Spike Vote Spike was supposed to be a system to game Digg.com. The object was to get 1000 Diggers together to vote in groups to promote stories to the front page.
Spike the Vote works on a point system. Each day I give you a mission with several stories to Digg. 20% of your mission involves digging stories submitted by users in this community, while 80% of of your mission is completely random. This is to eliminate footprints and keep things anonymous.
The site made some big headlines when it was featured on Tech Crunch and even CNet. However, for whatever reasons, the ower(s) decided to sell it on eBay before the site became fully operational. This is where Jim Messenger at FamousAgents.com comes in.
Jim saw the eBay sale and decided to buy it. He then turned the site over to Digg. 700 Digg accounts, members who signed up for Spike The Vote, has now been banned.
When we learned that it was available on Ebay, we immediately jumped at the opportunity to shut down a scheme that attempts to undermine the legitimacy of Digg’s voting system. We thought, “Hey, we’ll buy it and turn it over to Digg. That way future cheaters might think twice before starting or joining such networks.â€
SpikeTheVote.com now forwards to Digg.com. While Jim said he turned the site over to Digg, I’m pretty sure Digg reimbursed the $1,275.00 he paid for it.
*Update – Jim received no money from Digg for the site.