Pingdom has released a new report about traffic trends across a variety of social news sites. The sites included in the report are: Digg, StumbleUpon, Slashdot, Reddit, Mixx, Propeller, Newsvine, Fark, Dzone and Sphinn.

What the report shows is that while so many sites focus only on Digg, there are other players that are still worth working.

Here are the findings:

• Traffic-wise, Digg.com stands heads and shoulders above the other sites in this survey, but they seem to have reached a plateau. They have roughly the same number of visitors now compared to a year ago.
• Mixx.com has the most aggressive growth curve. Propeller.com (previously hosted on the Netscape.com domain) is also growing fast, doubling its traffic in the last year.
• Slashdot.org (the original) is losing visitors. They have roughly 25% less visitors now compared to a year ago.
• The five largest based on website visitors (sorted, largest first): Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, Slashdot.org, Propeller.com and Fark.com. (Reddit.com is in 6th place, and is about to overtake Fark.)

The report uses Google Trends for the raw numbers. It’s clear the Digg traffic needle is stuck in neutral. Also, whatever happened to Newsvine? The service were acquired by MSNBC last October and haven’t been in the news since.

More CN Coverage:
– Docstoc
– Scribd
– Twitter

ZipClip is a service I got to check out during the Web 2.0 Expo earlier this year, but has been under pretty tight wraps until now. Even in its beta phase, ZipClip, which is a product of mobile apps provider Berggi, appears to be a cool service that will further connect Web and mobile applications and media sharing. With two personal demos from the gracious Berggi CEO Babur Ozden, I got a good idea of what this service is all about.

ZipClip operates as a downloadable application with two parts–one for your computer and one for your mobile phone. The two applications can now talk to each other, and you’re able to easily share media between the two devices. The easiest way to think of ZipClip is as a bookmarking tool that also supports mobile access. If you come across a few videos, for example, on YouTube, you can send them to your mobile phone and view them on your morning train ride commute. You can even convert these YouTube clips into ringtones, which are automatically plucked from the first 20 seconds of the YouTube clip, unless you specify otherwise with the ringtone editor that resides in your ZipClip account.

Media can also be sent to friends’ mobile phones, so you’re not alone in the fun. If you’ve sent content to a mobile phone (your own or your friend’s), then the content will be accessible through the mobile Web, so memory isn’t taken up on your mobile device. Any content you’d like to save on your mobile phone, however, can be easily saved as well. Sharing content with friends on their mobile devices is easiest when they also have the ZipClip service–if they don’t have it then they’ll be invited to immediately download the mobile application.

Working almost as a reverse Evernote bookmarking tool, ZipClip has most of its action directed towards the mobile device. There is, however, a heavy duty Web side to ZipClip that lets you access, organize, tailor and further share content that you’ve clipped while browsing the Web. It’s here that you can send content to friends (though you can do this while surfing too), edit ringtones, etc. So far it seems like a handy service for sending content to your phone, and the associated Web service is a good hub for your clipped and shareable content. I’ll be watching to see how ZipClip continues to evolve, as a cross-device media sharing tool and recommendation service.

Source:Mashable!

Propeller, the Digg-like clone which was formerly the front page of Netscape, has undergone a redesign, moving away from Netscape color scheme and into red-lightblue-white territory. It even features a new omnipresent mascot, while traditional up-down voting is gone, replaced by ratings (currently all are 10.0 because the site just went live) which prop your story to the top.

However, I believe that a site like Digg must focus its design and usability around the actual news. And, on Propeller 2.0, there is very little news to be seen: on my 19” screen with a 1280×1024 resolution, I see exactly one and a half news items on the front page. On Digg, I see 6 (plus 10 or so items on the right hand side). On Reddit, I see 13.

It might seem petty, but I think it is essential for a Digg-like site to offer as much actual news items as possible to its users. Propeller seems to have gone the way of Yahoo Buzz, which to me, basically says: we (AOL) are a huge company, and we need a Digg clone. But, we don’t want to confuse the non-nerdy audience, so we’re going to make the site seem as plain and simple as possible.

Wrong. Users who create communities around sites like these love their news organized. They love being able to quickly scan a lot of items. If I’m correct on this one, they will hate what Propeller has done with the design. On the other hand, the possibility for a Propeller item to show up on AOL home page (thus bringing a LOT of traffic) will surely look nice to publishers, which won’t waste any time to seize the opportunity.

As far as other options and features go, there’s nothing revolutionary here. Editors are still here, categories are few: News, Arts & Entertainment, Business & Finance, Humor, Family, Sports, Style and Science and Technology. Socialize is a fun section, bringing statistics about Top Submitters, Top Commenters, Most Active Members, New Members and the like. It’s all fine and dandy, but this site will not draw new users with features and design, but perhaps with the lure of some AOL-flavored traffic. We’ll see if that’s enough to bring its traffic nearer to competitors such as Digg.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Propeller: Netscape Digg Clone is LivePropeller: The New Name for Netscape’s Digg CloneAOL’s Propeller Moving in the Right DirectionVisible Technologies Raises $12 MillionReport: Visible Path to be AcquiredHoovers Buys Visible Path; Launches Hoover’s ConnectAOL Says Goodbye to Netscape Navigator

When Propeller launched, everyone had questions about it’s ability to survive. Propeller launched in mid-September (let’s call it two months ago) and was a shift from the Netscape.com domain. It’s safe to say, most (if not all) of the former Netscape.com social news traffic made the move just fine. Both Alexa and Compete show very nice increases for Propeller since launch. And what’s even more interesting (though not part of this article) is that Netscape.com traffic only halved itself when Propeller split off. I assume this might drop some more as time moves on but it’s still showing stronger than I expected.

And even better for the Propeller crew, it’s getting closer to passing Reddit. Wonder what the team over at Wired is thinking on the acquisition now? Now Propeller has to work on growth - I haven’t seen any stories cross my desk after the launch - they certainly need to work on this.

First let’s take a look at the stats via Compete - unique visitor count for October 2007:

• Digg - 17,417,569
• Reddit - 1,683,673
• Propeller - 1,454,912

And a yearly chart showing growth — the Digg growth is just amazing:

Now the numbers from Alexa - this is their "traffic count" metric with a 3 month average (1 week average):

• Digg - 117 (156)
• Reddit - 912 (1,100)
• Propeller - 2,308 (1,695)

Does this mean that Propeller will grow to the Digg traffic level in a year? Nope, I certainly doubt it. But could Propeller become a strong #2, absolutely. And looks like Duncan Riley might just be eating these words, "It might be too early to Deadpool the Netscape Social news experiment yet, but without the type-in traffic and brand recognition of the Netscape name, the whole idea will struggle to survive. I give it 12 months max."

The real key to longevity for Propeller is whether it’s bringing in revenue for AOL. If it is, then it remains, if it isn’t, then it goes and Duncan is right. This isn’t two developers in a basement creating Propeller.

Check out our previous Propeller coverage including an interview with the Director, Tom Drapeau.

Editor’s note: Compete is a current CN Sponsor. They had no involvement in the creation of this story.

With all of the platforms launching these days (even our own), LinkedIn is taking the smart road and opening up their system to applications that expand their mission. LinkedIn is a business networking tool, period. And it should stay that way. While the Scobles of the world have left LinkedIn for Facebook, when I talk to business execs not in tech, LinkedIn is still their tool of choice.

Saul over at the NYT has an interview with LinkedIn CEO Dan Nye. In it Dan discusses how they will open the system, why they won’t allow "hamburgers to be slung" and thier plans for an IPO.

Some notes:

“We have no interest in doing it like Facebook with an open A.P.I. letting people do whatever they want,” Mr. Nye said. “We’re not going to have people sending electronic hamburgers to each other.”

“On many other Web sites, there is a lot of noise and a lot of interference,” he said. “When you go to LinkedIn, we want you to be confident you can accomplish your goals, be productive and move on with your day. We are not trying to get you to come back multiple times throughout the day.”

I am not sure I agree with Dan’s last comment. LinkedIn should become the business water cooler (not gossip) and to do that, you need return visitors daily. Maybe not 20x a day, but more than once.  Top of mind fellas, top of mind.

LinkedIn has lost some of the popularity they had as many of the bloggers have moved their attention to Facebook and the upcoming platforms from other social networking tools. LinkedIn needs to get that blogger buzz back as it works on opening up. I would like to see a smarter LinkedIn as well.

Source:CenterNetworks -

One of my favorite reads is the good doctor (yes, a real doctor), Tony Hung. His commentary and opinions are almost always on point and accurate. However last night he wrote a piece that had an incorrect diagnosis. He should know that a doctor can’t just look at a chart and know what’s wrong without talking to the patient (or in this case investigating the cause). Unfortunately, Duncan at TechCrunch immediately posted about it as well, thereby furthering the incorrect diagnosis.

Here is Tony’s analysis:

About a month ago, I wrote about how Netscape dumped its social news component into its own site, Propeller.com and wondered rhetorically how it would turn out — with the subtext being, perhaps, how *Netscape* would really fare now that its social news component was on its own. Well, a month has come and gone, and I think that if Alexa is any indication (and yes, it certainly has its problems), the answer might be “substantial”.

He then shows the following chart to backup his "substantial" claim:

So what did Tony miss?

• Naturally when you switch domains traffic to the former will decrease
• If we look back before Netscape became Jason’s social news failure, those people who liked the old Netscape left. They wouldn’t have any reason to return after the site moved to the Propeller domain.
• And lastly, and most importantly, netscape.com does not exist anymore - it redirects to aol.com - hello drop. Rogelio Bernal Andreo, coRank CEO agrees. His comment on TechCrunch, "I just noticed that nestcape.com now redirects to netscape.aol.com. So I guess the whole argument is just flawed then. It doesn’t take into account what I mentioned before, and it doesn’t consider that netscape.com is now a redirect to netscape.aol.com."

Check out our previous Propeller coverage including my open letter to the AOL executive team.