The Digg Effect: I've Run Out of Adjectives

I've been on Digg for a couple months now, and I've always heard of the Digg effect. I've seen charts and blogs about how it works, graphs and such, etc. By now this type of entry is beyond cliche, so I want to tackle things from the other side.

The pure excitement.
I must first warn you: if you sense a giddy tone, you're not mistaken.
(Also, this is written as half-blog/half-live diary. Please, bear with me.)

Here's the whole story. Craig created a somewhat step-by-step tutorial on how to make me into a zombie. While we were getting coffee around 3:00pm (like always) and someone mentioned that if he added 'in x steps' to how his zombie tutorial, sites like Digg will pick up on it. So, we thought: let's try it.

Back at the office, Craig alerts me that things are good to go: the blog post was now called "Freakish Zombie in 11 Steps!" and thus I set out for digg.com to submit our story. I fill out the forms, double check the spelling and away we go.

Right away we get a Digg, then another, then another. I send a message to everyone at iMarc to go and Digg our article. I got in way too early so I leave a bit early and go home to be a 'zombie' in front of my computer (pun intended, remember, I'm giddy here).

We thought about the 'what-if's like we were waiting for our lottery numbers to come up. It was impossible to even consider the numbers at the time. We joked with Will about him possibly being dethroned as 'King of the Mountain' of our blog.

No way, he thought. Craig would need like a thousand reads.
Another Digg.
Another Digg.
And another.

Mid-Blog Interjection
As I write this, right now (exactly one hour after hitting the front page), the blog we posted has been read over 3,730 times.

Back to the Story
No way, we thought, would it be possible. I've seen people talk about hitting the front page of Digg, but I've never really attempted anything like this and 'made it,' so the fact that people were actually taking to our post was interesting.

I left work to talk of more 'what if's.

When I got home I was glued to my computer. Another Digg, and another. We were nearing the top of the 'Digg for Stories' list (which is the list of stories not on the front page with the most Diggs). We were at about 20 Diggs and then things stalled.

I went to make dinner and kept checking back in every couple of minutes. Still 20. Hmm...

I decided to ignore things for a bit and just relax, but it sat in the front of my mind. My eyes were tuned to Seinfeld but my brain was reaching for Diggs. I came back after eating and we were around 26.

Next, I did my 'last ditch efforts' of finding everyone I could to sign up for Digg that be interested in what Digg offers. I thought, "If we can get into the 30's, we might have a chance."

An hour later we hit 30. I was thrilled, and thought, "This could be it." So I sat and waited. I refreshed every 2 minutes to see if there were any updates. It was about 9:45pm. Maybe at 10:00pm updates are made.

Checking back in at 10, still no dice. I refreshed and refreshed; waiting, hoping. We were third on the list of 'potentials.' Then suddenly we were bumped to second. The story ahead of us got promoted.

"Crap," I thought. How long until they promoted again? Not being very confident, I gave F5 another push and our story disappeared from the list.

Was this it? Did we do it?
Yeah we did.

I was ecstatic. My heart was racing, it was like winning a race. I sent out emails to everyone at work. I found Craig online and told him we made it. This was amazing. Let the stat watching begin.

The numbers just climbed and climbed, and they're still climbing. I need to go to bed but I can't sleep. My heart is pounding. There are thousands of people watching me degrade into Zombie form over a series of eleven frames. The comments are fun, the numbers are fun. This is way more exciting that it should be.

I'll probably get a bit of crap for my over-obsession with this tomorrow at work, but you know what? I don't care. This is exhilarating. This is amazing.

I apologize.
I've run out of adjectives.

Craig and I discussed what we should do next. Now that the world has a taste for what we can do, maybe they'll stick around and come back more often. Maybe they'll at least subscribe to our RSS feed for a bit. Who knows.

I need sleep. I can't sleep.
The numbers keep climbing; I've become addicted.
And I absolutely love it.

Some milestones as recorded throughout the night:
5,000 reads at 11:34pm
5,500 reads at 11:46pm
300 Diggs at 11:46pm
6,000 reads at 11:56pm
6,500 reads at 12:08am
7,000 reads at 12:22am
400 Diggs at 12:28am
7,500 reads at 12:35am
8,000 reads at 12:53am

An Additional Note
On top of the main zombie tutorial, I also mentioned looking for a similar tsunami tutorial in the description on Digg. That post, although not directly linked is quicked climbing the 'most read blogs' list too. Mint shows people actively searching our site for it. This is still awesome.

Another Update
It's nearing 1:00am on the east coast, and my body demands sleep. We've just crossed over 8,000 reads for the post, and we're at 437 Diggs. Not a bad debut at all. I'm predicting a second surge tomorrow morning when people stumble into work and read what they've missed from this evening. More coming soon...

The Following Morning
We're up to 15,200 page reads, and the tsunami example is now officially the second most read blog. I notice that people write angrier comments in the morning. No one seems to appreciate subtlety anymore, as the comments that were saying 'nice work' are now replaced with messages of 'lame' and 'not enough.' At least most people are kind enough to do it politely.

We're still on the Digg front page, now with 718 Diggs.

And Now Back at Work
We just eclipsed 800 diggs, and I'm still excited. It seems to be the talk around the office right now. The excitement has subsided a bit, but I'm still pretty tingly in the fingers about things. I'll continue to monitor the situation and post any more major milestones.

This Space Reserved For More Milestone
18,000 reads at 10:04am
19,000 reads at 10:31am
900 Diggs at 11:07am
1,000 Diggs at 2:17pm
25,000 reads at 2:18pm
1,100 read on the Tsunami blog at 2:18pm

And ha:
The Last Update
Count as of 9:31am on 11/26: 36,436.