Twitterer Veronica Belmont had discovered a Flickr page with an alleged upcoming toolbar from Digg that would potentially rival StumbleUpon.
TechCrunch claims to have tracked down a beta tester and talks about some features. According to that article, the toolbar will include abilities for the user to:
– Digg the page you’re on
– Bury the page you’re on
– See how many diggs a page has received
– See links for related pages
– See more pages from the source that have been dugg a lot or marked as “up and coming”
– Go to random pages that have been dugg, much like StumbleUpon’s key feature
This could spell bad news for StumbleUpon. Here’s what the unique visitors look like for Digg and StumbleUpon according to Compete:
Of course the majority of StumbleUpon’s use surely comes from its toolbar. If Digg invades this territory, StumbleUpon may need to counter with something new of its own.
Sidenote: Digg and StumbleUpon are both starting to crack down on their communities, which could also have an impact on the usage of each one for better or worse. Brent Csutoras and Chris Bennett discuss this and other happenings in social media in this interview with Abby Johnson from the recent SMX West show:
But that’s not all for the Digg toolbar. Apparently it comes equipped with TinyURL-like functionality too. Eric Schonfeld writes:
Now, here where it gets interesting. For each page, the toolbar creates a shortened URL similar to TinyURL or bit.ly that starts instead with http://digg.com/. . . followed by a six-character code such as “http://digg.com/d1gVha.” When you share a page via Twitter or Facebook, it is that shortened URL which is used. And in fact, for the beta testers, the toolbar can be wrapped around any page simply by sticking “http://digg.com/” in front of any URL, which then gets converted into a shortened version. This technique works for pages that have never been Dugg as well. I could see this feature eventually showing up as part of a browser add-on so that Digg URL’s could be created with one click.
If Digg releases this toolbar, it could inflict some major damage to other sites. Just think of all the shortened URL Tweeting. I guess it’s all part of Kevin Rose’s resolution to build a better Digg.
Update: A spokesperson for Digg tells me that the toolbar is on the way, but they cannot give further details at this point.
