Social news aggregator digg returns as AI and social media news aggregator

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Social news aggregator digg returns as AI and social media news aggregator

15 May 2026

Tangentially related to the previous post… because what we need right now is another news aggregator dedicated to AI.

Otherwise the re-launched social news website (quite unlike Reddit), which went offline some two months after returning earlier this year, is, for better or worse, back.

digg, however, is on the money when it comes to the present state of the web:

There’s a new digg taking shape at di.gg. The bet is simple: the internet has more noise than ever, and the people who can sort signal from it have never been more valuable. Digg’s job is to find that signal and bring it to you. We’re starting with AI. It’s the noisiest, fastest-moving space on the internet right now.

In time though, digg will begin covering other topics. Let’s hope politics is one the first…

How many friends, family, co-workers, know about your blog/website?

2 May 2026

Half the web might know about your blog, but how many of your in-person acquaintances, people in your household, community, or workplace, know you blog?

Do you even tell them? Do you want to?

The question came up at Forking Mad this week, and started me thinking. When I uploaded the first version of disassociated in 1997, I told just about everyone I knew. At that point I aspired to be a web designer, so telling the whole world of my online presence made perfect sense. I ended up working in the industry for a few years, with a role coming about after a design studio in Sydney spotted my website, and contacted me.

Over time though disassociated became more blog than personal website/design portfolio. Having said that, I just about never posted screenshots or links to the work I did commercially, I was happy to let quirky old disassociated do the talking. But after a stint in web design, I decided it wasn’t for me. Somehow, building commercial websites just wasn’t as fun, or satisfying, as the personal work.

That’s when I started doing more writing. In 2007, after years of running this website with static HTML files, I migrated to WordPress (WP) — where, for better or worse — I remain. As a web publishing platform, WP works for me, does what I need, and that’s fine for me for now. I moved to a web publishing platform partly because I wanted to have a go at earning money as a blogger.

And in 2007 I wasn’t alone.

That ambition was achieved, though not quite in the way I envisaged, a story for another time maybe. But somehow moving to a web publishing platform brought disassociated into the limelight, even if I was an actor to the side, the far side, of the stage. Visits skyrocketed, and my in-box was full of messages from people interested to some degree in what I was doing.

At that time also I resided full-time in Sydney, and was often out and about meeting people. I would drag introvert me out to networking events, art show openings, and film screenings.

I had business cards featuring my URL, and handed them out indiscriminately. I most certainly told people about my website then, including family and friends. Once, more as fun, I made up, and printed out, flyers with my URL on tear-tabs, and posted them on noticeboards on the campus of a Sydney university. I wasn’t relying solely on online methods of blog promotion.

But blogging was an all encompassing passion and experience, and, back in those heady days, so much more than merely writing a few blog posts. The picture in 2026, however, couldn’t be any different. Blogs were pushed aside by social media, and the party was over. Actually, strike that. The party isn’t over, it’s just a lot smaller than it was before.

More to the point though, blogs are no longer the talking point they once were. Outside of Indie/SmallWeb circles at least.

When I talk to people I meet in-person and discussion turns to online presences, they expect me to share my social media handles. A blog, or personal website, sounds positively quaint. To the point I sometimes feel awkward even mentioning it. On the few occasions I might say, tell the barista at the cafe that I blog, I end up changing the subject, when I realise their eyes have glazed over.

It’s too bad, because the question has me yearning to supplement my part-time day job by reprising my role as CEO of the disassociated online one-person in-my-dreams publishing behemoth. Even if it is a website/blog, not a social media page. But if you have a website you want the world to know about, spreading the word to more of the people you know in-person is the go I think.

Born again social network Friendster aims to resurrect real-life friends networks

29 April 2026

Even after Friendster stopped being a social network I still checked in on the website from time to time. It’s evidently been a while since I did that though.

Last time I looked, Friendster — having gone through a number of changes in direction — was a gaming platform, but, as I’ve learned, ceased operations in 2015.

After almost a decade in the wilderness, American developer and entrepreneur Mike Carson has revived the old virtual community, but things are little bit different this time around.

When I signed up (again) I needed to install the Friendster app on my phone, even though there is a website. The biggest difference, that I can see so far, is in the way you connect with other people.

Instead of searching for people you might know, friending people on the new Friendster requires doing so in person. In order to connect, you and your prospective friend need to scan codes on each other’s phones. I’m no Snapchat power user, but I think they do, or did, something similar.

Friending acquaintances face-to-face means friends networks may be somewhat smaller than some social network users are accustomed to, but as copy on the website tells us, Friendster is “built for real-life friends”. That’s a feature that will certainly appeal to some people.

Friction-maxxing, a buzzword to restore balance to your life force

24 April 2026

Canadian author and researcher Kathryn Jezer-Morton documented friction-maxxing in an article (paywalled) for The Cut, in January this year. Weeks later, a Wikipedia page was published about the phenomenon. Is that, then, why friction-maxxing is now referred to as a cultural trend?

For the uninitiated, Wikipedia defines friction-maxxing thusly:

Friction-maxxing is the practice of intentionally choosing less convenient options in daily life to build tolerance for discomfort, resist technology-driven ease, and preserve what proponents describe as meaningful human experiences.

I’ve been seeing references to plain old friction, chiefly across the blogosphere, well before January though. Bloggers using the term in their writing were suggesting there ideally/always needed to be a certain difficulty in what we do, whatever that is. This because we’ve somehow come to expect everything we do to be simple and effortless.

I probably live relatively straightforwardly. I work, then I don’t work. I don’t run marathons, climb mountains, or cross oceans in a sail boat. It seems to me if you want more friction in your life, those sorts of activities make a good start. Friction-maxxing, on the other hand, suggests relying less on automated and algorithm-powered goods and services. And AI.

Instead of ordering food delivery, you should prepare the meal yourself. Rather than dictate notes, or type into a notes apps, you should hand write them on paper. Instead of setting up meetings on video calls, you should arrange a face-to-face gathering. Instead of texting or emailing, you should call, and speak to someone, or meet in person. Frightening, no?

For my part, maybe I should, for instance, see movies at the cinema, not stream them in the frictionless comfort of our home. I’ll let you know how that goes.

The big tech companies and social media platforms tell us “boredom, social awkwardness, and effortful thinking”, among other things, are problems to be eliminated. And now that they have been, so we’re told, friction-maxxing is required to make life trickier again. To restore the balance.

Talking of social media though, to instantly increase friction, reduce, or dispense with social media, set up a personal website, and start blogging. That’ll be a source of friction for months.

But in a world where public transport doesn’t run to timetable, traffic gets gridlocked, computers freeze, websites fail to load, phones find themselves in an area with no reception, the coffee grinder at the cafe breaks just as you arrive, you’re caught out by off-app, non-forecast rain in an open, unsheltered space, who needs to be creating friction?

But none of this is really friction, it’s simply life. Annoyances we must deal with. But it keeps us on our toes, and alive. I’m not then convinced by this… cultural trend.

It seems to me embracing friction-maxxing is an attempt to conceal some other, possibly deeper malady. It’s a smoke screen. A marketing term even. Friction-maxxing is akin to putting a band-aid, not on a small cut or scratch, but something far more serious. Something that likely requires proper diagnosis and treatment. If something’s wrong, distractions are not an ideal solution.

Mark Zuckerberg will exist as the forever Meta CEO as an AI clone

15 April 2026

Claudia Efemini writing for The Guardian:

The AI clone of Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and chief executive, is being trained on his mannerisms and tone as well as his public statements and thoughts on company strategy.

Ostensibly Zuckerberg’s AI clone will allow tens-of-thousands of Meta employees “access” to their CEO, someone whom they never see in person, no matter how long their tenure at the company.

Of course employees won’t actually be interacting with Zuckerberg, something anyone “connecting” with the ai-CEO (does that seem like a good title for such an entity?) will be acutely aware of.

I doubt it’s Zuckerberg’s intention to remain CEO of Meta after his death by way of an AI clone — ignoring for a moment the legalities of such a premise — but the technology Meta is developing has the potential to make the scenario a possibility.

Britons social media use declines, but not because they now write blogs

6 April 2026

Data compiled by Ofcom, being the Office of Communications, Britain’s communications regulator, says 49% of adult social media users now post content, compared to 61% in 2024.

The slow down in publishing content cannot, however, be attributed to an IndieWeb/SmallWeb led switch-over to personal websites or blogs. Unfortunately.

Rather, British social media users are concerned old, long forgotten, posts may surface in the future, potentially causing embarrassment, or hamper their employment prospects, should a recruiter view an old post in the wrong context.

US court finds Meta, Google, failed to warn users of the dangers of their platforms

27 March 2026

Jonathan Vanian, writing for CNBC:

Jurors ultimately ruled in favor of the plaintiff, who claimed that Meta and YouTube’s negligence played a “substantial factor” in causing mental health-related harms. Compensatory damages were assessed at $3 million, with Meta on the hook for 70% and YouTube the remaining 30%. Punitive damages amount to an additional $3 million, with $2.1 million to be paid by Meta and $900,000 by YouTube.

Meta — who all up have been fined just over five million dollars (American) — plans to appeal the judgement. Not on account of the speeding ticket size of the fine (for a company with Meta’s capitalisation that is), but because they “respectfully disagree” with the verdict.

A separate Wall Street Journal article (pay wall) suggested the Los Angeles court decision may trigger numerous legal claims against social media companies, potentially presenting them with an existential dilemma.

An existential dilemma? Can anyone else see these organisations going through some of self reckoning, and changing their ways? No, neither can I.

Twitter, the upstart social media platform that stunted the growth, and more, of the web

24 March 2026

Dave Winer:

A bit of history. Read this post from 20 years ago by Phil Jones. That’s what I was trying to do back then, just as Twitter came online. I didn’t know it then but was the moment when the web stopped growing.

I don’t think, in 2006, anyone realised, nor could have realised, the profound impact Twitter, as one of the earliest social media platforms, was going to have, specifically on blogs and websites, and more generally, and later, the web.

Twitter launched smack bang in the middle of a period often referred to as the golden age of blogging, a time when websites and blogs seemed invincible and invulnerable. Believe it or not, they were the only game in town.

If anything was going to change the status quo, it wasn’t going to be some upstart microblogging platform where people said too much about their private lives, and what they had for lunch.

How wrong we were. But who was to know, back then, how influential and powerful the social media platforms would become, and potential threat they posed to the free flow of news and information.

It is possible to escape this quagmire by creating, collaboratively, a social media platform, impervious to the grips of monopoly control, and tech-billionaires? I thought we already had, in the form of Mastodon and Bluesky, but no one can agree which is the right model.

Is there a third way of some sort? And if so, will this option gain sufficient traction, nullify the platforms we want nullified, or remain a niche offering, like the alternatives presently available?

When it comes to social media platforms twenty years after Twitter arrived, it seems like we only go in circles. Ever decreasing circles.

AI spam, the latter day internet, force digg.com offline for now

19 March 2026

digg.com, social news aggregator, and once the front page of the internet, has closed its doors for the duration, and let a number of staff go, just months after officially relaunching.

digg* says an onslaught of AI agents, and automated accounts, are behind the decision, together with an internet, that in 2026, is different. That’s sure something a few of us can attest to.

And after a long time out of circulation, they’ve found making a comeback a little trickier than anticipated, according to a post presently on the site’s frontpage:

We underestimated the gravitational pull of existing platforms. Network effects aren’t just a moat, they’re a wall. The loyalty users have to the communities they’ve already built elsewhere is profound. Getting people to move is a hard enough problem. Getting them to move and bring their people with them is something else entirely.

The good news for those who had looked forward to digg’s return is the shutdown is meant to be short lived. In addition, original co-founder Kevin Rose, who helped revive the site, will shortly commence working at digg in a full time capacity. digg adherents can only hope his presence will help steady the ship in the waters that are today’s internet.

* according to digg’s Wikipedia page, the site’s name is stylised in lowercase. Just about all the references I could see featured an uppercase letter d. I’ve gone lowercase here, in the same way disassociated is stylised with a lower case d.

There is nothing irksome than styling disassociated with an uppercase d, and the same goes for digg.

Problematic Instagram use: redefining the nature of addiction

19 February 2026

Kali Hays, Regan Morris, and Peter Bowes, writing for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC):

The head of Instagram has defended his platform against claims it caused mental health damage to minors, arguing in a California court that even seemingly excessive use of social media does not equal an addiction.

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram (IG), made the remark during a court hearing in Los Angeles, in the United States. Plaintiffs allege IG, along with other social networks, including YouTube, are little more than “addition machines”.

One young woman, who was a minor at the time, claimed she once spent sixteen hours in a day, looking at IG.

I’m not sure how anyone can brush that sort of usage off as “problematic”. Four to five hours maybe, but not sixteen. How can that be anything other than an addiction?

In regards to IG, the problem has become worse in recent years with the proliferation of usually low quality (content wise) video clips, and numerous posts making dubious, though intriguing claims.

It’s easy to get carried sometimes, and waste more time than intended scrolling through some of the stuff (I hesitate to say content) on the explore tab.

Last year I signed up to Foto, a simple photo-sharing app, that IG used to be like, sans the filters, many years ago now. I check in on Foto once a day, and am unlikely to spend no more than a few minutes there. I have a quick look at the latest posts, and that’s it.

There’s no doomscrolling the app for hours on end.

I suspect though that sort of usage is precisely what the large social networks consider to be problematic. Of course then there is no such thing as social media addiction, when visits of several hours, not minutes, are the norm on some platforms.

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