Digg's Rise, Slashdot's Demise

A few days ago, Business 2.0 with CNN reported on 50 people that matter and 10 that don't. I found the list of 10 more interesting.

Actually, to be accurate, I found one entry on the list of people that don't matter to be interesting. And as it so happens, that entry wasn't a person, but rather a web site. Which one was it? Slashdot. Here's the blurb:

Remember the days when "getting Slashdotted" was every sysadmin's worst nightmare? Referrals from the "News for Nerds" website would send so much traffic to websites that many crashed. But for those that survived the flood, it was the online equivalent of a papal benediction. Today, the buzz has moved elsewhere. Slashdot's editor-driven story selection model is being supplanted by user-generated systems such as Digg. According to recent Alexa data, Digg already has more daily reach and generates more page views than Slashdot. Malda knows his subject, and he's a good editor, but in the end, he's just no match for the power of the multitudes.

I was never an active member of the Slashdot community. Sometimes I would find interesting things on the site, but for the most part I browsed the home page every now and again without feeling a strong need to keep up to date. Digg, on the other hand, has piqued my interest. Aside from offering links to really interesting sites that cover broader areas than Slashdot, but it also makes for a good web marketing tool if you happen to have good content to promote.

So I bid adieu to Slashdot and wish its founders good luck with their next endeavor. And I welcome Digg to my browser bookmarks.

N.B. There was a web site on list of 50 that do matter: Flickr.com.