The Mixxingbowl (mixxingbowl.com) is a social news, photo and video sharing site and community that is relatively new and comprised of many of Mixx's former movers-and-shakers. It started as a user-owned and supported forum to compliment the original Mixx.com. When Mixx was acquired by UberMedia, slightly more than half of the users from Mixx who more-or-less determined what content would appear on the Mixx.com front-page, category front-pages, popular page, and such have sought shelter at the Bowl.
Mixx.com was an extremely large and powerful social news, photo and video sharing community. The site was founded in 2007 by former USA Today chief strategist and later Yahoo News GM Chris McGill's company Recommended Reading, Inc. Mixx burst on to the scene at a time when Digg had been enforcing both its written and unwritten rules with an extremely heavy hand. Users were being banned left-and-right for reasons unbeknownst to many of them, often for a first-offense (if TOU was an issue). A couple of the more established "power Diggers" got the axe as well. This turned out to be an extremely bad decision for a number of reasons. First and foremost, one of those banned top-100 Diggers named Greg Davies (cGt2099) happened upon Mixx shortly after receiving word that his appeal of the permaban had been denied.
Davies blogged about Mixx, and encouraged other banned Diggers to take shelter at this brand-new social media start-up that wanted them as members of its fledgling community and pledged not to take them for granted (provided they abide by the site's TOU and not spam the place to death). Word quickly spread that if you were banned from Digg, you could join the community at Mixx and not be judged for being exiled from the niche's only true major player. In fact, banned Diggers instead found a sympathetic ear (or a few hundred) at Mixx. Digg had never anticipated all of its banned users joining together and founding their own (penal) colony. Did I mention Davies is a native of Australia?
The other thing Digg never anticipated was the media coverage Mixx would receive in the weeks and months after its inception.
Here is a partial list of the top news stories about Mixx from the site's first 24 months or so as a live community:
- Stealthy Startup Mixx Launches Into Private Beta - TechCrunch
- Digg Refugees May Be Heading To Mixx - TechCrunch - My comment from almost 4 years ago
- Of Digg "Refugees" and Mixx - History shows us that Mark Evans, Tony Hung and author Mathew Ingram were very wrong about this one.
- Active Diggers Mixxing it Up
- Community quality and network leadership trump numbers: Digg loses contributors to Mixx
- Digg users flock to Mixx
- Why I Dig Mixx (and Nixed Digg)
- Mixx: Will it become the new Digg?
- CNN.com Adds Mixx To Its Mix Of Bookmarking Buttons
- Mashable On Mixx: 30+ of Our Most Popular Stories
- Look Out Digg: Mixx Public Beta Coming on Tuesday
- LA Times Invests in Social News Site Mixx
- MIXX TEAMS UP WITH USA TODAY, REUTERS.COM, WEATHER CHANNEL AND LEADING ONLINE PUBLISHERS TO DELIVER PERSONALIZED NEWS, IMAGES AND VIDEO
- The CNN.com Effect: Mixx More Than Doubles Visitors in May To Nearly One Million
- Looking back at Mixx during 2009
- In Memorial of Violet Planet - A Day in the Life - Beatles Video
- Mixxing 102: How to become a SuperMixxer
- Mixx to Digg: We Break News Faster
Mixx eventually ballooned to the point of boasting several tens of millions of unique registered user accounts.
Over the years since its inception the site has had about 450-500 users who wielded substantially more influence than your average Mixx unknown. These were the ones whose avatars (and links to their profile pages) rotated in-and-out of the ten spots on "Top Mixxers" section of the Mixx Classic homepage. When the sale occurred and Mixx announced that it would be switching to a new system and that all records, data, pages, content, accounts and everything else associated with the Mixx we knew would be permanently lost in the switch, slightly more than half of those who were active at Mixx during its final months took refuge at the Mixxingbowl.
Others sought shelter at Amplify and Old Dogg (both right-leaning) and still others at ZoomIt.ca (Canadians). Most of Mixx's left-wing is at the bowl, along with a token few from the right side of the aisle. Many from both sides I would not consider activists, and most of those I would classify as such most are good, decent people with whom I may disagree but also with whom I have had many an interesting, polite and civil conversation. It is unfortunate that I cannot make the same statement about everyone that has taken shelter at the bowl post-Mixx.
One of the common themes about where Mixxers took refuge is that most if not all of the other "household name" sites are nowhere on the radar of the displaced community. From its first days, Mixxers from all backgrounds and from all beliefs shared one thing in common: an extremely bitter taste in their collective mouths for Digg. Most are simply too sophisticated to find much of an appeal in Reddit or its community. Newsvine could have made a play but to my knowledge has not sheltered any Mixx refugees.
If anyone reading this is a Mixx refugee or knows a Mixx refugee in need of shelter, please contact me via the comments at the bottom of the post and I will be happy to help them find a new home.
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