Interesting piece from Jack Schofield in The Guardian’s Technology Blog about how Wired magazine in the US was able to buy its way onto the front page of top social bookmarking site Digg.
In an article entitled I bought votes on Digg the journalist explains how she was able to create a blog called My Pictures With Crowds - yes it does exactly what it says on the tin – on the front page of Digg by using a service called User/Submitter where users get paid 50 cents for every three stories they Digg.
Good piece of investigative journalism you might think until you realise that Wired’s publisher, Conde Nast, actually owns Digg competitor Reddit. Ouch! Now Michael Arrington over at Tech Crunch has waded into the controversy saying that Digg should sue Wired.
Personally I think that might be taking things a bit too far. But Wired really should have declared an interest in the article and let the readers make up their own minds. Isn’t the web all about being transparent?
[...] Rig-digg-ulous. A very simple solution! 2 03 2007 Since yesterday or the day before, there has been a lot of fuss about people getting paid to digg stories up and down on Digg.com. Examples: Digg probe hits a nerve, Digg can still be rigged, Wired buys votes on Digg, and of course the article that started it all: I bought votes on Digg. [...]