digg.com/podcasts Digg now allows its community to recommend podcasts: entire shows and specific episodes.

Looks like the folks over at the social media site Digg have been pretty busy. If you haven't given Digg a look yet, it's time to pop in and explore. I suspect this service could become increasingly useful for news organizations.

On Dec. 18, Podcasting News gave an overview of Digg's new features. The one which caught my attention is this: "Now you can Digg your favorite podcast series and individual podcast episodes. Not only can you see a list of the most popular podcasts by section, you can also dive into any individual podcasts to see the most Dugg individual episodes." (More info on Digg podcasts.)

This I like very much. Although I subscribe to several podcasts, I prefer to recommend specific episodes rather than entire shows. I expect now that Digg has made it easy for me to recommend and share specific podcast episodes, I'll be participating in Digg more. (The podcast service is available only to registered Digg users. Registration is free.)

Podcasting News also observed: "The change could dramatically change the face of podcast discovery, as Digg focuses on the viral spread of new podcasts. It may also tend to draw listeners away from podcasters' sites, because you can listen at the site. Community discussions may be more active at Digg than at podcasters' sites, too, because Digg has hundreds of thousands of active visitors."

Of course, Digg is not the first podcast-related service to allow people to listen to episodes via its site. Odeo has been doing that for at least a year or two -- and Odeo also allows you to include YouTube-style embeddable player, which I've found very useful. But Digg's great strength is community, and the community/discussion angle is a legitimate concern for podcasters who are trying to build an audience -- unless you embrace the Digg community as part of your strategy, that is.

Responding to concerns from podcasters, Digg then introduced a new option: To display a "listen at podcast site" button rather than listening directly through Digg.

Also, news broke yesterday that Digg just received $8.5 million in venture capital funding. Marketwatch reported that Digg will use this money "to hire new developers and consolidate its position among the leading media portals." (See Forbes for more details.)

Does your online news venue sport "Digg this" buttons on each story you publish? If not, then maybe it's time to consider that option, or maybe experiment with it. This is especially true if your news organization wants to realize the benefits of online community and open discussion without worrying about flame wars or libel being posted to its site. Let the discussion happen on Digg. Really, it doesn't matter so much where the discussion is hosted, as how findable it is and whether it refers people back to your site.

Actually, I'd like to see "Digg this" buttons on Poynter.org articles. So here I'm using a little Javascript tool by Alex Bosworth to add that just for this posting. Did you find this article interesting or useful? Then Digg it!