Facebook Now Has A Google Digg, Google Doesn’t

Google has a ton of blog reader data via Google Reader, knowing what stories users click on, which RSS feeds get the most usage, what items users share, and whatnot. In addition, they have access to linking patterns in Google Blog Search, and now, thanks to Feedburner, they have complete RSS clickstream data for many of the most popular blogs in the world. Sadly, they make no public usage of this data, don’t take advantage of it to create a popular blog news site like Digg.
Now, there’s a Facebook application that uses Google Reader and has a list of the most popular shared items on Google Reader. With 4,000 users and little means of gaming the system (you need a Reader account, subscribe to the feed, and share the item, then add a Facebook account, add the application, and subscribe to your own shared items, just to […]

Original post by Nathan Weinberg