Experimenting with the new Digg API
April 28, 2007 | Comments (5) | Filed under: Programming
When I first started out with Bookmark Bliss, one thing I really looked into was the different options available for embedding a Digg button within your posts. My previous experience showed me that users are much more likely to digg your post after visiting it, rather than at the Digg site itself. This means that not having a digg button could force you to lose out on many potential diggs. Initially, I tried using the Gregarious plugin, but had nothing but problems. Later, I moved on to the Digg It plugin and have continued to use it for the last few months.
Last week, Digg announced the release of the Digg API (Application Programming Interface) for webmasters which allows a little more freedom when dealing with their site. This announcement made me really happy because for a long time, I have really disliked all of the “digg button” plugin’s for WordPress. The main reason for this, is that they are all extremely inflexible. For example, I was unable to find a single one that let me show the digg button if the number of diggs was greater than 0 and hide it otherwise. You could do that manually, but who wants that??
This was not really a fault of any of the plugin authors, but more a limitation on what Digg initially allowed you to do prior to the Digg API. Access was restricted to a very simple JavaScript based remote call that generated a pre-made button that you couldn’t modify at all. This is great in some cases, but I was really itching for some more customization options.
The new Digg API opens all those closed doors and allows you to build much more complex Digg based applications. You can check out the list of options by viewing the Digg API documentation. Already, there are several applications hitting the web that make substantial use of it. For example, there is a Firefox Digg extension and an application that creates a Digg video based television station. As you can probably imagine, Digg themselves are actively encouraging experimentation with their API by sponsoring a contest for the most innovative Digg API based tool.
I had a little free time this weekend, so I started playing around with the Digg API to see if I could come up with a better Digg button plugin. You can see the results of my first pass experiment on any post at Bookmark Bliss that has been digg’d such as 10 Tools to Help you Select a Web 2.0 Color Palette or 10 Lessons Frank Miller’s 300 Can teach you about Online Business.
If you checked either of them out, you might not immediately notice any change. For now, I’ve completely removed the Digg It plugin and replaced it entirely with my own plugin. My first step was to recreate the digg button (I’m close, but my fonts and colors are still a bit off) and my second step was to make it so that the button was not shown on posts with 0 diggs. I think I’ve succeeded with that part so far (as you can see, this post has no digg button). It is still buggy, but I’m going to continue working with it and seeing what I can come up with.
As I have time, I want to really flesh it out and make it a much more customizable button. For instance, I would love to set it up so that posts that have been digg’d, but don’t make the front page in the 24 hour time period, have the button removed. Also, I’d like to add options for sidebar widgets and tools to help you promote to your users that an article is currently in a race for the front page.
As soon as I’ve had a chance to test the plugin on my own site, and also to implement more customization and administration tools, I’ll setup a download here for anyone that wants to give it a shot. So far, I’m really impressed with what Digg has done with this API and I really think the sky’s the limit on new tools you’ll see over the next few months.
Now, if only more sites would do the same *cough*Stumble*cough* then we might be on to something! Let me know what you guys think of the new button and any ideas you might have for features to implement. I’m all for less manual work and more automated work, so a Digg button that is smart enough to know when to show itself would be a great tool in my book. Now whether or not I can get it there, that’s a whole different story 
feel free to leave a comment
Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!
XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
All fields marked with " * " are required.
5 people have left comments
I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with. I’m looking at the available plugins, and none of them seem to do quite what I want them to, either.
The one I use is the Digg Button Plugin by cybertechnews.com. It works really well and doesn’t seem to have any problems. Let us know when you come up with something, I would gladly switch if yours is better!
That sounds like a fairly ambitious project. I’ll be interested to see how it turns out. Anything that is more user friendly is a step in the right direction!