digg

It's a special episode of Buzzed Out Loud, where Darren Kitchen is high on pain meds and refusing to get a car and we're high on good news--from Chilean mine rescues to Google do-gooding. Also, Digg is hoping that the Coke Classic approach will help stop the bleeding. --Molly

In a note introducing himself to users, Digg's latest CEO Matt Williams, who came on at the end of August, today penned an apology to the Digg community, saying that changes are on the way that should remedy some of the biggest complaints that have cropped up since the company completely retooled the site in late August.

"As many of you know, the launch of Digg v4 didn't go smoothly, and we're deeply sorry that we disappointed our Digg community in the process," Williams said. "Thank you for your patience and your extremely candid … Read more

Our guest on this morning's episode of The 404 Podcast is Ron Gorodetzky, CTO of Fflick.com, a new site that uses Twitter to aggregate public opinion on popular movies. We're anxious to talk to Ron about the new site, but first Wilson grills him about his former position as Systems Engineering Manager at Digg.

Ron is certainly not a newcomer to the world of start-up Web sites. Back in 2004, he was asked by Kevin Rose to be part of a small social news site you might have heard floating around the Internet: Digg. After helping build Digg into the ubiquitous powerhouse it is now, Ron left and joined up with three other former Digg employees to found Fflick.com, a new online tool that uses Twitter to show you instant movie reviews from your online social circle.

Here's how Fflick works: the first step is to log into your Twitter account on the Fflick home page that also shows all the newest movies in theaters and opening soon, and a small percentage rating that represents the public's general sentiment about the film.

If you see a particular title of interest, you can click through to see public tweets and even filter through your friends' posts as well as positive tweets, negative tweets, interesting tweets, and the latest tweets. There's also a convenient menu on top that routes you to information on show times, ticket purchasing, Netflix queuing, and more.

Ron tells us about the team of engineers who work in the background to ensure the site stays populated with opinions, including the learning machine that scans for keywords to help Fflick recognize a title within a tweet and quality it for the site. Not to worry though, as much as it sounds like Skynet, Ron assures us we're safe...for now.

Ron also gives us a quick preview of the long-term road map for Fflick, and while the site focuses only on movie reviews for now, the engine behind Fflick can theoretically be used for scanning the public sentiment for a variety of issues, including political opinions, music reviews, and more. There are lots of exciting things in the works for a company that's been around for less than two months, so start Fflicking and be sure to tell your friends you heard about it on The 404 first!

This is a love story with a happy ending--and a little heartbreak along the way.

My love affair with Digg began in 2005, about a year after the site launched and roughly two years before I started working at CNET. At the time, I was printing out marketing materials for a tiny company about an hour outside of San Francisco that was on its way to certain doom.

Things there were bleak, and everybody knew it. My days were spent as an office drone, doing menial tasks with long breaks between the action--a workday that made Digg an appealing place. … Read more

CNET's own laptop editor Scott Stein fills in for Jeff today in yet another completely random episode of The 404 Podcast! Today's topics tackle the ongoing Reddit vs. 4Chan vs. Digg hierarchy, the latest Google Instant music video trend, the next evolution of graphing calculators, and a very sultry (and minutely disturbing) reading from the sticky pages of Playboy Magazine courtesy of Houston's independent nonprofit organization Taping for the Blind.

We're excited to welcome Scott back into podcast studio, so much so that we force him to wear the infamous mullet wig for the entire episode. The wig is sort of appropriate for the first story of the day about a nonprofit radio station for the blind in Houston that records complete readings from Playboy Magazine and includes the articles, jokes, cartoons, letters, and--yes--accurate descriptions of the centerfolds.

To help us get a better idea of what that would sound like, Scott reads a few excerpts from the broadcast, and although it doesn't sound quite as sultry as when Suzi Hanks, the host of the show, does it, it certainly helps that he's wearing a wig...and sharing a mic with me...*disclaimer* CNET and The 404 are not responsible for any gag reflexes triggered from listening to this segment.

Google Instant, which arrived this week, can predict your search query and could possibly shave two or three seconds off your search time. Big deal, right? Well, if that doesn't impress you, maybe this music video will.

Google started the trend with a clever video advertisement for the service featuring Bob Dylan, and Whirled Creative jumped in next with an "Instant Elements" video remix, but our favorite is Urlesque's take on Billy Joel's hit, "We Didn't Start the Fire." Enjoy!

Stick around after the break as we spend way too much time gabbing about the latest calculator technologies, a few voicemails warn us about bashing the Zune, and we do a mini review of Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher's latest film, "The Social Network."

Thanks for listening, and have a great weekend everyone!

Apple has refreshed its iPod line and unveiled a new version of Apple TV.

During Apple's annual music-focused event in San Francisco, CEO Steve Jobs took the wraps off three new iPods: an iPod Shuffle that ditches the previous no-button style in returning to a more classic look; a smaller iPod Nano that now has a touch screen but can no longer play video; and a thinner iPod Touch that has most of the features first introduced on the iPhone 4.

Apple announced iTunes 10, available immediately, which comes with a new logo and a social music service called Ping … Read more

Digg confirmed on Tuesday that it has named former Amazon executive Matt Williams as its next CEO, replacing Kevin Rose, who has been acting chief executive since Jay Adelson stepped down in April.

"After several months of searching, we are excited to announce that Matt Williams will become the CEO of Digg," Rose said in a blog post. "As you know, I have been the interim CEO, while we looked for the right person, and I will still remain actively involved in the product, but am handing over the day-to-day running of the business to Matt." … Read more

On today's show, Google does us a solid in the ham-filtering department, we wonder whether Paul Allen might have waited too long to sue the Internet, or whether this is just the beginning, and we speculate whether seven inches is, in fact, the perfect size after all. Plus, Internet vigilantes on the loose! --Molly

It's not too late to enter the JetBlue All You Can Jet Giveaway! You only have until 12 p.m. PDT to tweet out this message:

Follow @the404 and RT this for a chance to win 1 of 2 #AllYouCanJet @JetBlue passes. Rules: http://bit.ly/dodRKs #AYCJ

Don't forget that you have to be at least 18 years old and a resident of the United States to enter. We'll tweet a congratulatory message at 3 p.m. EDT today to announce the winners. Good luck!

Apple's yearly iPod and iTunes event goes down tomorrow and we've got plenty of predictions (and dreams) for what Apple will show off. We'll likely see a "Retina display" and a forward-facing camera come to the iPod Touch devices, but Wilson's hoping for a revamped Apple TV that could bring iOS 4, an A4 chip, 1080p playback, 16GB of storage, and a $99 "impulse" price tag.

Check out our Crave poll, submit your own predictions, and don't forget to check back with us tomorrow for official news!

This summer, a hot-springs resort in Atami, Japan, became a vacation destination for men who just can't stand being single. For almost two months, the resort offered players of the dating sim Love Plus Plus a physical location to bring their virtual girlfriends.

Once there, the players visited romantic locations and took pictures next to black-and-white markers on the ground that acted as triggers for the corresponding augmented-reality smartphone app. In real life, it looks like the men posed by themselves, but the app inserted a picture of their virtual girlfriends to simulate companionship. As the only single dude on the show, it's apparently my job to investigate this matter in greater detail, so see you in Japan!

What's with everyone just throwing away animals? First there was the security camera clip of a British woman trashing a cat, and now LiveLinks just posted a video of a young girl chucking puppy after adorable puppy into a river! Luckily, we can rely on the vigilante justice of 4Chan's /b/ thread to come to the rescue in both cases.

The infamous message board is on the hunt to reveal the identity of said puppy-chucker, and they've already narrowed down the location of the river to a city in Croatia; they even found two potential Facebook profiles that match her description, although it could be anyone. She's around 5 feet 7 inches tall, blond, and Caucasian...nevertheless, we're confident that they'll bring the culprit to justice. Just don't hurt us!

Again, there's only one hour left to add us on Twitter (add Jeff, Wilson, and Justin while you're at it) and tweet out the bolded message up there for your chance to win one of two All You Can Jet prizes, courtesy of JetBlue! Good luck to everyone entering. We can't wait to see where you go!