CafeMom has just added a new feature, which is pretty much a digg-like front page for mom-related news. It's called the Hot List, and here, any user can submit an item from across the internet, and give it a "bump." That's a good thing. Bumping a story is the equivalent of voting it up. Items cannot, however, be voted down. There are commenting options so users can discuss the news that's making it to the section's front page, which boasts tabs for recent and popular items.
While the whole "digging" idea has taken off in the past two years, with several social networks adopting the concept of letting users push content to the front of the page, there are some communities where this may not work. Just after launching the Hot List, that seemed to be the case with CafeMom.
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After submitting the CafeMom blog post to its own Hot List, several users joined the "we don't like the new feature" bandwagon, which is often the result of a single comment towards the top of the thread, letting every subsequent reader easily fall into a confirmation trap. The silver lining in this particular situation? The Hot List is functioning very much like the Digg system it is likened to! On the other hand, it does cause one to wonder, what networks should adopt popular community-driven tasks for the sake of their target demographic?
While CafeMom responded quite well to the comments in regards to the new feature, such a response is often the case when new things come about, regardless of the demographic. In response to the myriad of requests, CafeMom now has the option of users participating in the Journal as well as the Hot List, instead of having to choose one over the other.