subvert and profit

Many of you know I’m writing more and more about Digg. I’ve become deeply involved in the community and I’ve gotten a greater understanding of what stories make it to the main page. I’m about to break the Top 100 (that list is here). It’s something, that, as Muhammad Saleem said, is because of a heightened awareness of what that community seeks:

Because they understand the nuances of the site and the preferences of the community, they are able to submit content that is appreciated by the democracy-based community of Digg and the content is consequently promoted to the home page.

When I submit a story to Digg, I have a good deal of confidence that my stories have a decent chance of hitting the main page, typically because I generally look for the content that is worthy of a Digg front-page mention. That’s why I was astonished when I saw a story in my feed reader that I ultimately submitted to Digg get buried at 43 votes. I spotted an anomaly that I typically didn’t detect once the story got buried: the rate at which it was being Dugg still grew, and by the time I checked the story again just a few hours later, it had an additional 60+ votes. Typically, buried stories taper off. They don’t grow like this. The community saw the piece and felt, like me, that it was deserving of a front page promotion, but the story inexplicably didn’t make it.