• dw221 Plain and simple….this sucks! Bring back the old Digg.
• nicklo06 FUCK YOU NEW DIGG GIVE ME DIGG CLASSIC!
• tophomeloans What’s the point in digging if you don’t get credit for it. Screw this…..
• originalmadmatt this is crap.. digg has gone to the dogs..
• outlawsundown New Digg is like New Coke horrible and unwanted. Bring back Classic Digg!
• fuzybuny What the fuck is up with the color scheme?
  What the fuck is up with the layout?
  Where the fuck is the upcoming section?
  How the fuck do I see peoples comments?
  Fuck this fucking fuck shit and fuck Diggs shitty ass Web Designer they should have hired a fucking Usability specialist now this website is pure fuckery.

Almost by default, users don’t like redesigns – and the more invested users are in a site, the less they like change. It’ll be interesting to see what the effect of this redesign will have over the next week or so. Early reactions are almost unanimously negative (and Diggers tend to be quite vocal in their disapproval)

Works just as advertised, but here are a few observations:

• the new phone icon is inconspicuously placed in the “Chat” box – if Google didn’t point it out so clearly when the feature is activated, you could almost miss it
• Gmail doesn’t auto-recognize phone-numbers and so you can’t just click on a number in an email and initiate a call
• if your account doesn’t have a Google Voice account associated with it, everything will work, but people obviously can’t call you back on this number (instead they will hear a message that says: “Hi, the person you are trying to call used Gmail from his or her computer.”)

Until now, these features were only available to Windows and Mac users. For these platforms, Google introduced voice and video chat in November 2008.

To get started, Ubuntu users can download the required plugin here.

Nothing too exciting here, but good to see that Google continues to improve the extensions library.

Developers Now Pay $5 to be Included in the Gallery

Earlier today, Google also announced a change to its developer program for Chrome extensions, themes and the company’s upcoming web apps store. Developers will now have to pay a one-time fee of $5 if they want to see their apps in Google’s official store. According to Google, this new fee is part of the company’s plan “to create better safeguards against fraudulent extensions in the gallery and limit the activity of malicious developer accounts.”

Thanks to its enormous number of users, Facebook is able to bring location-sharing back to its basics, while others have to use gimmicks to acquire new users. There are no badges, coupons, mayor, passports, pub crawls or any of those other features that Foursquare, Gowalla and other location-sharing services offer.

In a way, this almost makes Facebook Places refreshingly different from its competitors. After all, shouldn’t location-sharing services be about sharing your location with your friends and not about coupons and other gimmicks? If people want to share their location – and on Facebook, location-sharing is really just another type of status update for the time being – they want to do so with their “real” friends. That’s exactly what Facebook offers them, without the fuss of having to sign up for another service, import a list of friends just to find out that only 2 of their Facebook friends are actually on Foursquare, and then use yet another app to check in. Given that barely any Foursquare locations actually offer coupons, Facebook Places users really don’t miss out on anything by abandoning these other services.

Without doubt, it will take Facebook Places about two days before it has more users than Gowalla and Foursquare combined. In the long run, Facebook’s competitors will be best off to just use Places as the platform for their own services. Foursquare doesn’t seem to be too enamored with this idea. Gowalla, however, looks to be more than happy to to embrace its Facebook overlords. After all, Gowalla was already getting left behind in its competition with Foursquare, so the company really doesn’t have much to lose by betting on this new platform.

Looks like Twitter is launching its own Tweet buttons later this week. While you can already embed the code (see below), not everybody can actually use the button to retweet the post yet.

Just for the sake if it, I have embedded the code (courtesy of Mashable) here.

I’m guessing we will see a new wave of discussions about Twitter’s relationship with third-party developers over the next week, as this move will likely put Tweetmeme (which is more well-known for its retweet buttons than for its core product) out of business in the long run. I know I wouldn’t invest in a Twitter-releated company at this point…

It’s worth noting that this channel will run separately from your regular Chrome install (and you can install and use both in parallel). As Google notes, these new builds are “highly unstable browser that will often break entirely.” ¹

A few more interesting things to note:

• for the time being, the Canary Build is available for Windows only
• the Canary Build can’t be set as the default browser
• upon installing, the installer will ask you if you want to set Google, Bing or Yahoo as your default search engine

Overall, this looks like a smart extension of Google’s “launch early and often” strategy. It gives those who want to live on the cutting edge a chance to try out features before they become available to other users and gives Google’s engineers a way to gather even more feedback.

Google Earth now features local news-style weather animations for snow and rain drops.

To see this, open up the latest version of Google Earth, enable the weather layer and head for a place where it is currently raining or snowing. Google Earth will adjust the animations depending on how heave the rain or snow fall is.

Obviously, this is not a major new feature (Google Earth had weather overlays for years now – just the animations are new), but maybe this hints are more animations and interactive features in Google Earth for the near future. Maybe we will soon see this feature in the mobile versions of Google Earth, too.

We can only assume that Apple plans to specify the company’s reaction to the current groundswell of criticism Apple has faced over the issues with the iPhone 4′s antenna placement.

What Will Apple Announce?

Apple could announce anything from a massive recall to free bumpers for current iPhone 4 owners. Steve Jobs might also just take this opportunity to teach Apple fans the right way of holding the phone.

1. Squidboots: If you were alone in the woods, and no one were around to smell you, would you smell as manly and awesome?

2. Chmown: How can I smell like fighting and space shuttles?

3. Porknog: Dear Old Spice Man, How many times should I lather, rinse, and repeat? My wife says I’m going to get a rash if I keep this up.

4. Desimusxvii: Is it true you tore the wings off Pegasus and ate them buffalo style to achieve the manliness you exhibit today?

If yes, please recount your battle with the beast. If no, please do this immediately.

5. Robotjox: If you could meet one great historical figure, then arm wrestle them while signing opera, who would it be?