I'm really kind of surprised at some of the negative reactions I'm seeing about this redesign.

Digg lost me as a user about 3 years ago -- the S:N ratio had been getting pretty bad and reddit was still more focused and attractive for me. What I'm seeing of Digg v4 will probably win me back.

I'm finding myself increasingly annoyed at the noise on reddit, to the point that it's becoming almost useless as a general news outlet for me. The thing that is most appealing about the new digg to me is that it effectively allows a user to reduce the size of the community that propagates their feed without totally throwing away the advantages of their huge userbase.

Either way, I'm excited about possibly having a social news site that lets me vet my sources and, as a result, show me things I'm more likely to actually want to read.

Building the Digg bar: $50,000

Removing the Digg bar: $15,000

Website redesign: $82,000

Never having alienated your users in the first place: priceless.

if it's not in my reader or HN, then it's not relevant. HN really has been my replacement to Digg because their community is obsessed with cheap content.

You're actually satisfied with your RSS reader?

One thing we're really wondering is whether the redesign will make the site more democratic and each person's finds more relevant to their friends... and if Digg has managed to do all that in a way that won't piss off/alienate the power users.

Thoughts?

I think Digg is at a stage now where power users are not only non-essential, but detrimental to its progress. If MrBabyMan stopped digging stories, those same stories would still find their way to the site - they often do, BEFORE he submits them.

Digg was at its best, IMO, when it focused only on the tech industry. Now that I can specify whose news I want to follow, I think any Digg user can create a niche Digg experience that harkens bark to that first version.

People are undervaluing what Digg is doing here - it's creating what I think is the best RSS reader available. Rather than subscribing to Mashable's RSS, TechCrunch's RSS and RWW's RSS, I have friends with similar taste adding content to "MY NEWS." Each one of these stories is something interesting enough to merit submission, whereas in a traditional RSS reader 1/10 of the TechCrunch posts would be one of those "Jason Calacanis: the Attention Whore" type of posts that Arrington publishes.

In short, Digg doesn't need power users, and its redesign is going to bring a lot of users back who liked the tech-centric Digg of old.

I don't think there's anything there that will make the site less shallow so the power users should still be quite at home.

Anyone else think of Facebook after seeing those screenshots? I know I did.

I found it similar to Quroa.

How does Digg differentiate itself from Reddit?

I think the real question is how does Reddit differentiate itself from Digg?

Keep in mind which came first.

Do you think most people really care who came first? For me, Digg was first and I found Reddit later.

Secondly, the community is what differentiated Reddit for me -- not the format or layout.