Rev2.org

Kevin Rose announced on the Digg blog earlier today that Digg was launching a host of new features and revamping user profiles. Rose also posted a video walkthrough of the new features and revealed that Digg Images, a revamped comment section (no more AJAX loads!), Digg e-mail alerts and a story suggestion feature were on its way.

Following closely in the style of Facebook and Rose’s own Pownce, one of the major highlights of this release are the new social features. This is the first time users can communicate directly with each other on Digg. Users can now also “Favourite” their best stories (as opposed to having just a “My #1″ at one time) and “shout” it to their selected friends with a little note attached.

The real interaction, though, is visible in Digg’s new revamped user profiles. Along with seeing your Favorites and Recent Activity on Dugg stories, you get a real profile description (i.e. “A person who joined Digg on November 13th, 2005″) with a ton of privacy options as to what you’re revealing. You can now, along with adding a profile photo, add additional photos to the site. Any action you take on Digg (i.e. adding a photo or updating a profile) is also recorded into your Recent Activities, very much ala Facebook, and now just like ’shouting” stories to friends, you can shout quick Twitter-like messages to them. These features, while not too major, finally add some life to your Digg interaction.

Another revamped section on the site are Friends’ Activities, which shows what your friends have been digging, shouting, and updating. Obviously a number of people on Digg have an excessive amount of Friends, so there are Filters’ which let you drill down into the latest Diggs, Diggs in Upcoming, Submissions, Comments, Favourites and Profile Activity. Also ‘ported’ over from Pownce is the whole idea of ‘friends’ and ‘fans,’ and the new section lets you manage those really easily.

Overall, the new features are a great addition to the site and essential to Digg as the community continues to grow. Looking forward to more coming later in the year.