Digg.com and Verb Usage

Posted on July 5, 2006

In an earlier post today we talked about a new video sharing site with a funny name: (Eefoof.com). Eefoof.com's site notes that they are receiving heavy traffic after appearing on Digg.com and Slashdot.

Note the verb usage in Eefoof's notice: "Notice: We're currently being dugg and slashdotted (at the same time) -- bear with us."

Digg isn't really a word but it is clearly derived from the verb dig which is probably why Eefoof said they had been "dugg" when they posted the notice. They aren't the first to do so. Calacanis has used it. So have Paul Stamatiou, KrazyDad, Performancing and many others.

The problem for Digg is that while they own Digg.com they don't own Dugg.com or Digging.com or other variations of the word Digg. Brand names turning into widely used verbs can also cause trademark issues -- they did for Xerox and Kleenex. So far for Digg and Slashdot the verb usage is only being used to refer to these specific websites. Wikipedia used to have a listing for Slashdotted, but it now rolls over to a listing for "Slashdot effect." Slashdot doesn't own that domain either. The Dugg.com owner seems to be aware of the "Dugg" usage as they are asking over $5,000 for the domain.