There are two big news about Google available on the web:

Google Knol - Wikipedia’s rival

Google launched today the publishing platform named Knol, a platform that is very similar to Wikipedia. Its name comes from “knowledge”.

Knol uses the same publishing instruments like a blog page and the authors can create topics. People will be able to add comments, questions, and even edit content. The article may include an advertisement too if the author wants to. Beside Wikipedia where are only anonymous authors, Knol will present the signature of the them too.

All in all, why not? I am completely sure that this might become a success as other Google projects but I am not that sure it will take Wikipedia’s place.

Google to buy Digg for $200m?

As I came across on TechCrunch, I saw that there are some negotiations between Google and Digg. We are talking about $200m. Kevin Rose, what’s your opinion?

Yeah, Microsoft would like to buy Digg too but they have a smaller bid. Personally, I think that it’s ok Google to buy Digg. I don’t know what different company would be better to do this.

A few days ago, a story from cracked.com hit digg’s front page. That article was about some cheats that will help you gather more votes for your submissions.

They were saying that if you put “Digg this:” in front of the article’s title when submitting it, you might get a few more votes. Oh please, I always bury stories like that. Yes, it’s true, the title of the story from cracked.com that hit the front page was “Digg this!: 7 cheats for hitting the front page of Digg” and it got about 4000+ diggs.

I don’t say that this technique doesn’t work! Not at all, but don’t abuse! After reading that “cheats”, many and many new digg users tried them, especially this technique. They put in front of their submissions the “Digg this:” structure, although they were submitting crappy stories. I asked another active digger what he thinks about this, his nickname being: diggboss. This is what he said: “Never put digg this in front of the title, looks spammy. You never do that“.

I also asked world reknown copywriter, Trevor ‘ToeCracker’ Crook who is also a high profile digger his opinion and he said while he agrees with the cracked story and where using Digg in the title is relevant, the main problem is, people will abuse putting digg in nearly every title and is will lose impact.

It’s the same as when everyone puts ‘Breaking’ or Breaking News in the title. When you do this too often, nobody will take any notice.

When it comes title’s - ToeCracker says he changes the original title in approx. 95% of the time when submitting as each word is critical to getting your story voted.

Getting your title correct can be the difference between you getting a front page story.

So, folks, stop doing that! There are different ways to attract more attention with your submissions. Title and description help a lot, but don’t do it the bad way. Here’s a great article I found that gives good advice regarding this: “How a good title and description can make or break your social media submission“.

Everyone wants to have great big profiles on social media with many fans and friends. This is not hard. Here are some tips that I learned in time.

- Don’t be a hater

This may be the most important aspect. Being a hater isn’t good at all. It’s true, you can’t just like everything you see on digg, sphinn,stumbleupon,reddit and so on, but not liking everything … this is a big problem! You are definitely frustrated. So cut off this attitude, be nice. I am talking about social media, the keyword is social so you must get in touch with others, be nice and make friends!

- Don’t be desperate

Let’s say that you like someone’s activity there on a social media, you add him as a friend and then you beg him to add you as a friend too. No, this is not the way to do it! First, just introduce yourself, something like “Hey, I liked your profile so I added your as a friend. I had a good laugh reading …” talk more with him or her and the chances are big to become mutual friends.

- Get involved in discussions

Getting involved in discussions is very important. On stumbleupon you can find some nice targeted groups and discuss with people that have same preferences as you, this way you could gather some more friends and fans. Digg, sphinn, don’t have groups like that but there is no problem! Comment on the articles you liked, many times there will be “hot” discussions on some. Get involved in them! Let your voice be heard because your opinion does matter!

Just follow these steps and you’ll see the good results coming, hit me with a comment or e-mail if you have any more tips regarding this.

Here’s a good tip regarding how to add the latest digg updates on your iGoogle page. There’s an widget for that. I am a huge digg fan, and this way it’s very easy to see what’s new there. If you didn’t know, on iGoogle you can add different widgets, from feeds to weather widgets.

I don’t know if you noticed this little thing in digg’s footer (click on the pic for full size):

There is written “Add Digg to Google“. To do that you simply have to click the link and this is the digg widget that will appear on your iGoogle page:

It’s a very effective widget, you don’t have to lose any more time to enter digg.com and see what’s there.

It’s great to be popular on different social medias, you can get huge traffic from them. I was writing here how important is building your profile and how to build it, today I would like to tell you another great tip that will help you improve your strength on social medias.

Let’s say that you are an old member on digg and have a very powerful profile with many fans and a lot of activity. You have started a new profile on stumbleupon, and you would like to grow it in a fast manner. To do that you should put a link there on your digg account, a link to your stumbleupon page. If your fans are in love with your activity on digg, they will like what you will do on stumbleupon too, so if they have profiles there you’ll get some fans from the beginning.

And don’t stop here, make more profiles to other social medias, like mixx, propeller, reddit and do the same thing! After that submit daily some great news and you’ll see the traffic coming.