While browsing to Digg lately I once again witnessed that dozens of duplicate messages, that is messages that deal with the same news, have been posted in the upcoming news section. That got me thinking that there is not really a system to determine which article would make the frontpage and which would be seen as duplicate content to that article.

Lets take Netflix as an example. When you browse the upcoming stories you see a Download Squad article about it, one from Techcrunch, Gizmodo, Engadget HD, Google and Yahoo news and a dozen more. That’s duplicate content all writing about the same story. Sure, they add their own commentary sometimes but it’s still duplicate content.

The question is what can we do about it. Here is my solution on how to improve Digg and ungarble the news. Since most users do not care if a similar story has already been posted I suggest to offer an option to join stories. Use a heading and description and link to all websites that have been reporting about it.

One Digg button of course which would increase the accessibility of Digg and help users by pointing to several locations where they can read about the news. Always a good idea to get a second opinion, ain’t it ?