USocial CEO: 'We're gaming Digg' [Updated]

USocial is gaming popular social bookmarking sites, including Digg. Credit: uSocial

Among Digg's and StumbleUpon's tens of millions of users, the social bookmarking sites have successfully dealt with numerous troublemakers who try to "game" the voting systems. But one company may be putting the entire organic voting approach in jeopardy.

USocial lets advertisers buy votes on popular social bookmarking sites to catapult their links to sections of Digg, StumbleUpon or AOL's Propeller services that get the most visibility.

In Digg's case, a submission that receives enough votes from its users (or with a little help from uSocial's dozen employees) will reach the coveted front page, which can drive tens of thousands of visitors in a matter of hours.

It's no wonder that a handful of organizations -- including a Darfur foundation, the U.S. Marines, the Mormon Church and ...

... the Korean Department of Tourism (the latter of which has spent more than $5,000) -- are on board, claims uSocial founder Leon Hill.

Clients pay $105 to $200 to kick-start a Digg submission, ensuring 100 to 250 votes. Digg is by far the top target, attracting about 60% of purchases, uSocial says. StumbleUpon gets 35% and Propeller (the least trafficked but cheapest option) gets 5%.

USocial plans to expand to other social news sites in the future, including Reddit and Yahoo Buzz.

"We just finished testing with Yahoo Buzz," Hill said. "We've been getting amazing results with that -- better results than what people are getting with Digg."

That's probably because Yahoo sometimes promotes popular links on Buzz to Yahoo.com.

But in the meantime, Digg is still a unique source for a Web traffic jolt. With Digg's prominence comes the desire to keep its operations organic. Which is why the company has gone after uSocial, trying to lock out its accounts.

Digg sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hill in December. The Brisbane, Australia, resident concedes that what his company does is against the site's terms of use, which he agreed to when signing up for his Digg account. But he plans to continue to use Digg to plow in revenue for uSocial.

"I'm not in their [Digg's] country of operation, and the people that I'm employing are scattered across the world," Hill said. For these reasons, he believes Digg won't succeed in bringing a case against him. Hill calls the letter nothing more than a "scare tactic."

Digg is not taking the issue lightly, said Beth Murphy, Digg's head of marketing. In an e-mail, she wrote: "Digg is always evolving our systems and processes to combat gaming and abuse on the site. In addition to these ongoing measures, we may take additional action to ensure Digg remains a level playing field for all members of our 35 million community."

Many of Digg's users are understandably less than enamored of Hill's infiltrating their hangout.

"As you can understand, there are a lot of people out there who aren't happy with what we're doing," Hill said. "We're gaming Digg."

Digg is no stranger to users who try to abuse its service. Digg bans users who show traces of unusual activity, such as employing computer scripts to alter the website. But thanks to the software Hill developed for the company, he says, uSocial accounts are immune. Since perfecting the software three months ago, he says, he hasn't had a single account banned for misuse.

For now, Hill says, uSocial is backed up on orders. But Digg is hoping it can shut down the operation, and put the editing power back in the hands of legitimate users.

Updated, Sept. 8, 10:05 a.m.: The Mormon Church has never done business with uSocial, writes Lyman Kirkland, a representative for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

-- Mark Milian

Screenshots of USocial.net

Comments

[Jason]

Digg can prevent against stuff like this so long as the service is out long enough to figure out how they work. This kind of so-called 'gaming' was first attempted by company Subvert & Profit. It no longer works to get on the homepage, in fact it hurts your chances if you buy Diggs.

Jason
Editor: tinyComb.com

[R]

I hope Digg succeeds in taking this guy out. If he succeeds more and more people will try to emulate it, and anyone visting a social bookmarking site will be essentially just viewing ads from the richest companies instead of finding anything interesting.

I'm sure there are ways to go after people in Australia that are abusing U.S based companies, and I hope Digg can find a proper way to do it. Australia is far from a safe haven for this kind of activity.

Another company hired by Digg (or other bookmarking sites) could sign up for a 100 votes on a brand new url that hasn't submitted. Digg could then ban every account that submits or votes on that site.

I'm sure there are other ways to take this guy out. His greed is disgusting.

[Neolithic revolution]

The JIDL with the Megaphone software package is one of the worst offenders.

[Enzo]

This is why you should use sites like http://www.subbmitt.com instead. The default page is the queue so it cannot be gamed.

Well done Usocial! You are the new asshat corporation of the world! Right up there with the RIAA. I'd kick you in the crotch if I could, Leon.

[J]

Step 1) Digg creates a fake article
Step 2) Digg conceals its identity and hires this guy to promote it
Step 3) Digg logs the ip address and username of this guy's voter army
Step 4) BANNED
Step 5) This guy goes out of business

[Jay Santos]

keep your hands off our reddit!

[MissJulze]

I hope Digg finds a way to ban them soon. This is ridiculous as it completely defeats the purpose of Digg and violates all true Diggers.

But I guess there are always going to be people out there trying to develop shady ways to make a quick buck instead of actually trying to develop a legitimate new business.

[Joe]

Digg really doesn't have a chance of stopping this legally. There is nothing that says that paying people to click a link for you is illegal (I'm sure Australia also wouldn't consider this illegal, as well). The only contract you're breaking is the Digg ToS, which can result solely in a banned account. No lawsuit because nothing is being damaged, and the users clicking the "Digg button" are doing it on their own free will.

Personally, I hope this takes Digg down once and for all. Digg has become a worthless link dump, has been a miserable source of website traffic (if you want visitors, StumbleUpon is the best choice, as they have a MUCH wider attention span of days, rather than hours), and the Digg staff's total lack of regard for transparency makes it impossible to communicate with somebody behind the scenes.

If Digg doesn't change things up soon, then Digg-gaming will be the only activity they get.

[heh]

If you mess with Reddit, 4chan and the army of Anon may come after you.

You do not want that.

[Charles]

I think it's good that this guy is publicly gaming Digg. If he did this without telling anybody, we'd probably never know it was going on. Now, Digg can better pinpoint the weakness and develop algorithms to counter it. The end result is that the social bookmarking websites become BETTER for the rest of us. All hail the idiot for bragging about his success.

[Tom]

User/Submitter (written about in Wired Magazine) was doing this for years, although they were not as transparent as this company.

[Tomboys]

If digg can locate the sites that USocial is hired to promote Digg could ban those sites. This would do damage to the sites as well as the company and it would probably have to fold. I think it could be done rather easily too. But what do I know. I just discovered the internet.

[andian]

not only the korean tourism department! i suspect that dubai is also good client of usocial. i see too many pimpedup dubai articles on digg. this is insane.

[Denver]

Not surprising at all. This kind of stuff goes on all the time, and as long as Digg is a good link source for SEO's, it will continue. I'm confused when Digger's are so upset about this type of thing. If you spend any time there, you see a constant stream of lnk spam being pumped through there, so I never understand the shock and horror when these scams are uncovered.
I think StumbleUpon and Redditt are far better social sites for sustained traffic and community.

[Robert]

In the Digg example what they are in fact doing is stealing money from Digg. The original principle behind Digg was to do exactly what is being done by this company ie. Digg gaming it's users and selling votes to promote sites that pay for that privilege. What they found was that it was basically blowing up in their face. Users were getting very angry about crap sites appearing on the front page and worth while stuff disappearing. What this company is basically doing is poisoning social web sites and destroying the value in those sites and really is fraudulent behaviour and these people really do belong behind bars. On stumbleupon it is often a double backfire, not only do crap sites get thumbed down, but the user who recommended the site will also get the same treatment and often it will be extended to all their 'freinds' as well.

[JP]

While I agree the premise of gaming social sites is shady, greed oriented, and ultimately destructive towards the sole purpose of the site itself -- I can't say that I see any rational legal argument against USocial or the like. As Joe mentioned, it's a TOS violation but c'mon, you guys really think that there are rules or that even if they are, everyone plays by them? Until a legal precedent is set it's no different than the wild west and Leon Hill is right to call out a scare-tactic for what it is.

[Mich D.]

Until sites like a Digg become true open vote sites there will always be fraud. The core business model of Digg is to get maximum page views not provide fair social voting. What is amazing is that people still bother to use such sites & complain. Digg has admitted to stealing user info & content while banning the users. Digg up front tells you they will go in by hand & remove stories 'they' dont like. Not stories the user base does not like mind you, stories the staff personally does not like.

I say bring on the fraud. If your abusing your loyal customers at least they can gain something by it now. The modern business world only works 'social' when its based on open sharing. The major social sites like Digg destroy their own credibility & promote fraud from he outset. At least its fun to read everyone complaining about it. Fair never was a part of the social media marketing scene after all.

Peace
Mich D. aka @MichDdot

[Injury Lawyer Los Angeles]

lol. Just Dugg this and Mixxed it! Great story!

[Jim Gaudet]

For me, just another reason to head over to Mixx. The same stories hit the FP of Digg all the time. Eventually we will all be watching the real time web for news, so we need to look out for the company that will create the voting option for the RTW.

[Two Half Men]

This wouldn't work on Reddit as the users would easily downmod the stories that reach the front page, however on Digg the user base would read and digg anything.

[Larry]

Looks like the statement "money can buy anything" is sometimes true. Great story, ill bookmark it.

[therapist]

This is a great story. People who takes advantage of others weakness are called smart people and these guys are smart than digg. Now its upto digg, if they have any mechanism to catch it or not.

[Wrongful termination lawyer los angeles]

Thanks everyone for sharing your opinions. Will definitely bookmark this for reference.

[Web Counselor]

The web should be a fair place for everyone. I agree that sites need to clamp down on abuse. Its normal for people to use the internet to promote themselves, but it should always be under fair rules.