Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Slashdot, and so on. They are all great social news and media websites, but how do they rank in terms of how easy they are on the eyes? Here I will rank all the top social news and media websites based solely on their layout. I’d like to rank all of these sites on overall usability as well, but I’m not a dedicated member on all of them and feel it wouldn’t be fair for sites I’m less acquainted with. Well lets get this started, the sites are ranked from ugliest to sexiest.

Fark

Fark.com, created by Drew Curtis in 1999, is a popular social news website receiving over 2,500 submissions a day and over 5 million unique visitors per month. It is also really, really ugly.

It’s almost difficult to find many redeeming qualities about Fark. The logo itself isn’t too bad, it could use an upgrade, though. The website itself has a nice layout, it’s easy and simple to sort through all the different categories and pages.

From the colors to the way the news items are listed, the site was poorly designed. It’s a nice site, but not in terms of looks. The cheap gradient under the tabs feels wrong. I don’t like the lack of icons and graphics. A lot is done using ‘/’s and ‘( )’s in place of icons, graphics, and other means.

Reddit

Reddit, was started by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. It has an extremely loyal userbase, very well-known for their witty comments and posts.  The website itself became an open source project earlier this year, and all of the code and libraries are freely available. It’s also a little ugly.

Reddit has a great logo, and the Reddit Alien is a very recognizable symbol around the internet. However, despite all of this Reddit, in terms of aesthetics, is poorly designed. One thing that really jumps out is the lack of color, the site feels boring.

This lack of color, make the comment page especially, a bit difficult to navigate. It becomes a bit harder to at a glance see how many points a comment has, and viewing comment threads can get a little bit confusing.

Slashdot

Slashdot was started in 1997 by Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda, and is owned by SourceForge, Inc. While all the content on the site is user-submitted, editors choose which appears on the site. There is also a Slashdot Japan, which is localized for Japan.

The site is well laid out, and simple to navigate. It’s easy to read, and the site overall looks decent.

However, the site’s banner, especially the font used in the main logo, isn’t all that great. And the entire site has a bulky, feel to it. Some elements of the design just feel weird, like for instance the odd looking red edges on news story title boxes.

Propeller

Propeller (formerly Netscape.com) is operated by AOL-Netscape, and was started in 2006. All content is user-submitted, and stories receive ratings on a scale of 1-10, rather than individual votes.

The site is simple, clear and has a well-made, and recognizable logo. The rest of the site’s colors and theme is very well established.

But, I feel everything is too boxy, and doesn’t flow. The logo is made up of circles and curves, which would make you think that the rest of the site should follow that theme, except that just doesn’t happen. There are no curves to be found.

Tip’d

Tip’d was started in 2008 by some guy named Andy. The Community Director is Muhammad Saleem, who is a well-known for his status on Digg.com, as the #2 digg user of all time with nearly 2000 Front page submissions.

Tip’d is a social news website specifically targeting financial and business news and media. And the entire site feels this way. It feels like finance and business, it feels formal.

However, just because it’s a business and finance site, doesn’t mean it needs to be boring. In the banner especially, i feel like they could have done a better job.

Yahoo! Buzz

Yahoo! Buzz was started in February 2008, believe it or not, by Yahoo. All content is user submitted, however the front page is under editorial control. Meaning that editors at yahoo.com can choose what gets to the front page of buzz.

The website itself looks good, and most of the site feels great, well laid out, and easy to use and navigate.

However, it feels inconsistent. Certain bits of the site don’t look good, some smaller images are pixelly. And some things have borders, some of the borders are different sizes than eachother, and the site feels all around inconsistent.

Design Float

Design Float was started by Andrew Egenes, as a solution to the problems with digg’s design category. Since design is such a broad category, why does Digg only have one category for design?

Design float is very well designed, which one would expect from a website made specifically for designers. The site keeps it consistent, and has an all around theme surrounding water, which goes along with the name.

I wouldn’t go as far to say the site is absolutely beautiful. It is stylish and easy to navigate, but it is actually quite simple, and doesn’t demonstrate a ton of skill. It feels very “safe”.

Digg

Digg, started by Kevin Rose in December 2004, is one of the most prominent social news websites out there. All content is user submitted, and all the content that appears on the front page is chosen by users.

The site is laid out extremely well, and you can tell that lots of work has been put into it over the course of it’s lifetime.

There are, however a few things I don’t like about Digg’s design. The header colors seem a bit dark compared to the rest of the site, and at times it feels too simple. It could use a gradient or two.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon was founded by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance, and Eric Boyd, and was bought by eBay in 2007. It has a toolbar which allows you to like things, and not like things from the actual page. It is also recommendation engine, based off of what you like and do not like.

StumbleUpon’s layout is absolutely fantastic. Everything from the tabs to the listed items looks great. The few annoyances on the site are few and far between.

Mixx

Mixx was created in 2007 by Recommended Reading, Inc. It’s a social news site similar to Digg. It has been claimed as a sort of refuge for the diggers that were banned in the recent mass bannings over at Digg.com.

Mixx looks great, it was designed extremely well. Everything is where everything should be. The categories at the top are easy to find and use. The content on the front page is sorted and easily distinguished.

The overall design looks good, from the icons to the tabs. The use of gradients is just enough, they don’t overuse them. And the comment pages look just as sexy. The sites logo is great and makes sense to the name.

Mixx is a model website in terms of design.

There were two recent posts that offered ideas on how social media can help the world and do more than promote lolcats, Apple, and anti-Palin stories.

• A Plan for Social Media Sites (and Users) to Give Back
• With Great Social Media Power Comes Great Responsibility

The idea is simple. Social media sites send a lot of traffic to web pages across the Internet. There should be a way that these sites can send more traffic to pages that are trying to do right in the world. Causes, charities, and information about the two can find their way onto these social media sites and do more than promote the latest post on Huffington Post or Torrent Freak.

It just makes sense.

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Read more about social media on this blog.

There’s been quite a lot of hubbub over at Digg.com over the past few weeks. Hundreds of Digg users and powerusers were banned for using Greasemonkey Scripts.

So, what are these script-thingies? Greasemonkey scripts, or just ’scripts’ as they say on the str33t, are small bits of JavaScript that let you customize the way websites are displayed. Scripts such as “Digg Friends Easier” are against Digg’s terms of service, and users suspected of using them may be banned.

Where is the problem in this? Digg was banning users suspected of using scripts, i.e. people who’s digging habits resemble script use. Many banned Digg users are crying foul over this, saying they were not using scripts, and others saying they were banned without warning, and had no idea such scripts weren’t allowed.

What is Digg Friends Easier/Easy?

Digg Friends Easier and Digg Friends Easy are Greasemonkey scripts that added ‘digg buttons’ to the friends submissions, and shoutsin pages on Digg. They did not automatically digg stories. They turned a two step process into a 1 step process. Instead of having to click the link, and then digg the story, you could just digg it from the list of submissions or shouts.

Diggboss and CheckFriends

Digg user DiggBoss was banned after he created the Greasemonkey Script and later Firefox Extension, CheckFriends. CheckFriends added several new features, such as only shouting stories to users who have not already dugg the story, adding a customizable greeting and signature to shouts, and telling you how many of your last 15 submissions your friends have dugg. It did not automatically digg anything either, and even used Digg’s own API.

Zaibatsu’s Banning

Zaibatsu, who is the #3 top Digger of all time with 1566 front page submissions, was banned after making two submissions that linked to Jackie’s Jungle. This site was having a panty sale at the time, which digg considered to be against the TOS.

Zaibatsu was not even aware I had a panty sale. Like most Digg users he diggs things without even reading them. Regardless if I am selling panties on my site or not, neither of his links lead to the actual post about the sale. They went strictly to my gallery which has absolutely nothing for sale. Therefore he is completely innocent of these alleged crimes and should not be banned from Digg.

-from here

I have also been banned for this (I submitted a site that was selling dog shampoo, ha) Digg later unbanned me since I had no priors. I find it ridiculous that this is even a TOS violation, or that it is even enforced, considering the countless times a list of the “Top 10 funniest Commercials/Ad Campaigns/etc.” has made the front page without being removed and the submitter banned. Or the fact that Digg itself is sporting banner ads.

The Recommendation Engine

Well, well, well. The Recommendation Engine. Digg’s little feature that they seem to be so darned proud of. The problem with the Rec’ Engine is that it doesn’t help out new users. In fact, it gives users with large networks of friends even more power. The more people that digg your story, the more it will show up in the recommendation engine, which leads to more ‘natural diggs’ (diggs that aren’t from your friends), and the higher the likelihood your story will hit the front page.

The recommendation engine completely skips over newer diggers submissions which are lucky to get 2 diggs on a good day.

What does this all boil down to?

Digg should allow script use. How many other sites can you think of that ban users because of script usage? I can’t think of any. Digg should be open, let people use their service as they want. Insta-banning users who’ve been submitting quality content for years over little things like scripts and sites that have ads on them, is just lame.

Digg.com’s top users are not ‘gaming the system’. If Digg has made anything clear, it’s that this is how the system works, and will continue to work unless something major happens.