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Digg Recommendation Engine Rolling Out This Week (VIDEO!)
blog.digg.com — "We ’re launching the Digg Recommendation Engine beginning this week. The feature will be in beta and presented to registered Digg users first, based on a random sampling of logged-in users."
kevinrose- 3619 diggs
- digg it
- ReNdo, on 06/30/2008, -57/+12nice
- AngryAngryBrian, on 06/30/2008, -10/+19I have a theory on people who always try to get "First". What it really comes back to is kindergarten. A persons worth was based on their position in line. The first person in line got to pick the cool table at lunch and was the first to the slide. No one wanted to be at the end of the line, and those with friends could move to the center of the line by cutting, but the weak, slow, or unpopular had to get in the back and hope that another student where just as slow and as unpopular as them. Those who where forced to follow became jealous of the front of the line, but they were second class citizens, the weakest of the herd. They ate last, they played last, and they even went to the bathroom last. The internet puts everyone on the same level and where the slow and the unpopular once had no grounds to move to the front, they take it. This brings some minor satisfaction for all the times they where picked last, and for getting the greasy scrapped remains of the hotdog surprise at lunch. Users who try their hardest to get the first post are just striving for attention, trying to make up their lack of humor, whit, and knowledge with a careless, but quick submit button.
Nah, just kidding, its space radiation.- eltrev, on 06/30/2008, -12/+4stfu, windbag
- moomza, on 07/01/2008, -8/+3Yes. angryangrybrian is a bit of a 'tard.
- thaistick, on 07/01/2008, -0/+11i have a theory on people that type a long theory on people that claim to be first.
- tracer9, on 07/01/2008, -0/+4i bet angrybrian would be the loud talker if I was just trying to drink at a bar.
- Kaz3noRei, on 07/01/2008, -0/+3nice
- tracer9, on 07/01/2008, -1/+4nice ... what?
- mikesbaker, on 07/01/2008, -2/+2comment hijack
what is Anton's deal with viagra?
- AngryAngryBrian, on 06/30/2008, -10/+19I have a theory on people who always try to get "First". What it really comes back to is kindergarten. A persons worth was based on their position in line. The first person in line got to pick the cool table at lunch and was the first to the slide. No one wanted to be at the end of the line, and those with friends could move to the center of the line by cutting, but the weak, slow, or unpopular had to get in the back and hope that another student where just as slow and as unpopular as them. Those who where forced to follow became jealous of the front of the line, but they were second class citizens, the weakest of the herd. They ate last, they played last, and they even went to the bathroom last. The internet puts everyone on the same level and where the slow and the unpopular once had no grounds to move to the front, they take it. This brings some minor satisfaction for all the times they where picked last, and for getting the greasy scrapped remains of the hotdog surprise at lunch. Users who try their hardest to get the first post are just striving for attention, trying to make up their lack of humor, whit, and knowledge with a careless, but quick submit button.
- lukemh, on 06/30/2008, -45/+6wow really looking forward to this! aren't you?
- fas2, on 06/30/2008, -5/+2I WANT IT NOW!
- QuadZeroRoute, on 06/30/2008, -1/+2We should be able to block the resources that are in Upcoming by URL and username so that we do not have to go through all of the stories. Each username and URL that we block might knock off five to ten stories each in Upcoming. Block twenty users and ten websites and you could knock off several hundred "bad leads."
- richardhenry, on 06/30/2008, -2/+2I would immediately block "cracked.com". Oh man, and then if I could apply that to the home page? I would love Digg so much more.
- Kev585, on 06/30/2008, -12/+32Was never excited for this, but having seen what it might be, I can't wait
- iSamurai, on 06/30/2008, -3/+3I've been waiting for this feature since I first started digging! I've pretty much given up on upcoming, and have been waiting for this :) SO EXCITED!
- tbeseda, on 06/30/2008, -10/+101Stay out of my head Charles!
- kris33, on 06/30/2008, -4/+1Yeah, I would be really pissed if I didn't get selected to the first beta test.
- dn11, on 06/30/2008, -0/+9But Charles is in charge of your wrongs and your rights.... I want Charles in charge of me.
- wsuBobby, on 06/30/2008, -4/+1Charles is not in charge - Chaz is.
- Simon83, on 06/30/2008, -11/+32Very curious to see how good this works
- lindsay4767, on 06/30/2008, -3/+41*how well
- DearSergio, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2What does "eligible for the homepage" mean? What constitutes a submission as eligible?
- kpmoore, on 07/01/2008, -0/+3I see two potential problems here:
1. When a story is first submitted, and only has one digg, how will it get recommended to anyone? Solely based on the digg activity of the submitter? How can stories get recommended before anyone diggs them? Are we just hoping that a bunch of people will use the old fashioned upcoming tab in order to get the ball rolling on recommendations?
2. IF the story is recommended based on the digg activity of the submitter, this will cause submitters to consistently digg every front page story in order to build recommendation relationships with a large portion of digg users. This would essentially ruin Digg as we know it.- keeganspeck, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1And then you remove the recommendations of people who do that and then don't match your interests. Problem solved.
- Sacrifice, on 07/01/2008, -0/+21. I think new stories are initially dugg by the friends of a submitter, less so using the upcoming tab.
2. I am not too sure why people would want to digg everything on the front page? If they do they will get recommendations about stories they care less about. - Kyan, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1I dunno how it works, but it's great! I've only been using it one day now, but have already found many, many more items I'm interested in. Good idea and it looks likes it's being carried out well.
- dbldn, on 06/30/2008, -26/+8Wow, a front page link not submitted by one of 17 super users...
- techblogLAT, on 06/30/2008, -3/+44The founder of Digg isn't a super user?
- dbldn, on 06/30/2008, -3/+13Sadly no. Kevin is an amazingly smart guy with the vision to see and do what most others can't. But his vision is being tarnished by a bunch of web-celebrity seekers that step on others and their hard work for the front page of digg. So instead of having thousands of users picking the best stories we have 17 people telling people what they should voting for.
- y2kery, on 06/30/2008, -0/+5Well said. +1 on both of your comments.
- LeonidasStokely, on 06/30/2008, -4/+4"Kevin is an amazingly smart guy with the vision to see and do what most others can't."
Most of us keep these kinds of thoughts to ourselves... - mikesbaker, on 07/01/2008, -3/+1@dbldn maybe you should use your bury button more in the upcoming section
- universeman, on 06/30/2008, -11/+8bring it on.
- ilikediggalots, on 06/30/2008, -11/+182Hmmm, very social, very intresting, very well done video, very promising, and very DUGG! Keep it up digg team.
- clinko, on 06/30/2008, -21/+5Awesome. I just finished my recommendation engine for digg/reddit/etc. too. Another project down the crapper. It's here if you're interested: http://egusta.com
- rrbest, on 07/01/2008, -1/+1it's also here for those interested: http://digg.com/tech_news/Digg_Recommendation_Engi ...
- EmitStop, on 06/30/2008, -16/+3This looks like it's going to be pretty awesome. How would i go about signing up for the beta?
- yayintertubes, on 06/30/2008, -0/+17Your bloodline has to go all the way back to mrbabyman. Once you're in the beta, you can never leave.
- Uncle_Joe, on 06/30/2008, -19/+113That's some epic ***** right there.
- misterpony, on 06/30/2008, -2/+25This should be the biggest thing to happen with Digg since the switch from v2 to v3. This could really change the entire way people use the site. Bringing Digg back to web 2.0 hip.
- Lockhart, on 07/01/2008, -4/+2Perhaps I'm not "fanboy" enough, but why does everyone seem so psyched by this feature? If I'm not mistaken, this "Digg Recommendation Engine" just remembers what type of articles you like and presents them to you, nothing unheard of.
If there's more to this, then please do enlighten me.- Kyan, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1There is more to it. For the sake of an example, say 20 people use Digg. Have of them are RP fans, and you really don't care what they submit. but four of the people are digging stories you like. Now in stead of wading through all the submissions and diggs of 20 people, you can essentially go striaght to the ones being posted and dugg by the four people who digg believes are posting things you will like.
It seems to take a bit to fine tune itself. The first day my recommended section was 100% iPhone related. And I've really only dugg one or two iPhone stories. They must have been recent though, and I guess that's why recommended was feeding them to me. But now it is giving me a decent selection of stories I like which tend to be science and world news, less so gadgets. And a bit of travel.
- Kyan, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1There is more to it. For the sake of an example, say 20 people use Digg. Have of them are RP fans, and you really don't care what they submit. but four of the people are digging stories you like. Now in stead of wading through all the submissions and diggs of 20 people, you can essentially go striaght to the ones being posted and dugg by the four people who digg believes are posting things you will like.
- Raykis, on 06/30/2008, -9/+3I believe in a better day where digg users can unite and shape tomorrows future today..... or it will all stay the same.
- YesImAChick, on 06/30/2008, -10/+117Great job Anton!
- joestump, on 06/30/2008, -5/+47I can't stress how absolutely awesome Anton Kast is. He's brilliant, hilarious, curious and unique. It's truly a pleasure working alongside him. If you get a chance to say hello to Anton at a Digg Meetup take it and be prepared to laugh and learn.
Great job Anton!- FTWmovin2canada, on 07/01/2008, -2/+1I would have loved to have been on the team developing that database, looks fun.
- DearSergio, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1He must have Antons Key.
Ay-oh!
- mark076h, on 06/30/2008, -27/+2Is Anton your BF?
- rivalius13, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6No, but we are BFFs!
- laserob, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4Give poor Anton a mic!
- ligyron, on 06/30/2008, -1/+4Linux users don't have interest in celebrity gossip, sports, or politics. Anton said it.
- Lockhart, on 07/01/2008, -1/+3Why does Digg have a "lead scientist"?
- pob000, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1Anton is one cool dude. Reminds me of Billy Bob Thornton's character in the movie Pushing Tin.
http://www.moviedownfree.com/picz/mov_pushing_tin_ ...
- joestump, on 06/30/2008, -5/+47I can't stress how absolutely awesome Anton Kast is. He's brilliant, hilarious, curious and unique. It's truly a pleasure working alongside him. If you get a chance to say hello to Anton at a Digg Meetup take it and be prepared to laugh and learn.
- techblogLAT, on 06/30/2008, -13/+8I was expecting the engine to recommend stories, not users. I guess this is a cool way to find people you're compatible with, which will in turn find stories you're interested in... But it's kind of a roundabout way of doing so.
- Gesiwuj, on 06/30/2008, -1/+11I think it recommends stories based on what similar users (who dugg similar things to you) are digging.
- techblogLAT, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3Ah, you're right. There seemed to be more of a focus on recommended users than stories. But yeah, you can get to "Most Matches," which should be very helpful for finding upcoming stories!
- joestump, on 06/30/2008, -0/+19It doesn't recommend users. It shows you the users who are recommending the stories. It shows an entire list of stories and says "Users X, Y and Z recommended these stories". You can then block people from the Recommendation Engine if the stories popping up don't suit your tastes.
Also, it only recommends stories in topics you've recently Dugg stories in. In other words, if you haven't Dugg a story in Golf in the last 30 days it won't recommend stories from Golf.
- flessa, on 06/30/2008, -6/+191that lead scientist really knows his *****, sold me on the recommendation engine. cant wait!
..good to see that digg's motives are still genuine. they simply want to make the user experience better.- Simonft, on 06/30/2008, -16/+2Why does digg have a scientist is what i don't get. Programmer, market researcher, sure, but scientist?
- seanieb, on 06/30/2008, -1/+5I'd say it has to do with the real time calculations of coefficients, he mentioned graph databases, so i guess they had to develop their own in-house one. Which would require LOTS of maths,
- richbradshaw, on 06/30/2008, -0/+11I'd guess he designs recommendation engines, or something.
- seanieb, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4...or that.
- TSSaloic, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3Computer Scientist.
- Matt2k, on 06/30/2008, -1/+40He's more like a "fungineer" than a scientist
- richardhenry, on 06/30/2008, -0/+5I didn't quite understand that for a second, but solely because I actually thought about fungus before I realised you meant "fun".
- dn11, on 06/30/2008, -3/+11"lead scientist" is an odd job title to me. He apparently has a Ph.D in physics, but I'm trying to figure out how that qualifies him to design social networks. Regardless, I'm sure he's probably the smartest person at digg. I'm just surprised they didn't put a lab coat on him with a microscope and test tubes in this video.
- estvir, on 07/01/2008, -4/+1Still genuine? Haha..
Why did they first break cloud view and than remove it? Why are they alienating the few who actively sift through the insane pile of rubbish submitted? Why are they adding flashy features like this that ultimately mean nothing? Why are they bogging down Digg with these features slowing down the 'quickness' of stories?
And so on.. - hiPpymIck, on 07/01/2008, -3/+1does any scientist/geek know why Vimeo is so choppy for me..?
- Simonft, on 06/30/2008, -16/+2Why does digg have a scientist is what i don't get. Programmer, market researcher, sure, but scientist?
- xeslana, on 06/30/2008, -17/+7How I would love to get my hands on the code for the custom built graph database. Calculating the coefficient's between you and every users on digg every time you digg a story is an amazing engineering problem.
- xeslana, on 06/30/2008, -22/+2I would love to get my hands on the code for the custom built graph database. Calculating the coefficient's between you and every user on digg every time you digg a story is an amazing engineering problem.
- yz4now, on 06/30/2008, -13/+2Really Cool :]
- da5idblacksun, on 06/30/2008, -5/+19Killer feature - much needed.
- optimusprime01, on 06/30/2008, -10/+85Anton you are the man, thanks for developing the maths and algo for this recommendation engine. Thanks to all the digg developers and rest of the crew for working hard. Great job guys, keep up the great work.
- sprash, on 06/30/2008, -1/+6Well the math is pretty basic stuff (correlation coefficients woohoo...) and not really advanced. The greater challenge might have been server performance and scalability. I guess you will have some kind of super matrix with (Number of Digg users)^2 entries with all the coefficients in it. That means for every new Digg user you have to create a new row with (Number of Digg users) + 1 entries.
So lets say you have about 3000000 Digg users and one matrix for each subtopic which are about 50 and you store all entries in 32-bit float numbers you get 1.44 * 10 ^16 Bits to store. That are about 1800 Terabytes where you have recalculate 3000000 32-bit floats = 96 MB every time somebody makes a digg... not bad!
well.. this cant be true... - MelvinSchlubman, on 07/01/2008, -0/+1These affinity algorithms are all over now (eg, amazon). I'd expect that by now it'd be purchased and customized, rather than rolled from scratch anew from first principles. No?
- sprash, on 06/30/2008, -1/+6Well the math is pretty basic stuff (correlation coefficients woohoo...) and not really advanced. The greater challenge might have been server performance and scalability. I guess you will have some kind of super matrix with (Number of Digg users)^2 entries with all the coefficients in it. That means for every new Digg user you have to create a new row with (Number of Digg users) + 1 entries.
- lordtyros, on 06/30/2008, -6/+20Good job. Hopefully it doesn't turn into an underused piece of crap like Digg Labs.
- oldcrows40, on 06/30/2008, -9/+8dugg for being lazy and having all the articles i want handed to me.
- bryanwebster, on 06/30/2008, -9/+2Cool I have it already!
- bryanwebster, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2You digg me down because you are jealous
- twistedlogic149, on 06/30/2008, -8/+7This is going to be awesome. Digg is now going to be the laziest site around - we don't even have to look for stories anymore, they come to us! Ah, modern technology.
- Thezeppelin62, on 06/30/2008, -6/+4Just what I wanted.
- webresources, on 06/30/2008, -3/+15digg is getting better. Great.
And it would be perfect if users would be able to play with it. Like find users with interest to Ajax & jQuery. - kidtone, on 06/30/2008, -8/+2Why did you guys use Vimeo and not Revision3 to host the video?
- ChrisWalkr, on 06/30/2008, -0/+7Revision3 don't host their own videos, a company called BitGravity does.
- WallnutBoy, on 06/30/2008, -1/+2At least they didn't use *****.
- Conwaysb0718, on 06/30/2008, -4/+40Ha, i wonder how many users are going to be recommended only babyman and saleem submissions.
- bryanwebster, on 06/30/2008, -0/+28True but at least you can block them if you do.
- dbldn, on 06/30/2008, -2/+15Wait... are there other users than saleem & babyman?!
- Angostura, on 06/30/2008, -0/+11I'm actually looking forward to this as a way to block their trash.
- yayintertubes, on 06/30/2008, -3/+5Sounds like a great idea. Now lemme play with it.
- jkr801, on 06/30/2008, -8/+1yahoo for school
- jkr801, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1go to hell you billy madison haters
- or3n, on 06/30/2008, -7/+4Innovation FTW. Thanks Digg team
- bluegene, on 06/30/2008, -3/+43Wow...Digg is becoming a Google of Social News
- geneticlone, on 06/30/2008, -2/+51I can finally meet my soul mate, yay.
- sockpuppets, on 06/30/2008, -2/+3A/S/L?
- geneticlone, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6789/Hylia/Hyrule
- Ocelot13, on 06/30/2008, -1/+2only if MrBabyMan submits it
- sockpuppets, on 06/30/2008, -2/+3A/S/L?
- kassem23, on 06/30/2008, -5/+3Awesome digg.com! Keep the good ideas coming :)
- Quenlin, on 06/30/2008, -5/+5Bout time.
- seanieb, on 06/30/2008, -2/+8Graph database...do tell us more. Sounds cool.
Oh and I love that ye gave us the logic and thinking behind the entire thing, not only does it keep things open and transparent, It keeps us tuned in. Thanks. - sockpuppets, on 06/30/2008, -5/+20The new 4chan accelerator rolling out this week!
- johoshua, on 06/30/2008, -8/+3Kevin said we can "explore other users" . . . hmmmm
- iHack3r, on 06/30/2008, -5/+3finally!
- sockpuppets, on 06/30/2008, -4/+68I've suddenly started receiving a lot of stories about donkeys in miniskirts. Should I be concerned?
- NJank, on 06/30/2008, -0/+23that depends. there are some donkeys that really shouldn't wear miniskirts.
- sfrench, on 06/30/2008, -0/+7Donkeys.... Depends.... there is definitely a joke here I should stay away from.
- NJank, on 06/30/2008, -0/+23that depends. there are some donkeys that really shouldn't wear miniskirts.
- mikeabundo, on 06/30/2008, -4/+1This could set a new standard for customizability in recommendation engines. :)
- hitdrumhard, on 06/30/2008, -3/+2with so many upcoming... I usually end up reading and diggin a few of the top stories... I am just not sure how it will gather useful data from a guy like me...
- DiggzDE, on 06/30/2008, -7/+2Digg is watching everything I click on!!
oh wait. Of course it is, that is why I have this damn account. :( - OWNAGETIME, on 06/30/2008, -1/+3As others have said Anton is great! I'd love to find him on twitter... I can only imagine the hilarious yet informative tweets he'd send out.
Anyone happen to know if he has a twitter and if not someone set him up with one!
Great work everyone can't wait for this to be released!- NJank, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4"hilarious yet informative tweets"
such a thing does not exist.- OWNAGETIME, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1you can have a funny overtone in a tweet yet it can give you various interesting information that you didn't know. Its presentation of the information that can change it from bland and informative to funny and informative.
- NJank, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4"hilarious yet informative tweets"
- baramunchies, on 06/30/2008, -8/+20who is this kevin rose?
- BetterOffEd, on 06/30/2008, -0/+6I like it, but oh-so-strategically placed quotation marks would've helped your joke a little bit here.
- digjam, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3Kevin Rose? from dead?
- Amiga501, on 06/30/2008, -10/+1The biggest queer on the Interwebz.
- digsuxx, on 06/30/2008, -7/+1i would bet krose hasn't written a single god damn line of code for digg. ***** poser.
- Diggnabbit, on 06/30/2008, -1/+7Hmm... so, this could be sort of a double-edged sword, couldn't it? If it does a good job of getting stories/users to you that are similar to what you've dug already, that seems like a good thing.
But, will it make it less likely that you'll see new things or stuff that you would not have otherwise found? That's why I come to Digg: to be exposed to new stuff, not just to be confirmed in what I already like.- seanieb, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Well I think that other people wont share your exact tastes,even if the system is close to perfect, there will be a few outriders, so it holds the possiblity of introducing you to new stuff people with similar interests like.
- fas2, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2They say it like three times in the videos: You can still access the unfiltered upcoming section. It's just that looking through over 10k submissions each day is too much to handle :)
- crowbar77, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1The front page stuff will still be the same.
- Awspire, on 06/30/2008, -9/+128Digg Recommendation Engine...
http://i31.tinypic.com/vpudt1.jpg- enterneo, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2so true!
- brucebeh, on 06/30/2008, -1/+4this sounds like a GREAT idea, but my concern is it sounds like a lot of things are being done behind the scenes each time a user diggs a story, how and will this impact the speed of digg.com? Just recently its starting to get better, I don't want it to take 5 or 10 seconds to load digg.com again.
- Dunnix, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Most likely the behind the scenes processing load will not be done on the web servers... I'd imagine they have a server dedication to recommending stories to us.
So as far as loading digg.com, you shouldn't see any slowness... Unless this feature makes digg even more popular and the web servers get swamped. =)
Cheers
- Dunnix, on 06/30/2008, -0/+1Most likely the behind the scenes processing load will not be done on the web servers... I'd imagine they have a server dedication to recommending stories to us.
- mozaic2001, on 06/30/2008, -3/+2sound great
- Thomaschaaf, on 06/30/2008, -3/+23I bet MrBabyMan will get this feature before I do :/
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