Mark’s Blog

Last week I sat down to blog about the content of a recent British Government report on renewable energy. At the time my head was full of ideas and opinion on the subject, and as I love writing in a slightly cynical and sarcastic manner I was looking forward to coming up with some critical insights to share with our EcoWorldly readers.

However, it was 10.30pm and the last espresso was wearing off, so still flushed with my recent Digg success I decided to take a short-cut. Instead of writing a more worthy blog post, I wrote a very quick made-for-digg piece, substituting content and insight for short and controversial statements in the form of a simple list. Topped off with a tempting headline I posted and submitted to Digg before going to bed for the night.

Waking up the next morning, I was pleased to see that I’ve finally got the hang of social media - my submission had quickly gone to the front page with 11,000 page views so far, and counting. Once one masters the formula it is surprisingly easy to draw a lot of page views and many (good and bad) comments.

Why Digg’ers Get The Posts They Deserve

I was rightly criticised by many diggers for the slightly content free nature of my post. However, If I had taken the time to write a proper post, with a title that reflected its true content and purpose, such as "British Government: Economic Arguments For And Against Micro-Generation" my post would have fizzled and died on social media, and only the small, yet growing EcoWorldly faithful would have read it.

This is nothing new - tabloid newspapers have always outsold the quality press, and whilst Digg’s editorial democracy is still a great way to read the web, its still about quantity over quality.

But the worst part, as a blogger, is that it’s addictive. Throughout this post, I have had to constantly refrain from writing provocative statements and suppress the temptation of submitting this piece to Digg for a shot at the front page together with an even more insulting headline. My future blogging could be forever compromised..

Anyways, my EcoWorldly post still got 11,000 page views..

(Note: if seen on Digg, it wasn’t submitted by me)