I have been using Digg today – all day. Two years ago that wouldn’t have been such a crazy statement for me. But recently I’ve rarely visited the site.

So why is it back in my good graces? Because of the new Digg Recommendation Engine. Digg just started beta testing it and I was luckily enough to get it this morning. After several hours of playing with it, I feel confident in saying that it’s great.

I have a longer analysis over at VentureBeat, but simply put, it allows me to find useful content once again on Digg. For too long I’ve looked at Digg’s homepage and seen it filled with stuff I’ve read hours beforehand. It was a waste of time to even go. The Upcoming section was more interesting, but filled with way more crap than anything useful. It was too time consuming.

This Recommended area strikes the perfect balance. It’s mostly stuff that is relatively new without being total crap because people who digg the same stuff I do have dugg it. These recommendations should get better with time – and even just from this morning until right now, I would say that they are.

I do wish that there was a way to dismiss or hide recommended items rather than having to bury them. Sometimes I feel like just because a story isn’t my cup of tea, that doesn’t mean I should bury it – I used to reserve buries for total crap. Now I may reconsider that stance to make the site and this area more tailored for me.

This may even help Digg’s homepage become more diverse over time because it could end the cycle of like-minded people digging the same sites and same stories over and over again. Digg wasn’t always like that, but it became that.

Screw Digg’s homepage, I’m bookmarking this recommended page. Digg just got useful again.