Forgive my deviation from the usual topics but this is a weird one I had to share. As many of you know, I run a couple other websites -- one being TVSeriesFinale.com. It's devoted to the endings of television shows. It's kind of a guilty pleasure and something I really enjoy.

As part of promoting the site, I Digg the articles that I think are worthwhile. Digg.com, in case you didn't know, is a really interesting site that helps you find interesting content on the web. Once an article is submitted, readers can vote on it. The more people that like the article (by "digging" it), the higher it rises on the site's pages, causing even more people to see it. It's like a newspaper whose pages are determined by votes of the masses.

Yesterday, I came across a really cool video of the last episode of Lost. It was made by the official people at Disney & ABC but was actually a very funny short that played at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. No spoilers. I posted a short Lost article on TVSeriesFinale.com and submitted it to Digg.

I checked Digg during the day and was happy to see the article rise in popularity. Around 10pm last night, the article was "Made Popular" and showed up at the top on the front page of Digg. Considering the huge amount of articles submitted to Digg, this is very cool for a web author. It means that a ton of people will see what you've done and will be exposed to other articles on your site. Very gratifying. Then something weird happened.

I checked Digg a few minutes later and the post was gone from the front page. It was gone from the Entertainment section as well. What the…? The posting still exists but it doesn't show up anywhere else on the site. Amazing. I emailed the Digg folks who are usually very responsive but haven't heard anything back.

My conclusion? I don't really have one but it seems like someone at Digg stomped on it. Not sure why. The clip was played in public and is widely available. I've seen many cases of similar material being posted and made popular. Anyone else have any ideas?

In the end, it's very disappointing (aside from the obvious reason). We're led to believe that the visibility of articles is basically controlled by the popular vote, unlike in the mainstream media. Apparently, that isn't the case. I wonder if there are similar services out there… cause, I think Digg might be broke.