The Politics of Digg: Understanding the complex network that drives stories to the front page, Bloggasm.

As the site grew increasingly popular, it became the target of more and more users who wanted to game the system; entire companies sprouted up offering to promote stories for money and homogenized groups worked together to promote their own agendas and content. The site administrators eventually rolled out new algorithms that necessitated a “diversity” of votes to make it harder for a group of 50 or so malicious Diggers to hijack the site for its own purposes.

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As many relayed to me over the past few days, it’s a game that takes a good bit of persistence and an abundance of spare time. And, because of a lack of transparency from Digg employees, there has been a growing tide of conspiracy theories about this group and others, claims of “bury brigades” and secret cabals of editors that comb through upcoming categories, bashing down any links that don’t promote a particular viewpoint or bias.

In the past week I’ve conducted phone and email interviews with over 50 of Digg’s top users in an attempt to piece together the cohesive links and strategies that make them so successful. It was during these discussions that I discovered that these Diggers are much more than a team of link pushers and self-marketers; many of their conversations have later developed into real-world friendships.

Google Plans Big Presence at Summer Political Conventions, Wired.

To that end, Google plans on having a large presence at both the conventions. Delegates, reporters and bloggers will be able to use computers to upload their photos and videos to the web. The company says that it also plans on offering free smoothies and massages.

Google staffers gave presentations on some of the projects that its teams have been working on on Monday. In addition to the Google Power Reader in Politics project, the company also showcased its political video search tool, which it rolled out in July.

Company staffers also provided a preview of a project that will enable people to look up their voting registration status, voting precinct location and ballot information online. During the primaries, one of the most consistently searched-for terms on election days was voter precinct location information. Google is working with the Pew Center's Electionline.org to launch the project this fall. The company plans on demonstrating an example of its collaborative efforts with the Ohio Secretary of State at the convention.