By Rachel Sheehy

The Internet is one of the greatest inventions of all time for so many reasons — especially its role in procrastination. You know what I’m talking about. A popular place for procrastination is social bookmarking sites, which are also good for marketing your blog. One of these popular sites is Digg (digg.com).

Digg is a New York-based site with the sole purpose of finding the most interesting and talked about stories on the Internet so you can  read them for yourself. It’s very bandwagony. You can use Digg on the desktop website, as an iPhone app (sorry Android users) or as a daily email. Or if you feel like getting really crazy, you could do all three.

I know that it’s a good idea to ask people for diggs on blog posts. Cool. But what on earth is a ‘digg?’ Well, it’s similar to getting a ‘like’ on Facebook. A digg is a positive vote for a story. Any Digg user can ‘digg’ a story. This helps to determine where a story would appear on the Digg homepage and on the iPhone app.

If you have used Digg before or are looking at it right now, you might be wondering, what is a Digg score? Now that you know what a digg is, it’s easier to understand. The score is the number of diggs, Facebook shares, and tweets for a story all added up. This helps the site admin see how much the users care for or like a story; it helps them decide where it should go on the homepage. So, the higher the score, the higher up on the page it will be and the more people will see it.

Currently, you can’t comment on stories. But according to Digg.com, they are working on that and will be testing out different options, so eventually commenting will be possible. Now that you know what Digg is and how simple it is to operate, you want to sign up, right? Just go to Digg.com and you create an account with your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

Then you can go on a digging spree. You’re welcome.