I can’t believe what I read here last night, where the Digg CEO responds to the so called (/sarcasm) Digg Revolt.

My jaw literally dropped as I read the original post, where Jay-Jay stated, “To me, a revolt is when a statistically significant group of people cause a disruption. These guys are significant to me personally, but this wasn’t a revolt. I hope that the next time a small group of users voice their concerns, it’s not represented as a ‘mass movement’ or a ‘revolt.”

Get this guy 10cc’s of Reality, stat… I’m seriously wondering if Jay or Kevin even have a business degree, and if they do, what their grades were in the classes they took. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m NOT bashing them personally, I’m sure they’re great guys, and they’re certainly brilliant in some aspects…but… we’re not talking about a “small group of ORDINARY USERS” here.

If you ran a Fortune 500 company, and your top high-level execs threatened to quit over a sudden, dramatic change in policy, would you call THAT a revolt? If those executives were the ones that undoubtedly kept the quality of your product to high standards that resulted in rapid growth of your company, would that add any weight to it? How about if those executives worked for FREE? Would you call that a wise business decision?

I think it’s only fair to label the top diggers AS executives. They’re just as much responsible for Digg’s success as anyone that’s actually on the payroll. It doesn’t matter if someone else MIGHT have filled the role if they’d been absent in the first place… that doesn’t change the fact that the top diggers are in the position they’re in, and it’s damned ignorant to basically tell them, “You’re unimportant.”

First of all, the so-called  “Digg revolt” that took place last night? It wasn’t really a revolt, he says.

Excuse me? Then why did you bother to show up at their meeting and talk them down from the boycott? While there’s undoubtedly a vocal crowd who could care less whether the top diggers boycott the site, and some who would be happy to have them leave, you can’t deny the fact that people have a tendancy to root for the underdog, especially when it’s  case of the people versus the corporation. I predict the end effect of such a boycott would result in a mass joining of followers who would be more than happy to “join the cause”. 

I suggest that the Digg brass take a look at the top stories in All every once in a while for a reminder of this. Yesterday, 4 of the top 10 stories (the Top 4 Stories, I should mention) were about the war against Scientology, whose spokes-people are big name stars in Hollywood who are brash enough to think they have all the answers, and everyone else doesn’t. Does anyone see the obvious allegory here?

Do they even realize that people would undoubtedly take it beyond a simple boycott, as Anonymous has done in taking an effort of simply EXPOSING Scientology and turned it into a WAR against Scientology? There’s already a Bury Brigade… we basically know that. What’s to stop 3 or 4 people from burying every new submission as it’s posted, and basically put a bottleneck on ANY new stories, period? If that realistically happened, do you think it would only be 3 or 4 people? The saddest aspect of this is that the very CEO that dismisses or puts a spin on bad publicity by downplaying it is the same guy that set up the possibility of something like this happening by his own algorithm.

The bottom line is this: The number and spacing of stories that go popular has sharply declined, as have the number of shouts, which translates into an overall pervasive gloom among the Digg population. Why? Because unfortunately what affects the top diggers affects us all.

Here’s the thing… I understand that Digg is seeking to broaden it’s base if it wants to have any chance of being acquired. I see that it HAS to do this to get the type of ads, and the type of people that will click on them, that it needs to generate high income. Digg is purposefully trying to “dumb down” its base, because the majority of Digg users are generally smart people who don’t even pay attention to the ads, let alone click on them, and advertisers know this. But then Digg will cease to be what it was and basically become just another link trade site.

Jay, please buy a clue and stop it before it’s too late…