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Popular social news site "Digg" has a reputation for being a democratic news website worthy of competing with mainstream sources such as CNN. Both news sources focus on completely different "news worthy" stories, but a few months ago we were lucky enough to have our site listed on Digg and CNN within 2 days of each other. Now it's time to share the results with the world.
Formalities (AKA What is Digg?)
Digg is referred to as a "democratic news website" - Any member can publish an article or story, linking directly to the original source. The community then decides whether the story is worthy of being displayed on the front page (also referred to as a "Digg"). Once a story receives enough Diggs it is automatically promoted to the front page, where thousands of visitors swarm to the site at the same time. This has been called the Digg Effect and can also lead to crashing of web servers and melt-downs at power stations (well, not the latter).
You already know what CNN is, so I won't bore you with the finer details.
Digg Statistics
On the 5th of September a story linking to our website was promoted to the front page of Digg.com. Our site received a total of 76, 185 visitors over the course of 1 day (out of a total of 83,532 visitors), the bulk of traffic coming from Digg during the first hour or two of being displayed on the front page.
CNN Statistics
2 days later, on the 7th of September, the story was picked up by CNN along with a direct link to our website (I have been told this is highly uncommon). Within moments of being published on CNN our site attracted a whopping 377,606 visitors out of an amazing 438,840.
Lifespan
The next day we noticed a sharp decline in visitors from both sources. Digg referred just under 20,000 visitors while CNN had a much lower number at just over 4,000.
It took Digg 5 days to push less than 500 visitors our way. While CNN sustained its traffic for a longer period of time, taking 15 days to go below the 500 mark.
Interestingly enough the statistics show that CNN's traffic actually increased on the fifth day after steadily dropping over the first few days. We are not entirely sure why this happened.
It's interesting to note that CNN still refers an average of 300 people per day (even 4 months down the track), while we are lucky to receive the occasional visitor from Digg on a week to week basis.
Visitor trends
It was interesting to see CNN visitors who were interested in participating on our site. They spent more time browsing, commenting and generally spending more time than Digg users.
We have no ads on our site so I am unable to compare the often discussed lack of revenue from Digg visitors. However with that said, given that CNN visitors spent more time and browsed through more pages, it is plain to see that they are more likely to click on adverts.
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| JD Rucker commented on December 14, 2007
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If it were a trivia question, I would have gotten it wrong initially.
After thinking about it, it just makes sense. Not just because of the traffic to the source websites, but also the way the stories are displayed and for how long they are in the same spot. On Digg, they constantly move. On CNN, they may be in the same spot for hours.
Interesting data. And, congrats on getting a story to the front page of CNN. Digg is nice, but CNN FP stories are golden.
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| Dav Noel commented on December 17, 2007
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Also, I think it has something to do with the general reader mentality of Digg links. So many of them peruse just enough so they can write comments related to the texts. I know because I myself have been guilty of this.
-rynocruzr-
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| Adam Lyttle commented on December 17, 2007
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JD and Dav, you both raise interesting points. As JD pointed out, getting an article on CNN is considerably more difficult than getting it on Digg. However, if you add the sum of all the traffic has sent our way, it doesn't even come close to the amount of traffic CNN sent us (and continues to send us). We were picked up by CNN by chance, pure luck really. Perhaps it's time to get those press releases circulating?
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| reputation management commented on December 17, 2007
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I never heard about the CNN effect but the stats show how much power the big news sites have.
this cud be a good lesson showing the power of the press and why public relation is sometimes needed.
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| Gary R. Hess commented on December 17, 2007
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Interesting. I haven't seen data on this before, but it makes sense. CNN is much more 'in your face' than Digg.
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| Matt Kluemper commented on December 18, 2007
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Interesting post, Adam - I know you said it was pure luck your story got on CNN, but this shows you need to have a well-rounded overall marketing strategy that includes traditional media, as well. Have you seen an effect yet on the number of backlinks the story on CNN resulted in? (besides that killer direct link from CNN)?
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| John W. Furst commented on December 18, 2007
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Thanks
for sharing those detailed results. Per definition those social/democratic sites send average users. The elite usually prefers resources with an editorial publishing process. Hence the "quality" of CNN and alike sites users is higher.
My 2 cents.
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| Adam Lyttle commented on December 18, 2007
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Matt, unfortunately I can't differentiate the backlinks from Digg or CNN (as they both linked to the same page). It would have been interesting to see what the results were. Personally I think that's where Digg would have the advantage, considering theres a high percentage of Diggers who run their own blog.
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| Moksh Juneja commented on December 18, 2007
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that is some crazing figures... but brilliant comparison!! What was the post all about??
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| Adam Lyttle commented on December 18, 2007
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Moksh the traffic wasn't going to this site, it was actually a company that we have a private share in. Therefore the article is intentionally vague on the subject. But never fear, In a few months I can discuss specifics
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