Over the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed fewer and fewer Ron Paul-related stories on the front page of Digg. Maybe Kevin Rose had the monkeys tweak the algorithm a little more? Nah, more likely they were out drinking beers.
To test my anecdotal observation that the Paulite obsession with Digg had subsided, I searched the site for “Paul” — “Ron Paul” is barely possible; Digg’s search function has never recovered from an “upgrade” from earlier this year — going back one week’s time.
Sure enough, just two stories involving Ron Paul had been made “popular” — with enough Diggs and comments to warrant front-paging — in the past week. As of 11:00 p.m. EDT, at 12 stories per page, by my count that’s 204 stories mentioning “Paul” (though some, admittedly, were about Paul Reubens’ latest comeback) that went absolutely nowhere.
And that was last Thursday. Compared to the cornucopia of Ron Paul stories following his breakout second debate, this is nothing. Where has the movement gone?
Fear not: the Paulites haven’t gone away, they’ve only shifted their focus. But the Paul Machine never really loved Digg. You could say they never really dugg it. Their participation was always contingent on making a point, and whether it’s done Paul any good or not, trust me, it has been duly noted.
Meantime, I’ll be digging yet another story about the iPhone.
Note: Standard FDT disclosure; as usual, all observations are my own.
