The Marketing Technology Blog

For those of you who have been regular readers of my blog, you know that I experiment… a lot! Perhaps too much! Earlier this week I signed up for User Submitter. It’s a service that’s been identified in the recent Wired article where the author of the article paid to get Diggs on Digg.com.

Here’s how it works… someone pays User Submitter and they split the money with Digg users, who, in turn, digg the story. The system is really clunky to tell you the truth. You receive a custom feed URL that tells you what stories to Digg. You then digg the story. You then have to log back into User Submitter to report that you dugg the story. After that, your digg is ‘verified’. I don’t know what that’s composed of, but it’s definitely not automated.

I suppose the operators of User Submitter have to be quite careful about how they go about their business. If they are constantly scraping Digg for content, I’m sure Digg would be on to them quickly. If you’re a User Submitter user, I can attest that they are on to you much quicker!

My career with User Submitter is officially over today. I received the following message when I attempted to log into Digg.com:

And what was my grand income?

I’m embarrassed to admit that I made a grand $0.50 before I was summarily buried by Digg. Actually, I’ve not made anything because I probably have no means of collecting the $0.50 from User Submitter.

So what have I learned? Can Digg be abused? Sure, but they are watching and improving their ability to thwart these issues. Does User Submitter care? I am guessing that they are probably getting Diggers dumped left and right… and walking away with a mint. After having experimented with User Submitter, my advice would be to keep away. It’s a pain in the butt, a waste of time and not worth the pennies that you may or may not earn.

Especially if you like Digg. I’m not a huge fan, but I am sorry that I got the boot.

Sorry Digg! Sorry Kevin, Owen, Nicole, Brian, Steve, Amar, Dan, Daniel, Eli, Jay, John, Mike, Ron, Scott, and Timeless!

Sincerely,
Doug
(digg: coders4hire)