Treehugger brand Hugg.com, a Discovery company, has decided to close the doors on Hugg, a popular green social news site.

From Hugg.com:

PLEASE READ!

On November 17th, 2008, Hugg will no longer accept new submissions or registrations. Hugg will remain publicly viewable until the end of the year, at which time Hugg.com will be closed. The Hugg.com domain will be directed towards a new feature on the TreeHugger forums where participants will be able to post and comment on interesting green links (coming soon). We welcome you to the thriving community at the TreeHugger forums and hope you’ll join us now to carry on the discussion. Go ahead and poke around on the forums - we think you’ll like it and enjoy conversing with such a diverse group of intelligent, passionate people!

We would like to express our gratitude and appreciation to the many Hugg users who have poured time and energy into providing the community with tons of great content. Unfortunately, due to increasing maintenance costs, we can no longer provide Hugg with the resources it needs to continue.

Please email tech@treehugger.com with any questions or comments.

Thank you.

(h/t - Paul Smith)

Still need to get your green social voting fix?

Consider some alternative sites:

Mindbodygreen - The source for the newest and most popular news on better, healthier, greener living.

Care2 - Provides powerful tools to make a difference in your life, community, country and world. It’s driven by passionate people (just like you) who want to restore the world’s balance.

Gaia - Gaia is a social network / online community for eco-conscious and “spiritually aware members.” It encourages and enables members to search for friends who have the same interests and collaborate on projects that make a difference.

Sharing a wealth of knowledge, a consensus mentality and a love for my newly adopted hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, I felt great about my most recent 10 in 10 meet-up experience with Todd Mundt of National Public Radio. And it isn’t your grandparents’ radio station, either. Well, it could be if your grandparents are like mine and are way cool, hip and totally into technology and electronics and ambiance. I took the grand tour with Todd who enjoys his home field advantage at the corporate NPR facilities here in Louisville. The lay of the land is professional, quality-driven and well dressed.

I’ve seen Todd around mainly on Twitter but also local Louisville websites. Like myself, Todd is also a Louisville transplant. Originally from Iowa, Todd has been in Louisville for years now, and comes from a background in radio. This was a natural fit to the microblogging environment that is Twitter. He is personable, friendly and authoritative in his area of expertise and I couldn’t have appreciated him more.

Todd and I caught up over a cup of coffee and wow did we hit a lot of territory.  Everything from Twitter to Identica to Yammer and back again.  A great conversation we had going was the concept of blog comment ownership.  We went back and forth between a third party model (a la disqus), the blog owner retaining control, and original commenter control.

I had a great time meeting up with Todd, and would like to do so again.  Can’t wait for my next 10 in 10 meetup, won’t you join me?

And hey kids, while Kevin Mason is still in the leader in the Geeks.com 10in10 contest, though it isn’t too late for you to try to win the iPod Nano!

Previous 10 in 10 posts:

• Week 3: meeting with Jaime Mack
• iPod Nano / Geeks.com sponsor announcement
• Week 2: meeting with Kevin Mason
• Week 1: meeting with David Finch
• Taking it to the Streets: Initial post

I have seen sites with great content and api tools get buried when digg realizes the webmaster is a digg user, even after amassing more diggs than a landscaper - hundreds of diggs, literally. Some sites will not make the front page no matter how many diggs they generate. Even if they reach what would be typically deemed as a front page threshold - e.g. 300, 400, 1000 diggs.

Do you believe that autoburies or administrative buries exist on digg.com? I want to know your opinion. Hit me on Twitter.

[Today's guest post is from Crackerpat, a former Digg user.]

January 02, 2008 I was told about a social media site known the world over as Digg.com. Filled out my information and soon had an account. I started slow but as I started submitting my Face-plant and Nut-shot videos from another website, I started to get a moderate following and the comments I was getting from other Diggers started to fuel my intensity to Digg and submit more and more. Finally got a couple of the videos to go popular and I was off and running.

I was given the opportunity to use Greasemonkey scripts. I was told that this is what a lot of people used. With not much to lose one way or the other, I went ahead and installed them. What happened next was not what I was actually ready for. I actually became addicted to Digging. People would shout to me and ask me to shout their submissions and would shout back if they went Popular. Things were great. I was getting Submissions to go Popular and a lot of my Mutual Friends were getting pops as well. The only bad thing was that a lot of my submissions were getting buried because “Face-Plants and Nut-Shots don’t belong on Digg!” Even though They were Comedy section. Digging was Great! Then it happened. Digg Dropped the Ban Hammer.

Many of my Mutual Friends were banned for using The Greasemonkey Scripts. The same ones I was using. So I decided not to use scripts any more. Started getting more new friends, My shouts became golden again. None of my submissions were getting Buried and things were looking up again and then WHAM! I was asked to Log on before I could dig the comment… That’s how I found out I was banned. Yes I sent letters claiming I wasn’t using scripts and no they wouldn’t give me my account back. I understand why. Wasn’t using scripts… after the initial banning at least.

My theory is this, I was a dead man walking after the first wave of bans over 3 weeks ago. I was a middle tier Digger that was rising fast. So why didn’t they ban me and others like me 3 weeks ago with all my other fellow Mutual Friends? Because They knew then that I/ we were going to get banned in a couple of weeks later. I believe that Digg was using myself and some others that were in the Top 300 Users. They knew if they banned a bunch 3 weeks ago that people would follow what they wanted to adhere to as a Digger. And I did, but I was already gone. They let me and others get higher up the Digg ladder. They used us for their own benefit. As an owner, I do the same to clients on a daily basis. I like to think of it as Karma and I give them their kudos for using me and others to get what they want. I would do the same if I didn’t care about the people I was Banning.

There is a second part to my theory and that is that a second set of bans would generate more new users. How? Have you noticed all the Web Articles from the first banning? They have to generate interest. Sure they ditched a lot of great diggers. What did they get in return? A spike in interest. Maybe one like they never had in a long time. That would be the reason for the second Ban Hammer being applied. If they can show to their advertisers how many new users they get on a daily basis, wouldn’t you think that it would generate more revenue?

I don’t blame the User that gave me the Greasemonkey scripts and I don’t blame Digg. And as I hear the chime of my Digg Alerter for a dead Digger going off in the background, I realize that My Greed is why I am no longer a Digger and happy about it!

The people who miss the point of Friendfeed think that the actual purpose of doing it is to amass as many followers as possible, that it is an online popularity contest (”look! I have 1000 friends! I’m REALLY popular!”).   When in actual fact, it should be the opposite. What you SHOULD be doing to make the most out of it is to refine your Friendfeed network to the people you are friends with the most, the friends you talk with the most, the people whose content you appreciate the most, and who appreciate YOU the most. If you don’t do this, then all you’re going to end up with is a whole lot of noise and other people’s content pushed upon you while your content gets lost and ignored.

To help you do this effectively, let me point you in the direction of a very powerful and effective tool called FriendVenn written by a Friendfeeder called Felix. Right away, you’re going to shriek at me and say “aaagh! this app wants my Friendfeed password!”. Well, what can I say? Felix professes to be trustworthy and a lot of other Friendfeeders also trust him enough to have used the app in the past. No-one has complained yet that their accounts have been taken over. So I guess it’s ultimately up to you. If you’re really freaked about giving your password, you can do this and then change the password immediately afterwards to something else. Then you can sleep easily at night, knowing that your account is safe and secure!

Right, with that out of the way, what does FriendVenn do? Well, what this tool does is analyze your Friendfeed friends and separates them into three columns :

• Those that ARE following you but you are not following them
• Those that are following you and you are also following them (the ideal scenario)
• Those that are NOT following you and you are following them (the worst case scenario)

Now obviously you want everyone to be in the middle column and if everyone is already there then congratulations. You don’t need to do anything else. You can move on and do something else. But if any of your contacts are in any of the other two columns then you have some work to do to fix that.

If any of your contacts are in the first column then that is easily solved. Go to their Friendfeed profile and follow them. Easy. They’ll then move into the middle column and everyone’s peachy. But if they are in the third column, then it’s time to consider whether or not you should unsubscribe from them. As I said, Friendfeed is all about reciprocating and meeting you halfway. If you’re subscribing to them but they are not showing any interest in you, then what are you getting out of the deal? A bunch of names who couldn’t care less about you and your work?  Is that what you call a “friend”? If so, you might want to redefine the word “friend”.

Saying that however, if you only subscribed to their feed a few days ago or last week, you might want to give them a little more time. They may be on holiday or they may be sick or they may be busy at work. So try to remember when you subscribed to that particular feed if you can. Not everyone is a big web junkie who checks their email and their feeds every few minutes or every few hours (believe it or not). I got rapped across the knuckles some time back by someone who reminded me not too subtly that he “wasn’t married to his email” (unlike me - I live virtually 24/7 in my email inbox!).

I managed to filter out 21 people whom I was subscribed to who weren’t subsequently returning the favour. Using FriendVenn, it was then a simple case of clicking through to those profiles and unsubscribing.

FriendVenn is a web app you should keep in your favourites and use on a regular basis to houseclean your Friendfeed profile. Maybe by unsubscribing from the people who don’t “get it”, those people will get the hint that social networking really is all about reciprocating and meeting you halfway.

That’s what “friends” do, you know?

By Mark O’Neill

Meeting Jaime was a bit different from meeting my first two meetups. Prior to meeting, Jaime had asked me via chat if I still wanted to meet up as he was so new to the social media scene. This made me think that this was exactly what 10 in 10 was for! What better a way to get more acquainted with social media for a newbie than meeting with a practitioner one-on-one?  Jaime has a regular day job, and for him, social media is more of a past time.  He’s most active on Plurk, with a pretty cool user name.

I gave Jaime some tips on getting he way around on social networks, even with limited time, and even some tips on getting a blog underway.

Jaime was local to the area, so Kevin Mason is still in the leader in the Geeks.com 10in10 contest.

Three weeks down, seven to go! Looking forward to meeting more of you in the upcoming weeks!

Previous 10 in 10 posts:

• iPod Nano / Geeks.com sponsor announcement
• Week 2: meeting with Kevin Mason
• Week 1: meeting with David Finch
• Taking it to the Streets: Initial post

Geeks.com has officially sponsored the event, and is offering up
an iPod Nano to the individual that comes from the furthest away!

Currently, the front runner is Kevin Mason with an impressive showing, driving over 3 hours to meet up!

We’re only getting started, moving into week 3 of 10, so there is plenty
of time to try to oust the current leader…good luck everyone!

Previous 10 in 10 posts:

• Week 2: meeting with Kevin Mason
• Week 1: meeting with David Finch
• Taking it to the Streets: Initial post

With me today is a popular former Digg user, Diggboss. Thanks for joining me, Diggboss. Ok, let’s get right into it:

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself. When did you start getting into social media in the first place, and which network did you like the most from the start?

My scripts used Digg APIs. Anyone can use Digg APIs. Digg data is open under Creative Commons.

Absolutely not as I said anyone with a little knowledge of CURL or WGET can make use of the APIs and do what I did.

Digg is not FaceBook, coders please stay away from Digg. Digg does not have open policies and does not support coders. Every script is a BAD script. Digg uses its TOS to its advantage.

Haha, thats an outrageous question, nope, never.

9. So what’s next for Diggboss?

I am sure Digg would restore my account, I don’t have an alternative. I am banned.

I loved Digg and will continue to love it, my love for digg is not conditional.

Week two of the #10in10 experiment was a success. This week’s focus was Kevin Mason, who graciously drove all the way from Nashville, Tennessee!

Kevin runs a music marketing company by the name of Intensity Media.

It’s always fun to learn things about people that you just don’t get from a social networking profile. I soon learned that Kevin has already done a lifetime of experience in radio (and has the radio voice to prove it!), and I was quickly suggesting that he starts up a regular video blog, as I think people would find him interesting to listen to.

Having never heard Kevin’s voice before, I had figured a guy from Nashville would have a pretty heavy southern accent. Turned out that he had been from other points north and east, so that wasn’t the case! I’ve seen Kevin on Plurk and Twitter, but meeting him face-to-face showed me another dimension of who he was and what he was about. You can’t get a full view of a person from a few tweets and links.

Week 3 of 10 in 10 is up for grabs - if anyone is interested, please let me know!

Well, off we go on our first week of the 10 in 10 experiment. In case you missed it, I’m on a mission to meet 10 folks that I’ve never met in real life before over the next 10 weeks. I’ll start making a hashtag in Twitter for this as well for future easy tracking: #10in10.

I think that 10 in 10 provides an interesting alternative that other in person networking events and online social media interactions do not necessarily cover:

• Introverts are more comfortable with a one-on-one setting: less pressure, easier to open up
• Networking events might not allow you enough quality time with an individual
• Networking events may have some cliques already, and if you’re not a part of them, that sucks
• You often will gravitate towards people you already know, so you miss out on meeting new people
• Social media is a great way to connect, but you don’t necessarily know who you are dealing with
• There is more to meeting people than a handshake and a business card

So this week I had the pleasure of meeting David Finch, Producer at Vupal Network LLC.

I learned some good things about David and what he does for a living. I knew that he blogged on his site, but I didn’t know much about his main gig over at Vupal. And by the look of things, they are producing some awesome content that is all about food. Dear readers, I suggest you check out some of their sites:

• foodvu.com
• groceryschool.com
• therookiecookshow.com

It was also cool to hear that David is fairly new to Louisville as well. We’ve been here for about a year and a half now, so it’s always good to hear how other people wing up here as well

I knew of David before, but now I’ve been able to spend some quality time with him. I’m sure we’ll see each other again, and perhaps we’ll be able to help each other out in each other’s efforts as well. So as you can see, we’re really off to a great start! Looking forward to our next 10 in 10 this coming Tuesday where I’ll be meeting a Mr. Kevin Mason who is graciously driving all the way from Nashville!

Which brings me to another point…toying with the idea of giving a small prize to the person that travels the farthest - anyone want to get in on that action?