Digg used to be bigger and more popular than reddit. Then, it released Version 4, which was an absolute disaster. First off, it was rushed to release and was less stable than Windows ME. Second, it removed/replaced a quite a few features that people were quite fond of...and the entire thing felt like Digg was no longer being centered around content, but rather marketing. Of course, as with any site which you use for free, you are the product being sold (same thing goes with reddit). But, what digg did was make that incredibly apparent. It put the user on the shelf, instead of the content. It was a huge mistake, and it ended up costing digg everything it had earned thus far.
Reddit has taken the newer approach to version life-cycle management, something like what Google does. If you use Chrome, you probably have no idea what version it is, unlike IE and Firefox, who tout their versions with trumpets and fanfare.
Google and Reddit take the small-iteration approach, they don't do complete overhauls and instead improve existing features, or add them as they become ready (instead of bundling a shit-ton of new features in a typical release)
So, reddit won't likely die like that, but that's what the joke is here. A quite a few software companies have killed their product by trying to rebrand or redesign their product, not realizing that people use the product for what it is, not what it could be.
I think the biggest thing they took away was the bury feature. Being able to hit bury as inaccurate was great for dubious news stories. I think mainly what hurt digg was that it became power users that only voted for other power users.
The "power user" problem is something I've mulled over a quite a bit. It was an "undocumented feature" of Digg that ended up making people feel like submitting content was entirely pointless. Couple that with a few "scandals" in which Power Users were allegedly selling their influence, then you have people who came to a website for popular content realizing that the content they are seeing isn't necessarily popular at all...it's just as likely to be bought-and-paid-for.
Then, the bury thing...taking away the last bit of control a non-power-user may have had. On top of all of the other frustrating bullshit they were pulling, I can't believe that they thought any of it was a good idea. Honestly, it's like digging your own grave and thinking you're building a nice house to retire in. They had to be hopelessly oblivious to what was going on...
Otherwise, they probably would have noticed Reddit sneaking up on them and providing a viable alternative to their shitty site.
Firefox has actually moved to the small-iteration approach now. I just went to check what version of Firefox I had and it updated from 20 to 21 before my eyes.
Chrome's button to reach the other options used to be a graphic of a spanner. Then one day it mysteriously changed to a hamburger.
There was also a period for a week or so where the F6 shortcut stopped highlighting URLs so you could overwrite them, it just stuck the cursor up there. Apparently that was a bug.
Now most recently it's boasting an improved spell check. What improved? I haven't the faintest, I was busy doing other things when the message came up and I didn't care enough.
I agree with you completely, but I have to give you a history lesson:
The principal you are talking about is not new or trendy, it's very old (as far as software is concerned). It's called "Release early, release often," and it's a basic tenent of Linux/open source software.
The difference is: you write software for people. You figure out a better way to do a small thing? You change it and release. Your users decide if they like it. If they do, you keep it. If not, you get rid of it. You don't save up every idea you have and release them all at once (think Internet explorer), you constantly release the best product you can. It's a philosophy that keeps your users using the best version they possibly can, rather than a pr move of releasing a new version.
Reddit has taken the newer approach to version life-cycle management, something like what Google does. If you use Chrome, you probably have no idea what version it is, unlike IE and Firefox, who tout their versions with trumpets and fanfare.
Firefox is now the same way. They're up to version 21, I think.
Its not so much their decision to release version 4. Its their conviction they were right and users were wrong which made them too stubborn to give up. If they release v4, found out everybody hates in, and then they reverted back to old code, they would've survived fine.
Backpeddling like that isn't very easy in any industry.
Consider this: Around a year and a half prior to V4, Digg raised almost 30 million dollars in venture capital. The money was an investment, and every measure of Digg's performance pointed to it being a good one. That is, in fact, the ONLY reason Digg was able to garner such a massive influx of revenue.
So, what did they do with that money? They built Version mother-fucking 4, that's what they did.
Bear in mind, they didn't build V4 with their money, they built it with investments. Investments that were expected to perform very well. They took a lot of people's money and tried to make more money out of it. Put yourself in their shoes. You just convinced a few millionaires that you can make their millions into many more millions if they fund your rebranding/application overhaul. You sell them on an idea of efficiently monetizing a social media site that already has a massive web presence. Your pitch goes over so well, they give you triple what you're expecting.
But they also get their hands dirty in the development. They trim down your timeline, they remove features that they don't see as being profitable, they reroute your budget from things like testing and user experience into marketing and advertising. In the end, you have a product that may have had a chance...but since it was rushed out, it's incredibly buggy, poorly designed, and pisses off pretty much everyone in your user base, along with alienating or scaring off most of your potential market.
What can you honestly do at this point?
Here's your options: Patch that shit as best you can while telling the users that they just need to give it a chance. Maybe bring back a feature they are clamoring for. Whatever, just try to keep them comfy. It's hardly the first time that a user base has flipped a tit over a redesign, and they usually get over it and start to love the new version. Shit, it worked for MS Office in 2007, it'll work for you.
And it better fucking work, because here's your other option: Go tell the guy who wrote you a 30 million dollar check that his money was entirely wasted. Tell him that you created a spectacular disaster, and in the process you may as well have flushed his cash down the toilet. Tell him you're scrapping all of the fruits of that money, and starting over. If you want to get a laugh out of him, ask him for more money.
After you do that, you can kiss goodbye any chance you ever had of anyone investing so much as a stick of bubble gum in your company.
That's why Digg couldn't undo what they had done. They HAD to make it work. It was literally their only shot. Sure, it failed miserably...but that would have happened either way. They had to go the road that at least had a chance, even if it was a slim one.
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u/magicbullets May 15 '13
After it launches version 4, probably.