I've heard of Digg, Reddit, etc., but never had occasion to use them. I think (hope) that this is the wrong time of year to be evaluating something like this. Here's a sampling of today's popular stories:
Digg: Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo talking to a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee; movie review for the new Batman/Dark Knight movie; pictures of the most memorable home runs in Yankee Stadium history. I was impressed that this did change from when I first looked at it 10 minutes ago (the "Yankee Stadium home run pics" item was at the top, now third on the list.)
Reddit: Something about Karl Rove posted directly to Reddit; a picture of something about asbestos; Comcast cancels MSNBC but keeps Fox News.
Today these don't seem to be earth-shattering items. I could see when a big story hits (as we come up on August 1, the 35W bridge collapse comes to mind) that these would be compelling, but today's sampling seems a little more ephemeral. On the news sites, the BBC has footage of the Queen when she was a child, and it's usual good selection of international news. I could see these tools being both enhancing or detracting from productivity (you could spend way too much time with this sort of thing.) I think the fact that I'm in an academic library gives me a certain perspective on this; we don't get many questions about newsy items at my library (the economy, sports economics, social responsibility - all yes, not so much pop culture. We do share stories from the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education with colleagues.
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