Digg Sports vs. Crankk

So I'm sitting in my Denver hotel room - two Fat Tire's down - writing my third post of the day...can you say bored on a business trip on a Saturday night?

A couple of weeks ago, Digg, the social news aggregation site, expanded beyond it's core technology focus to include additional categories. Most recently a sports category was added. In reviewing the subcategories, I found that most of the major American sports are covered, but there's no cycling subcategory. Nope...it appears that this most excellent sport/activity will be relegated to second tier status in the "Other Sports" subcategory. Unless of course, the story is about freeriding or downhilling, then perhaps one could argue for the "Extreme" subcategory. Let's just declare right here that even if the story is "extreme," if it's about cycling that it goes in "Other Sports." Ok? Otherwise, the stories will be splintered across the site and it will be difficult for Digg to evaluate the need for a subcategory for cycling. And guess what sport the first story in the "Other Sports" subcategory was about. Yup. Cycling! It was Bobby Julich's write up on Floyd Landis' amazing comeback in Stage 17.

See Digg...the Sport's section is barely a few days old and there is already evidence that cycling needs it's own subcategory.

So where does this leave Crankk, the upstart Digg clone that's focused on cycling? With categories like "MTB," "Fixed Gear," and "Training," clearly bicycle blogosphere stories fit nicely on Crankk. Do the benefits of being a focused niche player outweigh the potential audience size of Digg? One things for sure, Crankk will need to grow its audience quickly if it is to flourish. To grow it will need to provide some widgets for bloggers to integrate Crankk's "Crankk It" buttons and links into their platforms.

There are benefits to the more generic aggregation of Digg, however. For example, the possibility exists that more people will become interested in cycling as stories rise to the top of the "Sports" category or even to the "Top Stories" section.

So what do you think? Can Crankk grow fast enough? Will cycling stories make it to Digg? I'd be interested in the views of bloggers and how they may or may not differ from those that do not maintain a blog.