Digg This: Ask Opens BigNews

A joint project by Ask and Digg led to the opening of BigNews, a service for tracking important and widely discussed news stories.

No fanfare accompanied the debut of Silicon Alley Insider said Digg also has a place under the hood of BigNews. Digg ratings have an impact on the BigFactor algorithm.

Ask touted BigNews for people who like to find many viewpoints, and "not just stories from the wire services." But quickly scanning the BigNews front page shows four sources dominating the content: New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, and MSNBC.

BigNews does place a lot of news at one's fingertips, keeping in line with the philosophy of other Ask features and services. There is a lot to see for news junkies, and links out to blogs and additional content everywhere, making it worth a visit. Maybe even a bookmark.