Shouting is a recently implemented feature at Digg. You can shout to yourself or shout to your friends. According to a recent note I read, if you have less than 123 friends, you can shout to all of them at once. I'm not sure if that number is correct or not.

I have 174 mutual friends at Digg. This is what I have left after I deleted everyone I'd befriended in the past who hadn't reciprocated. It was nearly 300 when I started cleaning house. I get notified of at least one new fan every single day. You'd think they were newer Digg members, but only part of them are. Digg members who joined in 2005 and 2006 are befriending me.

I receive shouts all day long. Maybe 10 or 12 of all of them are pointing to a Digg article. I haven't sent even one shout through Digg yet (and I probably never will). One of the stories I dugg today had this as the first comment:

Story buried as "spam" due to submitter spamming my shouts! Please don't spam my shouts in the future. Thanks.

I checked and that person is not one of my friends, thank goodness. The story (which was actually just a video) is separate from the shout. Ah, but Digg members bury stories for just about any reason these days.

One man's garbage is another man's treasure, or something like that. I don't consider the shouts spam, but as another way for my friends to let me know of a story they think is worthy of a digg or two. I read all my shouts and if I want to digg something or not, that's my prerogative.

Digg is not the only social website using shouts. I get them at MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog as well. So I ask this question: In your opinion, are the Digg shouts another form of spam? If so, how are they any different than the other shouts you receive?