Interview with Brajeshwar, A Digg Top User

Brajeshwar is the first Indian to become an Adobe Community Experts and ranks among some of the well know Digg Top users. I am happy that I was able to interview someone like him.

When did you join Digg and How fast did you climb onto the Top?
Brajeshwar: I signed up for Digg long back but never look seriously at it save for the fact that I subscribed to the Front RSS Feed. One fine day, I decided to study the nature of Digg (Digg was becoming more and more commonplace at that time) and well, I experimented, felt the pulse and went ahead with it. Honestly, I had no intention to make it to any Top Rank or anything like; it just happened.

They say good stories don’t make it to the top without getting proper exposure. How did you initially manage to get your stories onto the frontpage?
Brajeshwar: I think there are no sure shot way that your stories will get dugg to the front page. That would be a different story for Kevin Rose (all his stories are for the front page). It will be a folly to reveal all that I tried but here are some (a) make friends specially hungry diggers (b) reciprocate friendship request from other people (c) subscribe to good RSS Feeds which are industry experts, forerunner bloggers and thus you stay ahead of the news (d) don’t live and die with Digg, have a life (I spend just about 2 hours a day with digg, it started with about 4 when I was studying the intricacies of Digg)

As of today, you rank 116 on the top list and 123 diggers have befriended you. How did you convince them to add you as their friend?
Brajeshwar: Digg don’t really have something called convincing friends or a way to show them that you will be good and thus be your friend. Digg don’t even give a link back to your URL in your profile. However, when I started seriously with Digg, I made friends after carefully looking at profiles of good diggers and befriended them. Many reciprocated. And when my digg rank rose, it became natural for others to befriend me too. Then I think it is a vicious circle. I add friends, they add me, I reciprocate to them. So, friend circle grew and is still growing.

Do you digg stories submitted by your friends randomly or digg only stories which are worth hitting the frontpage?
Brajeshwar: Well, you may feel weird at my behavior (as I am not sure of other diggers) but this is how I do. There are so many upcoming and I cannot look at all those within my stay with Digg everyday (about 2 hours per day). So, I open “Submitted by Friends” and look at the title and description and digg which I feel are good and of course I read the ones which I digg (So, I digg and then read/browse). I know that is funny. And I go from 1 page till 10 from “Friends Submission”. If I have some extra time then I go for the Friends Dugg roughly from Page 1 till 5.

These days, Digg Gaming Communities like User Submitter or Spike The Vote are popping up like weeds. How long will Digg survive?
Brajeshwar: Hey, I am not that influential enough to give those Kick-Ass Comments, Predictions but Digg will stay for quite sometime. And with the look of Digg’s people, they are smart enough to change their tune to cater to the rising need of the people. It will be like “People won’t stop using mails due to Spam”.

Imagine you lost your Digg account and you’ll have to start it all over again. What would you do to get onto the top again?
Brajeshwar: I still don’t digg for the rank, I just like this new wave. So, if I lost my account, I will ask the Digg people to get me back. If they don’t then I will blog and request them to give it back to me. I mean I will do some way to get it back. Even if my rank is reset, I don’t I would mind much now but I don’t like my datas lost (that’s a paradox, right. ;-))

So you Digg for fun and not for the sake of traffic or popularity right?
Brajeshwar: Traffic is good, I mean I got lots of good traffic from Digg but Digg is still at the low rank (it is about 15+ down in my referral log) when talked about Referral links from outside to my blog/profile. It does sends spikes at times whenever my story goes to the front page. Popularity — I am not sure how to respond to that but Digg is not really the reason for me being known in the blogosphere. I might even totally stop Digg some day down the line and that might happen soon.

Thanks for the Sweet Interview Brajesh, We surely learnt a lot from you. Have a great day!

Stop by Brajeshwar’s Blog to say ‘Hi’