DiggMixer for iPad Review

Digg.com just ain't what it used to be. Once the mecca for the tech-savvy masses, it is now quickly becoming an also-ran in the ever-expanding link economy of the internet. The old dog (or is that Digg?) still has some life in it, however, and it's apps like DiggMixer that may be the key to increasing its influence once again.

DiggMixer is, at heart, a simple concept. Pull in all of Digg's feeds from its front page, what's hot and upcoming sections and present them to users in a style similar to an email client or RSS Reader. Users can log in to their Digg account from within the app, and Digg stories and comments up or down, or "trash" them altogether to keep them off their radar. These small features are useful unto themselves, but it's the little mixer icon at the bottom of the screen that really allows a new level of control. Clicking on the DiggMixer allows users to customize the percentages of stories they want to see from each of Digg's main topic headings: Tech, Sports, Gaming, World, etc. Thus, a user can create a custom Digg stream fairly easily and update it on the fly whenever they are within the app.

Clicking a story while in landscape mode (which is, honestly, becoming the de facto standard for most news-related apps on the iPad) pulls up the relevant page on Digg.com and shows you the Digg entry and related comments. Unfortunately, clicking the story title on the digg page only takes you to the Digg website proper via DiggMixer's inline web browser. I would like to see the story link take me directly to the original source so I could read the entire story. Otherwise, this seems a needlessly redundant step in the process.

Yet, I had fun with DiggMixer, and it actually did make me want to revisit Digg, something I have not done in quite a while. Digg 4.0 is right around the corner, and promises to improve the Digg experience by several fold. DiggMixer developer Michael Harlow intends to improve his app to meet the new Digg 4.0 experience, so I look forward to seeing what this app brings in the future.