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Comment by michaelchisari | Hacker News Reader

Has there been a better example than Digg of how detrimental it is to alienate your users on the social web?

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention Reddit, which seems to have been the main reason why Digg's numbers haven't bounced back, despite changing some of the aspects which made users leave.

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The second page of that article was really disappointing. It's as if the guy never heard of Reddit. Calling Twitter digg's true nemesis is so far out of it is not even funny. Twitter and Digg could coexist for ever. how can I get a real discussion of a link of twitter? It would be really hard for me to see the diverse amount of links that digg and reddit give me just by amassing a ton of friends. Most of the best links I've found on digg/reddit aren't even from people I would have know. They are not usually famous or popular outside those sites. Digg's error was shifting away from this and trying to go towards twitter's way of following a select group of people. That obviously is not what people want. Reddit does it by subjects, that seems to be working great.

> Has there been a better example than Digg of how detrimental it is to alienate your users on the social web?

Facebook. It changed the day anybody (ie. parents) was allowed on. Now most people I know either refuse to use the service due to employer paranoia or just play Farmville all day, but it's not the same.

At least Facebook rolls with it, I suspect their new features (new Groups, new Photos) seem to cater towards their current audience instead of "getting the old spark back".

Unlike Digg, Facebook lacks a viable alternative and is deeply reliant on the network effect, meaning you need critical mass to migrate for the alternative to be useful. Because of this Facebook's growth, in the face of customer dissatisfaction in some cases, has been a hockey stick.

Facebook is a good tool. I can put my photos on it, and all my friends, my aunt, my uncle, my cousins, will all be able to see it. (Not my grandparents, they don't have computer. :( ) Facebook "implicitly" notifies all those people so I don't have to send a lame spam email "Hey I've posted some photos, check it out". It is similarly good for organizing outings. Just create an event and invite people, no need to send an email with 20 recipients; An forum-like thing in the event lets people asks questions, which stays up and acts like an FAQ.

Uhm, the key difference being that between that time and now Facebook has grown 5-6x. By what metric was that a bad decision, exactly?

I think you missed the "alienate your users" bit.

People whined when Facebook opened to non-students. People whined for each of the dozen or so major redesigns. Essentially zero of those users left the site as a result.

Facebook always remained a social network of sorts though. Digg changed the functionality of their site.

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