Yahoo Buzz Is Here, But Digg Ain’t Scared

So, what is the latest Digg-like site getting everyone’s attention? Last summer it was Sphinn, more recently it was Mixx, while this week it is Yahoo Buzz, the newly released “Diggable” site to hit the internet.

Should Digg fear Yahoo’s foray into their territory? Right now, the answer is clearly no, but that may soon change, especially when the tool exits beta. Please read on for a first look at Yahoo Buzz to learn what you can expect to see right now as well as down the road.

Yes, Yahoo Buzz is in beta which means that it barely registers in the world of diggable sites. But, with the power of Yahoo! behind it, it won’t take long before everyone hears about Buzz, signs up, and waits for the opportunity to submit their pages.

Initially, just 100 publishers are being allowed to Buzz, therefore if you haven’t received an invitation from Yahoo! yet, don’t hold your breath. Eventually, the Big Y! plans on opening up the site to all interested publishers, but we don’t know when that will happen.

Those publishers who are currently participating are given an online badge which allows readers to vote/submit sites to Buzz. Blogs, photos, stories and the like can be submitted and buzz is generated as votes are cast. A Buzz Score is assigned to every submission, a score determined by search term popularity, the number of times a story is emailed from Buzz, and the number of votes a story receives.

One of the biggest benefits however, is that Yahoo! promises to feature some of the top buzzed material on the home page of their site — clearly, if you write great material, are planning to submit to Buzz, and you have shared hosting, you may want to upgrade your plan before you participate!

Critics of Buzz say it doesn’t incorporate all of the features of Digg including third-party applications or tools to help determine how a story became popular. Still, with Yahoo’s backing I don’t think anyone looking for web traffic will be complaining and I know that when the invite is sent out, I’ll be signing up.

Interested in signing up with Yahoo Buzz? Visit this link to get included. 

Fiddling Around & Polling

Yesterday I had the bright idea about adding a poll to this site, figuring it could be a good way for me to gauge what people are thinking about when they read this site.

I have a wide variety of readers on The Article Writer from freelance writers, to SEO experts, friends & family members, college students, you name it. I enjoy the medley, but I want to make sure that the information I provide is interesting, if not relevant, to as many people as possible.

Working the poll into a widget (which I placed on the sidebar) took some time, but the biggest issue was the theme, as it would not make the poll work without some effort. Deciding that the old theme just wasn’t going to cut it, I went back to one of my oldest themes and promptly made things worse.

Finally, after going through six or seven new themes I settled on the one you are seeing today, but only after I reworked the font colors to make them a bit blacker and a bit bolder. Sometimes theme developers forget that people have vision problems (I don’t) and they make colors too soft or too light.

There are a few other kinks for me to work out including the look of the poll, but it’ll have to do for now because I have a boatload of projects to work on and complete before our extended month of February comes to an end.

Oh, by the way, the first poll is on the sidebar and it is for freelancers. If you work for yourself, won’t you take a moment and respond to the poll? I’ll be polling from time to time in the months ahead. After all, here in the US it is a major election year.