For those that know think Jason Calacanis copied digg when he brought the format to Netscape, allowing “’scapers” (please say I didn’t actually use that term) to participate with the paid Netscape editors in selecting the best stories.

Veteran tech news aggregator Slashdot has been toying around with a similar concept for logged in Slashdotters called Slashdot Firehose, although nobody will be paid for voting + or - on stories in the pipe. Slashdotters will only reap satisfaction from helping to promote the more popular stories on slashdot, not a token increase in their bank accounts.

Pictured above (#1) the sidebars are poorly placed because when you click on a story you can mark it with a definition and end up clicking on some of the links underneath. The colored bars on the edge of stories (#2) indicate how hot a story is according to readers. The color slider allows readers to choose what types of stories they want to see. Ones voted down or newly submitted (violet-black) or ones about to be published (red).

It’s beta, so I’m sure Rob and crew will work out the design quirks, but the bigger question is how many people want to particpate what stories get promoted to the page? I like the idea that readers can be involved and that moderators still get the final say but would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this was the model Calacanis already championed at Netscape. How has it worked for them? I don’t spend much time there, but maybe some readers do and can share how it’s working?

For that matter, I’m not spending much time at digg either. The voting stuff gets a little stale after awhile. Like it or not, it appears to be the “new” thing at Slashdot. Playing catch-up? Innovative take or yet another digg clone?

Did this post make you go hmm?

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