Pligg. A Warning To The Prospectors
By Gerard McGarry on 28th June 2007, filed in Social Networking. You can leave a response below. Tags: Digg, Pligg, Social Bookmarking, Web 2.0
The rise of social media has hit the mainstream. Unfortunately, the press have tunnel vision when it comes to the Internet and every story that is written focusses on the massive profit potential of a great social networking site.
Digg, as you know is one of the leading social media sites. It attracts reams of visitors each day and a popular story can cause a surge of visitors to a website that can sometimes crash the web server. This is known as the ‘Digg Effect’.
Somewhere along the line, an open source clone of Digg appeared called Pligg. Pligg allows you to set up your own Digg-like website. Ohhh, instant riches! Fame and glory in your little web community. Not to mention the babes you’ll attract…
Community Building Takes Work. Hard Work.
Building an online community is not an easy task. If you’ve got the dollar signs in your eyes and you want to make fast money, a Digg clone is not for you. You’ve got to:
- Choose a niche. There are already a ton of dominant social media sites. You’ll never overtake Digg using clone software. Logic dictates that you’re better off choosing a niche and focussing on that. Add value to your site by linking to valuable resources.
- Design and brand the site - look too much like Digg, and you’ll look like a cheap imitation. If they wanted Digg, they’ve gone there.
- You’ll need to promote the site. That means advertising dollars and other types of promotion around the niche you’ve chosen.
- You need to build a user base. Or were you planning to be the sole contributor to the site? You can only find and link to so much content on your own. It’s the community element that makes these sites work.
All this is leading to an excellent post over on Upstart Blogger about the myths surrounding setting up and running a Pligg site. If your thirst to be the next Kevin Rose is close to insatiable, you might want to read this first. It won’t happen overnight.
