A story about Homo erectus, the evolutionary predecessor to modern man, crossing the open ocean, had the word "homo" — rather necessary to understanding the story — replaced by a series of asterisks. Here's a screenshot from Digg's RSS feed:

Understandable on Digg's part: Their audience probably has commenters who use "homo erectus" in the Urbandictionary.com sense. The site's human editors — wait, I thought they weren't supposed to have those! — have restored the word to the site manually. Too bad their algorithm has to be on guard for its use as an epithet.

(Photo of L'Homo Erectus via Belgiumgayclubs.com)

Why, then, are so many publications writing about Tip'd? Let me spell it out for you: The community director of Tip'd, Muhammad Saleem, is a top user on Digg. His heavy usage means that his votes tend to carry more weight on the site. Would some Web writers cover new venture in the hopes that he might feel inclined to Digg their stories down the road? Stranger things have happened.

Hot-girl pics are to Digg users as lists are to editors. Unashamedly, we present the 50 hottest girls on Digg (okay, fine, the first 50 hot girls we found on Digg), and checked their profiles to determine whether they were likely to be real or fake. Then we built a spreadsheet to calculate their "Popular Ratios" — the percentage of their submissions that hit Digg's front page — individually and as a group. The surprising result:

These hot girls only managed to get their submissions to Digg's front page 4.3 percent of the time. What's more, the women we deemed real have an aggregate hit rate of 6 percent, while those with apparently fake profiles only got their stories to Digg's front page 0.15 percent of the time. So much for the conventional wisdom. Maybe the dudes pretending to be girls on Digg aren't trying to get on the homepage — they just like to pretend to be girls. With big boobs. Whatever floats your boat, guys.

The list:

Mariana Peyton: An 18-year-old female from Rio de Janeiro (BR) who joined Digg on June 19, 2008.
Recent digg: WALL-E: A World Without Us
Recent comment: On "Teen pregnancies at 30-year low" — "This is really great for the whole country. Teen pregnancies can ruin lives."
Recent submission: The Global Warming Myth
Presence elsewhere on the Web: An Orkut profile, where she only has male fans.
Real or Fake? Fake! Fewer teen pregnancies are good for Brazil? Caught!

KenSPT: A 25-year-old dude from Stratford, CT (US) who joined Digg on June 27, 2007
Recent digg: McCain and Obama's Plans to Combat Climate Change
Recent comment: On "Well, At Least They Are Being Honest" — "Wow, just wow."
Recent submission: Why White Castle Cheeseburgers Are Full of Awesomeness ...
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A blank profile on GameSpot featuring another woman's face.
Real or Fake? Fake! "A 25-year-old dude." Too easy.

Kelly: A 28-year-old girl from TN (US) who joined Digg on January 21st, 2008
Recent digg: 11 Strange and Wonderful Vending Machines
Recent comment: On "30 Ways to Increase Website Traffic" — "Relly did not understand how it helps my site to drive traffice"
Recent submission: Free online Dating site
Presence elsewhere on the Web: On Digg rival Mixx, where she's submits things like: "Free Software for Removing SPYWARE Virus."
Real or Fake?Fake! Spammer!

Emilia: A 25-year-old female from New York (US) who joined Digg on April 2nd, 2008
Recent digg: "12% of street sex workers raped by cops"
Recent comment: On "The World’s Largest Swimming Pool [PICS]" — awesome pics ;-)
Recent submission: "Why Spain Wins Euro 2008 (NSFW)" — picture of a naked woman with Spain-themed body paint.
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?Fake! Real person, but her latest submission? Boobies.

oyta: A 25-year-old girl from campulung (RO) who joined Digg on April 28, 2008
Recent digg: Summer is the Time to Focus on Building Your Child's Skills
Recent comment: On "BOX / Romania six finalists to tour "Centura gold"" — "Hai Romania,cei mai buni sportivi..."
Recent submission: Cristiano Ronaldo, consolat the beloved (Gallery)
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None to be found.
Real or Fake? Real! Who but a Romanian woman submits scandalous pictures of ripply men with muscles and then comments in Romanian?

Binoy xavier joy (binoyxj) A person from Kochi (IN) who joined Digg on September 9, 2007
Recent digg: Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Tactics
Recent comment: On "7 Quick Tips for Branding Yourself Through Social Networking" — "Good post!!!"
Recent submission: JS-Kit Acquires Commenting Sytem Provider HaloScan
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A profile on Indyarocks, an Indian social network site. There, Binoy xavier joy is a male.
Real or Fake?Fake! The image file name is Shilpa-Shetty, also the name of a famous Indian actress.

espl4:
A 25-year-old female from Paris (FR) who joined Digg on March 27, 2008Recent digg: Not typical underwear for men
Recent comment: On "New Short Spikey Hairstyles for Women Pictures gallery" — "Unfortunally, i love long hair, but this is fun to have short haircut! But short hairstyle is the best condition of the hair in summer time!"
Recent submission: Valentino: legend continues
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A del.icio.us profile chock full of fashion links.
Real or Fake?Real! Her comment claims she has long hair and her picture backs it up. This is a fashion blogger, on Digg to promote herself.

danna 88: A 20-year-old girl from US (US) who joined Digg on June 16, 2008
Recent digg: California to Legalize Weed for Everyone
Recent comment: On "This is how I make my bread" — "i ate a piece after watching this video. I also think i'm pregnant now."
Recent submission: "Thoughts on Sports Sponsorships"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A MySpace profile.
Real or Fake?Real! A reminder: only women get pregnant. Also, the woman on the MySpace profile looks similar enough.

sonia5880: A 27-year-old grrrl from Deerfield beach, FL (US) who joined Digg on December 11, 2007
Recent digg: Lists Are Taking Over America (Not Just Digg)
Recent comment: On "Better Gas Mileage By Tailgaiting Semi-Trucks" — "Nice, but, We need more ways to save then practically killing yourself!"
Recent submission: 17 Home Remedies to Cure & Prevent Yeast Infections
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Freelance Webmarket profile, listing her as a SEO Expert.
Real or Fake?: Fake! She's might be a woman, but that's not her picture. She's a clever SEO marketer working for Nativeremedies.com.

Michelle Cehn (Michiko280) A 21-year-old girl from Oakland, CA (US) who joined Digg on May 6, 2008
Recent digg: Cute alert - baby panda story and video
Recent comment: On "The Auschwitz album (+PICS)" — I fear that one day we will look upon our heartless slaughter of animals and treatment of animals in labratories in much the same way. No living sentient being deserves the horrific suffering that comes with factoy syle killing.
Recent submission: Rallies Intensify as 50,000 Koreans Protest US Beef
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A blog called "A Search For Compassion," which includes a post about animal rights activism on Digg and Facebook.
Real or Fake?: Real! Not to overgeneralize, but dudes don't care that much about cute animals or their "rights."

Jennifer Slayton: A 22-year-old girl from New York (US) who joined Digg on September 25, 2007.
Recent digg: Green Hotels in the UK
Recent comment: On "Do police cameras reduce crime?" — "it's obvious!"
Recent submission: 5 Famous Myths About the Birth fo the United States
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Last seen on Propeller back in Dec, 2007.
Real or Fake?: Fake. Rarely comments and has surprisingly very little Googlejuice.

letsgocrzy: A 19-year-old girl from CA (US) who joined Digg on June 19, 2008.
Recent digg: GameStop's Leaked Xbox 360 Price Drop Info
Recent submission: On "Tila Tequila Update: We Made Someone Mad" — "haha, a little angry are we?"
Recent submission: None
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has her own blog covering games and plays on various Flash game sites.
Real or Fake?: Real. Not really a submitter but an active Digger nonetheless. Her blog backs up her girl-gamer-geek cred.

Michelle Oshen: A girl from New York, NY (US) who joined Digg on October 6, 2007.
Recent digg: The Ultimate Informercial
Recent comment: On "I usualy prefer to stay away from certain topics I feel strongly about" — ":)"
Recent submission: His Name is Loren Feldman
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has her own website and a Flickr.
Real or Fake?: Real. Loren Feldman's beau. More mature than the average kids on Digg, interested in web and tech, most likely rubbed off from Loren Feldman.

Briona: A 23-year-old girl from Yarhsire (GB) who joined Digg on January 4, 2008.
Recent digg: Thank You Adobe Reader 9
Recent comment: On "12 Simple Steps To Overcoming Shyness for all geeks" — "Thanks! :)"
Recent submission: The Media Makes Us Confused Or Ignorant 2
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No where else
Real or Fake?: Fake. Only submits articles from eioba.com, a pseudo-Digg clone that rewrites wire stories. Also, profile picture is a set of boobs. Girls don't do that.

Jess Lesner: A 22-year-old grrrl from Rochester (US) who joined Digg on October 5, 2007.
Recent digg: HSUS Rescures 700 in Worst Puppy Mill Raid in State History
Recent comment: Never commented
Recent submission: The 9 Most Entertaining Little People
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She left her AIM screen name in her profile but no MySpace or Facebook
Real or Fake?: Real. But she might be Chris Hansen.

Allison: A 21-year-old lady from California (US) who joined Digg on April 11, 2008.
Recent digg: What Twitter Would Look Like During a Zombie outbreak [PIC]
Recent comment: On "Final Disaster Movie Poster" — "Carmen Electra's only source of income."
Recent submission: Columbian Hostage Rescue Movie Already in the works
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No where else
Real or Fake?: Real.

Kristen: A 23-year-old lady from The Cuckoo's Nest who joined Digg on December 16, 2007.
Recent digg: Some Clinton staffers going without pay
Recent comment: On "Femme Fatale 4" — "She can't be any older than 8... Do they seriously recruit children that young...?!?!"
Recent submission: Maze Generator lets you watch the birth of a maze 2
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Her own photography site
Real or Fake?: Real but not really active in Digg or the Internets. Apparently moved to SF recently.

PF: A 29-year-old lady from Kathmandu (NP) who joined Digg on April 5, 2008.
Recent digg: Netherlands Italy 3 0 Video
Recent comment: On "Netherlands Italy 3 0 Video" — "hiii thank u"
Recent submission: Agra Flights Book To From Cheap Fight Tickets Agra
Presence elsewhere on the Web: 'His' dating profile
Real or Fake?: Fake. Stock photos for profile page. Foreigner with simple grasp of English. Submits Indian news stories. Found dating profile of a man with similar user name, age, and location.

Tina Su: A female from Seattle, WA (US) who joined Digg on October 22nd, 2007.
Recent digg: 6 Things You didn't Know About Fried Chicken
Recent comment: On "Life as a Kid in North Korea (PICS)" — "This is really sad. I wonder how these photos were smuggled out of the country?"
Recent submission: Five Things You need to know about effective Habit Change
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Her own blog eaches you how to be more effective. Or check her Twitter account.
Real or Fake?: Real. Seems to be working on her lifehacking blog and submitting articles to Digg. Amazon employee in Seattle.

Jen Farland: A 22-year-old female from San Diego, CA (US) who joined Digg on December 26, 2007.
Recent digg: The Incredible Hulk Preview
Recent comment: On "Parents Over Which Gang Toddle Should Join" — "can we go to vegas and put down $100 on this kid getting a life sentence somewhere down the road?"
Recent submission: Soldier's skeletal remains found on Miss base
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No other presence
Real or Fake?: Fake. Comments like a dude and even submitted an article about Hannah Montana's Age Clock. All signs point to being a dude.

iThenticJoce A 21-year-old lady who joined Digg on January 28, 2008
Recent digg: First Shots of Sienna Miller as The Baroness in GI Joe
Recent comment: On "Mop Bucket (a short comedy)" — "I'm just glad I don't have balls."
Recent submission: "A Hitch in the Plan (a short film with a twist)"
Presence elsewhere on the Web:
Real or Fake?: Real! But she's a definitely a professional Digg-submitter for iThentic.com.

Katie Anderson (d4mnit) A 23-year-old girl from Georgia, GA (US) who joined Digg on January 21st, 2008
Recent digg: 8GB Steel MP4 Player Watch
Recent comment: On "Seven Strange and Wonderful Dishes" — "McDonalds Pizza - so healthful O_o."
Recent submission: Almost IPOD Touch but only for $63
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None. D4mnit is forum slang.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Girls who bite their lips like that don't wear steel mp4 players on their wrists.

papayamaya A female from the United States who joined Digg on June 5, 2007
Recent digg: "David vs. Goliath - WooMe" takes on Internet Giants"
Recent comment: On "David vs. Goliath - WooMe" takes on Internet Giants" — "I met a hot dude on it the other day. w00t!"
Recent submission: "Would YOU eat this candy?!"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter account that she rarely updates, but features the same picture.
Real or Fake?: Real! The photo isn't too staged and her comments suggest she's attracted to men. But more telling yet: she doesn't use Digg that much.

Mandy (sparkleprincess) A girl who joined Digg on February 28, 2007
Recent digg: Flying Saucer Power Source Discovered: Ionized Air
Recent comment: On "No Trespassing, My First Short Film" — "Don't be such a tampon head. ;)"
Recent submission: "A Palace of Gold Is Sold Off For Its Melt Value"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Too many sparkleprincesses out there to spot just one.
Real or Fake?: Real. Her recent comment came in reply to a gross-out male reacting to a story about menstruation.

Natalia Svoboda (NatalySvoboda) A 28-year-old female who joined Digg on February 1st, 2008
Recent digg: "30 Surefire Ways To Trim An Inch"
Recent comment: On "" — "did you have candidate with whom?"
Recent submission: "12 Human Odd Jobs"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A StumbleUpon profile featuring the same photo, saying she's from the Ukraine.
Real or Fake?: Real! She looks Ukrainian and so does her English.

sara (userxp101) A person from grand rapids, MI who joined Digg on June 9, 2005
Recent digg: "8 reasons you'll rejoice when we hit $8-a-gallon gas"
Recent comment: On "Kevin Rose has a MySpace" — "damn i wanted to submit this story, but you beat me."
Recent submission: "N.Y. & L.A Airports Using New Revealing Body Scanners"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Xanga blog".
Real or Fake?: Real! Her blog reveals she's getting married.

poshsuicide A person from California who joined Digg on October 13, 2005
Recent digg: "AT&T Announces iPhone 3G pricing plans"
Recent comment: On "Kevin Rose and Posh...Married?" — You guys are retarded.
Recent submission: "SuicideGirls iPhone PinUp Wallpapers"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A SuicideGirl profile. (NSFW)
Real or Fake?: Real! The Diggnation t-shirt gives it away.

Amanda (amandaw33) A 28-year-old grrrl from Philadelphia area (US) who joined Digg on October 27, 2005
Recent digg: "Paper Bags or Plastic Bags? Everything You Need to Know"
Recent comment: On "Fast Food: Smart Picks on the Go" — "I'm into nuggets y'all I'm into nuggets y'all"
Recent submission: "Kevin Smith's flickr photos
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A largely blank "Team Xbox" profile.
Real or Fake?: Real! Finding and submitting Kevin Smith's Flickr photos is a pure Digg-power user move.

houstong74 A 27-year-old girl from the United States who joined Digg on September 6, 2007
Recent digg: "The 5 Worst Computer Virus Attacks of All Time"
Recent comment: On "The 10 Worst PR Blunders in the Blogosphere" — "How about getting my name and my blog name wrong? it is not even about doing any homework at this point. Just copy and paste the dame thing correctly!"
Recent submission: "10 Reasons You Should Not Blog Everyday"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! This person is a blogger who knows that a pretty girl's picture will get more Diggs.

Dana (Dana24) A person from Manheim, PA who joined Digg on February 2nd, 2007
Recent digg: "What the Social Web Looked Like in the 1990s"
Recent comment: On "[Pics] The Hot Girls of Digg: Time to show off" — "http://www.myspace.com/gadgetgirl24 (some of us hotties ARE REAL!) "
Recent submission: "ICO reverses its stand on Bluetooth Spamming in UK - now perfectly legal!"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: The previously mentioned MySpace profile for Gadgetgirl24.
Real or Fake?: Real! Didn't you read her comment?

Bridget Phetasy: A 29-year-old lady from LA, CA (US) who joined Digg on June 24, 2008.
Recent digg: Digg Users Hate Everything; Bury Internet
Recent comment: On "Digg Users Hate Everything; Bury Internet" — "brilliant. hilarious. perfect. now bury it."
Recent submission: Tom Brady Ruined My Budding Relationship
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A MySpace page, because she's a model. Or you can read about her philosophy about stuff.
Real or Fake?: Real. But that doesn't make you any closer in getting a date with her.

Stephanie S.: A person who joined Digg on November 30, 2007.
Recent digg: Adam Carolla is The Hammer
Recent comment: On "What Man's Best Friends Really Thinks of Barack Obama" — "This is horrible, dogs just pee wherever they can get their paws on, I'm sure they love obama...I think?"
Recent submission: Social Networks Protect You From Dementia
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter account lets you keep track of what she's doing.
Real or Fake?: Real. She's actually very insistent on this.

michael s (yeblonski) A 20-year-old guy who joined Digg on February 10, 2008
Recent digg: "10 Free File Shredder Downloads for your PC Security"
Recent comment: On "Amazing Tattoo Breast Implant" — "this is sick!"
Recent submission: "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2008"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Someone calls him a cheater in a GameSpot forum.
Real or Fake?: Fake! A cheater in Call of Duty and Digg.

Denise Capps (DCapps) A grrrl from Hollywood, CA (US) who joined Digg on September 19, 2007
Recent digg: 10 Coolest & Bizarre Batman Mods
Recent comment: On "Sexy Boothbabes E3 Electronic EXPO Girls Models Video Games" — "Nice."
Recent submission: Oompa Loompa Lady
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Flickr profile.
Real or Fake?: Fake. Girls don't think boothbabes are "nice" nor do they pretend to be men on Flickr.

David (bollywoodkibabe) A 24-year-old guy who joined Digg on March 26, 2008
Recent digg: "SEO for Beginners"
Recent comment: On "PR10.in - Check Page Rank,Complete Domain Analysis,Alexa,Bac" — "Great simple resource."
Recent submission: "SEO and Blogging Tips"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Best way to spam Google with SEO: trade links. Best way to spam Digg: pretend to be a "Bollywood Babe."

Jackie Kira: A 27-year-old female from Japan (JP) who joined Digg on January 18, 2008.
Recent digg: New 'super-paper' is stronger than cast iron
Recent comment: On "3 Social Networking Sites With A Twist" — "Nice page"
Recent submission: Free ad serving system promotion
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No where else.
Real or Fake?: Fake. Too good to be true, but this babe is just interested in using Digg to submit scammy and spammy link exchange websites.

Valli Ram: A 48-year-old lady from Chennai (IN) who joined Digg on March 24, 2008.
Recent digg: Skunk forces family out of house for a year
Recent comment: On "Do You Want The Dreams To Come True?" — "Dreams will come true friend provided if you follow certain methods. Here dreams means visualizing your goals and not night dreams which come while you sleep."
Recent submission: Simplest Method of Meditation for Achieving your Goals
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has a blog to help you with your relationships.
Real or Fake?: Might be a real person but her profile pic is most likely fake. She's also using Digg to try to market her relationship blog.

Erica Blonde: A 26-year-old female from Ontario, Canada (CA) who joined Digg on May 3rd, 2007.
Recent digg: So You Think You Can Dance: Top 12 Perform
Recent comment: On "Women Playing Second Fiddle to Male Announcers in Radio" — "Do they contribute less but cause they add nothing of value to the conversation, or are they not given the opportunity to contribute in the first place?"
Recent submission: 7 Ways You Can Sell Your Business Vision
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has her own community blog and she's also apparently an aspiring voice actor.
Real or Fake?: Real.

Natalie Lopez: A 22-year-old grrrl from Vancouver (CA) who joined Digg on March 25, 2008.
Recent digg: The most popular Digg users and domains
Recent comment: On "Medical Marijuana Soon To Be Legal Nationwide" — "Peoples medicine is being taken away from them everyday, and the excuse is.. "its federally ILLEGAL" People in California are getting hassled a lot for this. It will be a big relief..."
Recent submission: Medical Marijuana Soon To Be Legal Nationwide
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No other presence.
Real or Fake?: If you can't tell by the picture, this girl loves pot. Like crave it. On news that the world might criminalize petty drugs laws she proceeded to submit 25 links of this event. If you love it so much, you should marry it.

FlexiChic A 29-year-old female from Florida (US) who joined Digg on December 5, 2007.
Recent digg: Dart in the Head
Recent comment: On "You can't fix stupid...." — "Stupid is as stupid does! Almost hard to believe."
Recent submission: Funny President Facts
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has a MetaCafe account</> but she uses it to pimp her videos.
Real or Fake?: Might be real but the profile picture is fake. It's the pixels. I can tell.

Greg Roberts (whiteblue1942) A 21-year-old dude from Raleigh, NC (US) who joined Digg on February 27, 2008
Recent digg: "Hottest Female Celebrity? [ PICS ONLY!!! ]"
Recent comment: On "Two Women Found Guilty for Raping a Dude in New York!!!" — "haha i would be in the same exact place the very next night and be like "mom...r u there? im all alone.... hope nobody rapes me..." :)"
Recent submission: "Herpes Forum"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Greg Roberts: A 21-year-old dude from NC whose image of himself is a woman with huge fake boobs.

Susan matson (rosinka) A 26-year-old girl from NY (US) who joined Digg on March 12, 2008
Recent digg: "A Very interesting place to live, PIC"
Recent comment: Susan matson hasn't posted any comments recently.
Recent submission: " I see myself on pornsite. "
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! This is a porn spammer.

Vicki Carr (Vicki86) A 22-year-old girl from Los Angeles, CA (US) who joined Digg on May 16, 2008
Recent digg: "A Look At The Script For Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards"
Recent comment: On "http://www.zlango.com/" — "Every e-mail becomes a visual experience when spiced –up with Zlango icons. Works on Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL mail and Hotmail all support the plug-in."
Recent submission: "Zlango's My Say application just went live on Facebook! "
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter account, where she's following 888 and only 69 are following her.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Zlango Isn't very savvy at spamming Digg.

Marianna (MariTorchi) A 26-year-old girl from Milano (IT) who joined Digg on November 13, 2007
Recent digg: "Special Valentine's Day Card (you can DIY)"
Recent comment: On "this adult spend to much time alone. Digg says:get out!!!" — "this adult spend to much time alone. Digg says:get out!!!"
Recent submission: "The Hard Disk You'Ve Been Waiting For [PIC]"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Metacafe profile with no videos.
Real or Fake?: Fake! The picture keeps changing to different body parts of different women.

Recent digg: "The Five Best Ways To Steal Gas...And One Really Bad Way"
Recent comment: None.
Recent submission: "Tattoo : Art of tattoo for Pregnant Lady"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Uploaded a bizarre YouTube titled: "Impaled-gross bug removal"
Real or Fake?: Fake! No comments, no favorites, and 372 friends — this is someone's second or third account.

snowhite7185 A girl from San Francisco, CA (US) who joined Digg on March 21st, 2008
Recent digg: "Fighting Crime with Christian Bale and The Dark Knight"
Recent comment: On "Summer Style: Sexy Sustainable Swimwear" — "that handwoven one looks like a spider web...you'd get a mighty funny tan from that one."
Recent submission: "Humor, wit, and sex...all used to champion green"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Reddit profile, promoting many of the same green-friendly stories.
Real or Fake?: Real! A real marketer who uses "Humor, wit, and sex" and Digg to promote eco-friendly stories.

Christina Coleman (C2hristina) A 22-year-old girl from Mississippi (US) who joined Digg on April 26, 2008
Recent digg: "The Bullets Are Real. Your God Is Not"
Recent comment: None.
Recent submission: "Ford Nuclear Reactor - Top 10 Craziest Concept Car"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter profile.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Only submits stories for auto-reviews site loqu.com.

Ayelet Noff (blonde20) A 32-year-old girl who joined Digg on March 28, 2007
Recent digg: "Don't Start With DIGG if you need Social Media Traffic!"
Recent comment: On "How social networking saved New Orleans" — "Great article indeed!"
Recent submission: "Breaking News: Zlango's My Say App Goes Live on Facebook!"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter profile where she's following 583 and followed by 747.
Real or Fake?: Real! She's real, but she's also "a strategist in the world of online marketing, community building, social software, and networking," according to her LinkedIn profile.

Melissa (PantsSupreme) A 23-year-old female who joined Digg on November 12, 2005
Recent digg: "Wall Street Journal on 4chan and Christopher Poole"
Recent comment: On "Barack Obama: My Position On FISA" — "Extremely disappointing :( These companies have been spying on us and will suffer no consequences. Constitution says that retroactive immunity is illegal so why is he supporting this?!"
Recent submission: None.
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Citysearch profile.
Real or Fake?: Real! Anyone who maintains a Citysearch profile is a real live social media junkie. And probably needs help.

markus 72 (markus72) A 28-year-old guy from US (US) who joined Digg on May 27, 2008
Recent digg: "Meet the Man Who Could Destroy Photogragraphy"
Recent comment: On "CBS News Correspondent: "I'd blow my brains out" — "She's smart. I like her style."
Recent submission: "Walker: I Was Victim of Shotgun Offense"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A profile on Ubuntu forums.
Real or Fake?: Fake!

Social news purists will no doubt shrilly protest against TechCrunch's marketing scheme, but the rest of us know this kind of "Digg Army" approach to voting up stories on Digg.com is both inevitable, commonplace, and clever enough — until Digg's moderators or its spam-detection algorithms catch up with you. The question isn't whether TechCrunch should do this — it's why your site hasn't, you lazy punters.

HotWired FAQ

What Is HotWired?
HotWired is new thinking for a new medium. We call it a cyberstation, a suite of vertical content streams about the Digital Revolution and the Second Renaissance with an integrated community space. While HotWired is currently bound by technological limitations that restrict bandwidth, it represents the genetic blueprint that will evolve into the overarching media environment of the next century.

At the core of HotWired's editorial is point of view. We are not in the content business, we are in the context business. People today don't have the time or inclination to make sense of the data flood. HotWired is Wired's answer to the need for professionalism in a new medium that has been filled until now with something that resembles public access television programming.

HotWired is live, twitching, the real-time nervous system of the planet.

What Does HotWired Look Like?
HotWired is a stunning reinterpretation of the World Wide Web. Developed by Creative Director Barbara Kuhr of the award-winning design firm Plunkett + Kuhr, HotWired's look is clean and bright, filled with playful logos by Dutch designer Max Kisman and bursting with world-beat colors.

HotWired can be accessed on the Internet via the World Wide Web and a client application such as Mosaic or NetScape (though be warned, NCSA Mosaic for Windows has a bug which makes it unusable).

How Is HotWired Different?
HotWired doesn't look like any online service out there - it zigs where all the others zag. (HotWired's unofficial design watchword was "war on bevelled edges.") Its content and perspective are as innovative as those of its mothership, Wired magazine, while at the same time being utterly different. Its community space is technologically unrivalled - the first graphical conferencing system for the World Wide Web.

Isn't Advertising Anathema on the Net? The Net community does indeed react negatively to invasive advertising - the kind of spamming conducted recently by the Arizona lawyers Canter and Siegel, which elicited a massive rejection by the Net's immune system. The advertising on HotWired is the opposite of invasive.

Each advertiser is accessible only through a single discreet banner at the head of a content section. Most advertising is 90 percent persuasion and 10 percent information; advertising on HotWired reverses this ratio. And the privacy of members is guaranteed by HotWired's unqualified commitment to never divulge a member's personal information to advertisers.

Why HotWired, Why Now?
Because while Big Media and the telecom behemoths have been busy forming "strategic alliances" to build the "information superhighway" and sending out press releases about the tests they're launching any day now, thousands of companies and millions of people have quietly built a new interactive medium called the Internet.

This medium is not magazines with buttons, any more than television was radio with pictures. It's a new medium with a new aesthetic, a new commercial dynamic.

Many media companies shovel their leftovers into the online world and call it content. HotWired is not one of them.

Where Wired is a clear signpost to the next level, HotWired is operating from that next level. HotWired is a constantly evolving experiment in virtual community. It's Way New Journalism. It's Rational Geographic.

Today is like 1948; a new medium has reached critical mass. We're trying to help define the future of that medium before it ends up like television.

So if you're looking for the soul of our new medium in wild metamorphosis, our advice is simple. Get HotWired.

What Does HotWired Cost?
HotWired is free to members. HotWired's revenue model is similar to broadcast media - content supported by sponsors. HotWired's sponsors are some of the bluest chip advertisers in America, including IBM, AT&T, Volvo, Sprint, MCI, Zima (Coors), Internet Shopping Network (Home Shopping Network), Club Med, etc.

What Hotwired Is Not HotWired is not Wired magazine with another name (Wired works perfectly well in print, thank you). It's not a so-called online magazine (print content reduced to ASCII and shoveled into another medium, narrowband interactive). It's not video-on-demand (a pie-in-the-sky marketing concept created by out-of-touch old-media executives to justify their headlong rush into a new medium they don't understand, broadband interactive). It's not an online service like Prodigy or AOL (now rendered obsolete by the explosion of interest in the Internet and the development of the Web and graphical browsers).

And like Wired before it, HotWired is not a cold, marketing concept, but the heartfelt expression of the passion of its creators.

• (1-7) Your Avatar: have one. Use high contrast colours. Use a photo designed to be an avatar. Don't offend unnecessarily. Pay a graphic designer.
• (8-14) Stumbleupon allows only 200 friends. Make sure each friends you back. Make sure they are active stumblers. Say get lost to your pal sending you spam. People know what you stumble and you will be judged. Some stumblers are more powerful than others, get them to friend you, submit your stuff.
• (15-21)There is a specific culture on SU. Looking at those who stumble the hot stuff in your sector. Create similar content. People stumble ideas. Attract people into conversation. Stumble other people's stuff at least 5 times more than your own. Popurls.com can do a lot of the work for you. If it's hot on Digg it could be hot on SU.
• (22-28)Be polite. Accept criticism. Do not submit front pages of e-commerce sites. See it as a mini blog.

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1. A pull-down menu replaces the old navigtional bar.
2. There's more space between each submissions
3. Reddit added new momentum arrows to indicate if a story is rising or falling in popularity.
4. Users can now sort by "controversy." "A link can have 0 points but 100 up and 100 down votes," and that, a Reddit engineer told Csutoras, is "something that definitely merits some attention."

A few weeks ago, we wrote a story about humorous headline aggregator Fark.com. That story was then submitted to Digg. Partially as a joke and partially to see what would happen, Fark.com founder Drew Curtis linked to the Digg post, rather than to the original story.

By sending thousands of his readers to the Digg page, Curtis singlehandedly pushed the story to Digg's homepage Success! Instant traffic and a new grill for me. So, is there any way Digg can account for this? Not easily. It's difficult to tell "authentic" Diggs from "gamed" Diggs when you have thousands of readers showing up at a page out of the blue. The site could check referring links and discount the votes if a ton of clicks come from one place — but it's not exactly spam. It's almost the same as using Digg's own "shout" mechanism to ask your friends to Digg your link.

I can't wait to hear from all kinds of so-called "social media" consultants about why this strategy won't work for their clients. Here's a question: If they're so smart, why aren't they tight with Drew?

We suspect what's bumming Fark founder Drew Curtis out isn't that Fark hasn't made the Digg front page, but that Kevin Rose's site is valued at north of $200,000,000, while Curtis's labor of love merely — gasp — turns a profit. Not meta enough for you? Try this: Digg this story about Fark being Dugg.

The answer is telling about Digg's dilemma. Ask's Big News tells readers when they have the chance to be the first to submit a story to Digg. Its algorithm also incorporates Digg-rank data in deciding which stories to display. But beyond that, it looks little like Digg, offering none of the popular voting or discussion features that drove Digg's growth.

That's because, in the end, making a clone of Digg, minus the community, makes little sense. Digg's critical mass creates useful data that allows Digg to refine its algorithm. That data, more than Digg's easily duplicated design, is what makes Digg valuable. A smaller version of Digg, run by Ask, would simply be less vital, less interesting, and less revealing of popular tastes.

Maintaining that community, moreover, is tricky. Digg can only be seen as an impartial arbiter of news if the company which runs it does not play favorites, its users seem to believe. That's why a recent partnership with the Wall Street Journal was done at arm's length, allowing Journal readers to do little more than submit stories, as any other user can.

And there's Digg's dilemma. In the business world, people pick sides all the time. Digg, the website, hopes to stay above the fray. Can Digg the company forever do the same? Unlikely.

Readers would have to be naive to believe that everyone from Gawker Media, (the publisher of Valleywag) and Weblogs Inc. to Wired and BusinessWeek aren't madly submitting every story to the likes of Digg and relying on the entire employee pool to solicit coverage at blogs and other news outlets. There's no shame in relying on the Web's tools to gain a competitive edge. It's just pathetic that the Times isn't confident enough to do its own Digging.

Yesterday, a video of a pug puppy licking a screen got more than 14,000 Diggs. This from a website where a link is considered popular if it gets more than 1,000 Diggs. I'm relieved to have finally found the purpose for "social sites" like Digg or YouTube: the 21st-century version of America's Funniest Home Videos. Nothing meaningful ever happens, but it's a fun diversion.

For what it's worth, America's Funniest Home Videos remains massively popular and profitable. But no one mistakes it for the future of news. And what are the odds someone would pay $300 million for an online version of it?

The point behind social news is, as I said, to empower users. This assumes that users can produce good news. Obviously Digg's user base, which grew from Rose's fanbase from his days as a host on TechTV, hasn't reproduced the New York Times. Instead, they've curated a site focused on servicey news, workday entertainment, and big scoops: lists of funny old cartoons, studies about pot's effect on the body, and updates on new technology. The content reflects the user base. Theoretically, as the site grows more mainstream so will the news, until Digg is as useful as Drudge for a snapshot of what's important today.

But to keep the site interesting to all users, Digg must balance the influence of top users with that of casual or one-time users. Because core Digg users can find each other and often promote each other's stories, they may dominate the site unless Digg actively balances their role. That's what the company did, unannounced, on Tuesday. And the top users were unhappy.

Every major site has a core user base (on Gawker, it's the commenters), which sees the site quite differently than the casual visitors. They feel an ownership, to such a point that they will directly insult those running the site for not catering to their whims. Thing is, those core users are often as important to (and spend as much time on) the site as its official employees, so they can't be ignored.

A typical newspaper or TV station can only do so much to interact with its mass audience. Even then, audience members don't have much influence over each other; the medium is one-to-many. If the New York Times screws up, it only has to face bad press, not a reader revolt. Rose has to put out every fire whenever he decides to change his business. And surprisingly, he's done a great job at it. He's learned from mistakes and changed site policy; the next major algorithm change will surely be better announced.

Digg may not be as big as Facebook or MySpace, but I get the feeling that if it were, users would still feel closer to Kevin Rose than they do to Mark Zuckerberg or Rupert Murdoch. Sorry for having a banal opinion, but I like how Digg works.

[Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid]