Thanks Adam we have been having mixed feelings on Digg for some time now and have branched out to some of the other up & comming social networks like the ones discussed below. Check them out... Refer a lil' AskTheAdmin and let us know how it goes!
http://mashable.com/2007/07/12/digg-alternatives/
July 12, 2007 — 10:08 PM PDT — by 
Kevin Rose’s latest startup, Pownce, is being met with criticism from some of the Digg faithful. Some Digg users accuse Rose of spending too much time on side projects and not enough on launching much-needed Digg features like a photo section and improved comments. Potential rival Streamy was greeted with cheers, despite no users having tested it. But no site has ever managed to win over Digg users in large numbers: do any of these contenders actually have a chance?
Streamy
Currently in private beta, Streamy was well-received by the Digg community, providing an outlet for users to vent their frustrations. The service is a combination of social news, start page, and instant messaging that allows you to view stories without leaving the site. Stories are made popular not by voting, but by the number of people who have saved or shared stories, as well as user-defined filters. For a preview of the service, check out their screencast:
coRank
coRank lets you create your own “social content network” which is essentially a topic-specific site where users who share an interest can submit links. Similar to Digg, stories within a topic are voted up and down. Each user also gets their own front page, which includes the latest hot content from their topics of interest that has been voted up by the sources they have selected. For example, if my network was technology and one of my sources was Mashable, my front page would show technology stories that Mashable voted up.
Spotback
Spotback is a social news site with a personal twist. When you first arrive at Spotback, it shows top rated stories in different categories. However, once you begin rating items using the voting slider it attaches to each story, Spotback uses an algorithm to adjust what it shows you on each visit. Thus, the more you use Spotback, the more tailored your homepage will become to the type of stories you enjoy. Spotback was launched last year, but the news site has since been sidelined to a subdomain while the main Spotback.com service focuses on widgets for blogs: not a good sign for the Digg alternative.
Thoof
Thoof is more about users editing and revising stories as opposed to voting them up and down. Users can then vote on the best version of a story, which also helps determine what a user sees on their homepage, as Thoof saves a history of your preferences. Thus, Thoof tries to solve one of Digg’s problems – duplicate posts and poorly worded or flat out inaccurate headlines and summaries that users submit. Thoof launched in June.
Shoutwire
Shoutwire is a social news site that offers prizes to encourage users to share stories, pictures, and video and help vote on content. The site maintains a leaderboard detailing users with the most “shouts” (votes), articles submitted, and comments. While Netscape pays top users $1,000/month for their efforts, the money pool at Shoutwire is a bit smaller, splitting a $1,000 total prize pool 10 different ways each month. Interestingly, the site is part of a publicly traded company called Tubearoo (symbol: TUBR.PK).
Wobblog
Wobblog is a pretty basic social news site, allowing users to submit stories in a variety of categories. The site openly publishes its “karma” system, which is used to determine whose votes count the most. Wobblog does allow non-registered users to vote for stories, although apparently their votes count less. Digg removed its top users feature in February amidst concerns that people were gaming the system.
There is clearly room for more than one social news site, with well known services like Reddit, Netscape, and Newsvine all enjoying moderate success in the shadows of Digg. Whether or not the latest round of anti-Digg sentiment will lead to a mass exodus to competing services remains to be seen, but we think it’s unlikely: most of its rivals are simply imitations.
Did we miss any interesting social news startups? Feel free to share your favorite up-and-comers in the comments.
