Google has been mesmerized by the Digg phenomenon. With its extensive user base and well developed social voting program, there has been endless speculation of a Google buy out.

With the last round of Digg acquisition rumors just starting to fade away, Google has released Whats Popular - its own Digg style gadget for iGoogle.

Whats Popular offers a mix of content generated by a special algorithm that combines users submissions (know as pops) and other hot content trends across other Google services such as Google Reader.

The new Whats Popular program doesnt really offer anything more innovative than Digg, so it begs the question " does the world need another Digg?

For the sake of another web popularity contest " probably not. And Id hasten to say that Googles motives extend beyond the obvious.

Ive long anticipated the introduction of social voting/rating elements in the ranking algorithm by one of the major search engines. Perhaps bigger picture in this voting application is more to do with content value rather than popularity.

Theres not likely to be any confirmations from Google on that front, but its difficult to ignore the idea that these social endeavours have a more generic search related application.

What do you think?

• Is Googles Whats Popular likely to overthrow Digg as the preferred web popularity contest?
• Do you think Googles social engagement/voting systems would be an effective enhancement to their ranking algorithm?

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