury" you or get their buddies to gang up on you. They aren't as stiff and uptight in other words. There's other submittal services out there including my choice for best up-and-comer: coRank. Admittedly they don't have the audience that either Digg or Netscape has, but I do like their "layout". The only other submitter I might use is reddit . It's ok, a bit too "blah" for me. Hmmm, if Google bought out Digg would they call the new service "Giggle"? Sorry, couldn't resist. (Go ahead and bury me Diggers, ya know you want to!)

Thats my opinion, and welcome to it!

Zenny, Digg Disser