Chris
Harrison

Digg Rings

Using the Digg API, I grabbed the top 10 most-dugg stories of the day (by midnight) for the past year - May 24, 2007 to May 23, 2008. I then rendered a series of tree-ring-like visualizations (moving outwards in time). Rings are colored according to Digg's eight top-level categorizations (see key at bottom of page). Ring thickness is linearly proportional to the number of diggs the story received. I also made a pair of visualizations using Digg's entire archive, which goes back to December 1, 2004.

Because the rings are cumulative, variations in digg volume (within the top 10 stories) can be seen. For example, when stories are broken down by day, we can see that Sunday has fewer diggs than Monday. Also, if you look closely, you can see that the volume of diggs has increased overtime (i.e., rings become thicker). Additionally, we can see how story categorization has evolved (or perhaps how the Digg community has changed), especially in the visualizations using the full archive. This is partially due to the fact that Digg has added new categories overtime (it started very technology centric).

For unknown reasons, some days have fewer than 10 top stories. This doesn't affect the visualization much aesthetically, but I wouldn't trust it for detailed quantitative analysis!

Stories by days of the week. May 24, 2007 to May 23, 2008. Download PDF.

Stories by day of the week (overlapped). Data from May 24, 2007 to May 23, 2008. Download PDF.

Stories by month. Data from May 24, 2007 to May 23, 2008. Download PDF.

All stories (slice). Data from Dec 1, 2004 to May 23, 2008. Download PDF.

All stories. Data from Dec 1, 2004 to May 23, 2008 Download PDFAll stories. Data from May 24, 2007 to May 23, 2008. Download PDF

All stories (close-up). Data from Dec 1, 2004 to May 23, 2008. Download PDF.

© Chris Harrison