Every startup team has great and spirited debates about its products (or services).  We debate what works, what doesn’t, what makes it unique, and most importantly, what users want. We draw inspiration when new products launch and change the world — or even some small part of it.  Like Salesforce.com back in the day, the family of iPhones or, more recently, Twitter.

And similarly, we witness product missteps that make us wince, rant or just shake our heads.   One such case emerged today with DiggBar (Digg’s URL shortening service) under the bright lights of TechCrunch, in an article titled, DiggBar Commits Career Suicide, Starts Redirecting To Digg Homepage.  In the words of  Jason Kincaid:

…clicking on a DiggBar shortlink will send anyone who isn’t already logged in to Digg to Digg.com’s list of comments about an article rather than the article itself. So, if I linked to TechCrunch.com using the DiggBar, users would first have to go to Digg’s page about TechCrunch.com before they could actually make it over here. In short, this is totally ridiculous.

This move comes just a few months after DiggBar caused an uproar among owners and users alike with it’s decision to skim the hard-earned link love of others.  Whether or not you’re a fan of Digg or DiggBar, it’s a story worth watching.  And not because it’s fun to criticize the decisions of other companies, although that is the favorite pasttime of far too many.

If you’re involved in shaping your company’s online products, there are several lessons that can be learned from the tale of DiggBar:

1. Resist the temptation: There’s no such thing as “pulling a fast one” in today’s online world — at least not when you have a high profile like Digg does.  Companies must resist the urge to cut corners or claim more than they should (whether it’s pageviews, SEO ampage or dollars).  As Michael Arrington stated, “this is extremely shortsighted of Digg“
2. Stay on the same page:  This article mentions that Digg’s founder, Kevin Rose, was not aware that this change was going live (he was on a two-week vacation).    Huh?  How does a feature like this (one that’s sure to get noticed and not in a good way) get launched without the knowledge of the company’s founder and face?
3. Not sure?  Ask:  There’s no way that these decisions weren’t heavily debated among the bright minds within Digg.  And yet, they’ve made multiple hihgly public missteps in the past 100 days.  I find it hard to believe that if the DiggBar had asked (and really listened to) users, partners or even friends in the media, they would’ve made these choices.
4. Know thy enemy:  As Arrington points out, Bit.ly may be Digg’s biggest direct competitor soon.  Their focus has been on creating a “clean experience that is predictable and creates user trust. With Digg, you can’t be sure where people will end up once they click the URL. And the constantly changing policies only add to the uncertainty.”
5. There is such a thing as bad PR:  This one speaks for itself, but when you show up in TechCrunch, Mashable, Forbes, PC World and others… and they’re using words like “uproar”, “hate” and “career suicide”, well that’s a rough day in the PR trenches.

We all make mistakes, but when you keep making them — and they’re of the self-inflicted variety — it’s time to take a step back and seek out the root cause.  Certainly a lesson we can all learn, but hopefully don’t need to.