Top Users of Social Networking Sites

The Wizards of Buzz in today’s Wall Street Journal features twenty of the top contributors to social media sites such as Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, Newsvine, StumbleUpon, and Netscape. Although all of these sites have hundreds of thousands of members and allow anyone to submit content, the reality is a very small handful of users are responsible for almost all front page content. These top users have the power to drive hundreds of thousands of visitors to featured sites which can have significant social, economic, and political implications. These few include a 12-year-old hockey fan in Toronto, a nutritionist in California, programmers, computer science students, a high school varsity tennis player, and an antique rug store manager in Italy.

While these few top contributors have been hailed as the New Rupert Murdoch, their position is not without controversy. About five months ago Digg had public spat with top users. Earlier this month Digg removed their top user list in an effort to reduce site manipulation and prevent top users from “being blamed by some outlets as leading efforts to manipulate Digg.” Not all agree with the move. CLIFFosakaJAPAN, a 45-year-old English teacher in Japan and one of Digg’s top users, has called the removal of the leader board "a slap in the face." One Digg fan, who did not want to see the list disappear, has republished the top 100 on efinke.com. These controversies are likely to continue as the social media leaders grow in power and influence. There will be advertisers and web owners who will continue to seek promotion through payments to top social media site users. Social media sites, on the other hand, will have to stay one step ahead of this corruption to continue their growth and remain relevant.

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