A lot of discussion online for Yahoo!’s “Suggestion Board,” a recommendation site on a variety of subjects that uses a Digg-like voting mechanism. Digg is a site where users recommend news stories by “digging” and then those stories that get the most “diggs” rise to the top. Well, Yahoo! isn’t the first to steal this concept (Newsvine, Reddit, Netscape), but given Yahoo!’s big public nature they’re now a target for Digg users who are essentially uber-geeks who like to think they know everything about Web culture and hate to see their geekdom get sold out.
This is just like that guy in high school that constantly would tell you that they were a fan of some band when they were underground, but as soon as they signed with a major label and “sold out” they stopped being fans.
Yahoo! seems to be unabashed of the outright theft of concept and design, even referring to “Suggestion Board” as having a Digg-like voting mechanism. It’s getting a lot of heat from the Digg users who are all geeks. But it’s possible that Yahoo!’s play will speak to a much larger audience and slice and dice the Digg-like tool in more categories than just tech (Yes, Digg has other categories, but tech gets the most traffic).
