Jonathon at the Philoneist just snagged an interview with the creator of Shoutwire. I want to draw your attention to this question:

While Shoutwire was programmed from discrete language than Digg, its "shouting" system is similar. What differences can you cite between the two services besides specializing in different subjects for news stories?That is like asking "how is the LA Times different from the NY Times?" The short answer is that since they both cover "news" they are very similar. The differences arise from their editorial and content focus. You brought up one important difference already, Digg is limited to technology only. ShoutWire has a goal of covering a broader range of topics. I am sure technology will always get strong coverage, but we want to cover Sports, Entertainment, and Health with the same level of empasis and quality.

That's my opinion on the whole thing as well. Yes Digg.com was first, but it's, admittedly, a marriage of del.icio.us and slashdot itself. I think we all agree that there is plenty of room for healthy competition here. I mean, I look at hundreds of sites a day, and most of them are roughly on the same topics. I don't just visit one site, I visit many and I'd HATE it if there were only one good site out there. I visit digg dozens of time per day, now I'm also visiting Shoutwire. I still like digg best, but diggnation is my favorite vidcast/podcast (bar none) and I'm sure that has a lot to do with my fierce loyalty to Alex and Kevin. Yes I'm a Rev3 member, shame on you if you aren't. ;)

Since I've been watching them for months (even longer if you count TSS) I feel like I know them. I think they would be happy to see digg go head-to-head with a similar site. I'm sure if you were to ask them they'd say, "Cool. Bring it on Shoutwire."