Digg's future

This is a guest post by Muhammad Saleem, a social media consultant and a top-ranked community member on multiple social news sites.

Digg.com recently had a survey pinned to the top of the site's front page, that hints at some of the new features we can expect from the next iteration of Digg. Let's take a more in-depth look at these features and how we would like them to be implemented.

Feature: Digg Groups
This feature is clearly something that they are looking to bring over from Pownce but the implementation will be altered to suit the dynamic of the Digg community, and may end up being similar to the groups feature on StumbleUpon. On Pownce, you can make groups based on the different social and professional circles you have (for example "Digg friends", "Bloggers", "Family"), and organize people from within your network into these different groups. On Digg, however, people will be able to create groups on different topics of interest (for example "Firefox", "Apple", "Nintendo"), and other people will be able to join groups that interest them. Rather than Pownce groups, which are used to limit who you send a specific message to, these groups will be more like topical forums where people can have conversations on topics related to the group.

Feature: Customizable Alerts
Digg already has the initial setup for an alerts system. By going to email settings from your profile preferences you can opt-in to get email alerts for the following actions:


When you receive a shout
When someone requests to become your friend
When a friend of yours accepts mutual friendship
When a story you've submitted becomes popular
When Digg has new feature announcements and other news

The expanded feature-set will include the option to get more information (i.e. more stats on submissions, a digest of relevant content that you might like but may have missed, etc,) and more customizable alerts on a daily and weekly basis. I have been using the current iteration of email alerts but for some reason I don't get an alert when a story I've submitted becomes popular.

Feature: NSFW Filter
Digg already has a profanity filter (which I am very happy for and have been using ever since it was implemented) and a filter for content that is not safe for work, will be a welcome addition, not only for people who are slacking off at work but also for Digg's younger audience.