Today’s prediggtable stories on digg

Generating and tailoring content specifically for digg is pretty much an industry. Ask Engadget, Gizmodo, Mashable, TechCrunch, Read/Write Web and all the other one-line-wonder blogs.

They know what topics you’re going to digg and they write specifically for you. Feel special or used, it’s up to you.

Here’s my predictions for today’s front page news.

Someone will write something:

1. praising Google
2. purporting to be an atheist, disproving or challenging Christianity
3. installation guide for Ubuntu, or some easily installed software to run on Ubuntu
4. about how great Apple [whatever]’s are / will be / can be with this hack
5. about how great digg and/or digg users are
6. about how evil the RIAA / MPAA / Microsoft
7. about how awesome Firefox can be with some list of extensions you must have
8. some css or javascript, that you must have to complete your gmail or w1eb development experience
9. how or why linux is ready for the desktop, and/or various applications to replace the Windows software you’re already using
10. some crap about how to be better organised with or to get more out of some amalgamation of web 2.0 sites

Then the political kids’ll come along and flood the site with Ron Paul / Barrack Obama / whatever other underdogs are in *next years* election.

Ignoring the political crapolla since it’s guaranteed - how much does it cost to have a bunch of interns flood digg with a steady stream of political garbage Ron? - I bet 60% or more of those predictions happen.

The list was posted on May 14, 2007 at 12:35am, using whatever WordPress’s timezone is.  I’ll update it tonight with the results.

The Results

(3) The Ubuntu installation guide’s frontpaged, as is a RIAA hating article.   20% right already.

(1, 7, 10) Just frontpaged is a story on a website that offers web-based group chat, a feature of any instant messenger program and skype for the last decade or so.  It mashes up the Google Web Toolkit and instant messanger conferencing.  In the upcoming stories, with 58 diggs, is a writeup of how wonderful your life will be if you combine Google Calendar with some Firefox extension.  This has been frontpaged too. This isn’t frontpaged yet, but it’s on the way.

(6) There’s a “The RIAA is worse than pirates” story, telling digg exactly what they want to hear , that is, consequences are the problem, not piracy, along with one about PS3 users pirating games, and the obligatory ”micro$oft is evil” post.

(5) Now we’ve got “news” about digg adding a couple of new gaming topics, continuing the endless circlejerk of digg-related retardedry.

(4) In the Apple corner we’ve got 52 ways to make OS X run faster, which I’m not going to count as a successful prediction.  There is however the upcoming “Solid Gold iPhones for sale?” post which if frontpaged will satisfy my Apple prediction.

If the two upcoming and heavily dugg stories (gcal firefox extension and solid gold iPhones) that will put me at 70% accuracy with a few hours left to go.  At the moment 50% of my predictions have come true.

I’m sitting on 60% of my predictions having come true, with one possible contender that still has time to slip in and make it 70% – the solid gold iPhone crap.

I didn’t get a hit for #2, #8 or #9 which is quite a surprise.

PS.  In an unseen stroke of hilarity, digg users are having a cry about someone selling someone’s else’s photos online - aka copyright infringement.  The irony is so rich you almost need a tetanus shot.