OPEN

The Digg model of a news community  is so powerful that everyone’s been waiting for markets other than tech to take advantage of it. Now MTV’s VH1 station in the US has done just that – and bagged a serious scoop straight off from a reader.

The VH1 "Best Links Ever" launched 11 days ago, without much of a fanfare encourages visitors to submit photos, links or videos to the site in categories including celebrity, downloads, movies, music, random and pop culture for others to vote on.

The site’s first big story when one VH1 contributor leaked a full itinerary for Tom Cruise’s promotional tour of New York this week to promote Mission Impossible Tour. they even thoughtfully provided a map of where the star was going to be and when:

Captain Thetan is taking planes, trains, automobiles, speedboats and
motorcycles across the entire city, stopping only to dance on cars,
pump his fists in the air, and make bizarre, alienating statements his
publicist wishes he wouldn’t! Expect him to be on his A-game, cranking
the crazy up even higher – cause this time, he’s got a child to provide
for!

As far as the technology behind Best Ever Links it’s not clear if they have ripped off the Digg model or licenced it. But hats off to the guys at MTV: this approach was crying out for pop culture version.

Expect to see more of these… I’m still waiting for current affairs or political community to pop up – it would work really well for that.

: : Surprisingly, Digg readers don’t seem interested in the imitative flattery of VH1 – this link about the service has only garnered 5 votes (including mine) at the time this post was being written.

Via Buzzmachine.