Diggs Officially Dead – Sold to Betaworks
So today (yesterday now technically had internet problems last night) marks the official death of Digg as we know it. Last month digg’s staff was bought up by the Washington Post and today the remaining digg.com site data were sold to Betaworks. It should be noted that linked in also bought some of their patents.
Digg if you’re not familiar with it was really a pioneer in the web 2.0 world one of the first sites to bring the users into it as a key part of the experience. Digg let you submit news stories and vote up the ones you liked the best pretty much what reddit is now famous for.
For a couple years I was heavily involved in the digg community and am still friends with many of the users who were the most successful on the site there myself included of course being the most successful % wise at submitting stories pre digg v4. Digg v4 though two years ago spelt the beginning of the end for the site. Pretty much no one liked it and instead of rolling back they kept it up for two years and ran the site into the ground to end up with the only 500k price tag. It really truly is sad to see it go for so little.
Lastly it should be noted that at least as of now the site isn’t fully dead just dead as we know it. The future is still uncertain for what Betaworks decides to do with it. I really doubt they can bring it back to its glory days as that ship has sailed but we’ll see.
Track your DIGG Stats
http://socialblade.com/digg/diggfpdata.php
Mario Marathon 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?vtv7HtUZBv3U
YouDigg (April Fools’ Day Joke): http://www.youtube.com/watch?vvi9erdy7sz0
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304373804577523181002565776.html
Digg Inc. a social-media pioneer once valued at more than $160 million is selling for the deeply discounted price of about $500000 three people familiar with the matter said.
The buyer is New York technology development firm Betaworks which is attempting to revive a news-sharing site that was outmaneuvered by Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.
Digg confirmed Thursday it sold its brand website and technology to Betaworks. The price is a pittance for a company that raised $45 million from prominent investors including Facebook investor Greylock Partners LinkedIn Inc. founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
Digg received higher offers from bidders that included technology and publishing companies and start-ups but ultimately decided Betaworks had the best plan for reviving its brand these people said. In May Washington Post Co. hired 15 members of Digg’s engineering teammore than half of the company’s overall stafffor its SocialCode digital media subsidiary.
Betaworks is acquiring a website that still has a well known brand and sizable audience of more than 7 million visitors per month as of May according to comScore.
Digg was once one of the most promising start-ups in Silicon Valley. The website was founded in 2004 as a way for consumers to put together their own collections of news and other Internet content rather than relying on the choices made by newspaper editors.
Digg users would post links on the site’s home page then others would vote on their choices determining the prominence of the stories they posted.
“They were one of the first social media sites” says Kristina Lerman an assistant research professor at the University of Southern California who has studied Digg and other social-news sharing sites. “They introduced social components like having friends and followers.”
The site quickly rose to prominence in part due to telegenic founder Kevin Rose a former cable television talk show host. In 2006 Mr. Rose landed on the cover of BusinessWeek with the now infamous cover line “How This Kid Made $60 Million in 18 Months” referring to the company’s valuation at the time.
In the fall of 2008 Digg raised nearly $29 million in venture capital from Greylock Partners Highland Capital Partners and other financiers in an investment valuing the company at around $164 million according to Dow Jones VentureSource.
Over the years the company was rumored to be in negotiations to sell itself several times including to Google Inc. in 2008 for a reported $200 million. The deal was never completed.
For early employees with equity stakes in the company like Owen Byrne the site’s first lead engineer the failure to sell the company was a huge disappointment. Mr. Byrne who left the company in 2007 said in an interview he never got to “cash out and go live on the Riviera.”
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