Rethinking Digg  

Betaworks and the News.me team are re-thinking, re-designing, re-building and re-launching Digg and they’ve put a call out for feedback. We saw something similar with Flickr this week.

I love this stuff. Put a public stake in the ground. Share your ideas and intentions and ask for feedback and help. Only good came come of this. Bring interested parties (customers, users, etc.) in and give them a feedback mechanism. Open up the process. Of course you don’t have to act on every idea or criticism, but taking the time to listen and think about feedback from outside makes for better products.

I particularly love this part, where the News.me team justifies why they’re right group for the job and shares what they’ve learned in the past:

We’ve spent the last few years building news applications, and diving deep into how and why people find, read, and talk about the news. And we’ve learned a lot.

We’ve learned that we need to approach the problem with fresh eyes. The reason we started with email, iPad, and iPhone applications was precisely because they constrained our design and forced us to challenge old assumptions.

We’ve learned that, at its best, content is a dynamic blend of smart algorithms, smart networks, and smart people.

We’ve learned that reading the news — from the breakfast table and the water cooler to the coffee shop — is nothing if not a social experience. The news influences how we interact with those around us; it shapes how we understand ourselves and our world.

We’ve also learned that we care about the same things that Digg has always cared about — delivering the most interesting and talked about stories on the Internet. We have a lot to learn from Digg and the community behind it, and a lot of experimenting to do, and we’re chomping at the bit to get started.

The focus on learning is awesome and I think makes a damn good case.