Introducing The Atheist Spot: Digg For Atheists

I used to think that services like Digg and Reddit would be very helpful in boosting blog traffic and reaching a wider audience. I continue to utilize them but do so with somewhat less enthusiasm. Frankly, their impact on my traffic and readership has been minimal (primarily because most of what I write gets no love there). Naturally, I was a bit skeptical when I ran across a new service, The Atheist Spot, that seems to be similar to Digg and Reddit but entirely focused on atheism.


Now that I have been playing around with The Atheist Spot for a bit, I think it has real potential. Much like Digg and Reddit, users can submit their own content or that of someone else they find particularly inspiring. The community of users can vote up or down each contribution and view the top rated contributions.

Given the highly focused content (i.e., material likely to be of interests to atheists), the user base will be a fraction of that more general services. This means that the potential to attract diverse readership through the service is probably fairly limited. At the same time, The Atheist Spot may provide an excellent opportunity to attract the type of reader likely to stick around.

Traffic considerations aside, what I have already come to appreciate about The Atheist Spot is that it gives me a quick glimpse into what is going on in the atheist blogosphere and mainstream news media that is likely to be of interest to my readers. As such, it offers some great ideas for post content. Of course, I also like the fact that I can use it to vote up posts from bloggers I respect or news stories I think deserve a wider audience.

If you have not yet visited The Atheist Spot, give it a try. I'd be interested to hear your impressions and how you think we might be able to help the developers build an audience for their service.

Tags: The Atheist Spot, Digg, Reddit, atheist, atheism, blog, news, media, blogging, social networking, social bookmarking