Digg

This article is about the website. For the place in Scotland, see Digg, Skye.

Digg, Inc.
Digg logo
Type of site
Social news
Available inEnglish
FoundedNovember 2004; 20 years ago (2004-11)
Headquarters
New York City, United States[1]
Area servedWorldwide
OwnerBuySellAds.com, Inc.[2]
Founder(s)Kevin Rose[3]
Key peopleMichael O'Connor (CEO) [4]
RevenueUnknown
Employees25 (2018)[5]
URLdigg.com
AdvertisingNone
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedDecember 5, 2004; 19 years ago (2004-12-05)
Current statusActive
Written inPython[6]

Digg (stylized in lowercase as digg) is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select articles specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launched in its current form on July 31, 2012, with support for sharing content to other social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

It formerly had been a popular social news website, allowing people to vote user-generated and web content up or down, called digging and burying, respectively. In 2012, Quantcast estimated Digg's monthly U.S. unique visits at 3.8 million.[7] Digg's popularity prompted the creation of similar sites such as Reddit.[8]

In July 2008, the former company took part in advanced acquisition talks with Google for a reported $200 million price tag, but the deal ultimately fell through. After a controversial 2010 redesign and the departure of co-founders Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose, in July 2012 Digg was sold in three parts: the Digg brand, website, and technology were sold to Betaworks for an estimated $500,000;[9] 15 staff were transferred to The Washington Post Company's "SocialCode" for a reported $12 million; and a suite of patents was sold to LinkedIn for about $4 million.[10][11][12]

In April 2018, Digg was purchased by BuySellAds, an advertising company, for an undisclosed amount.[13]

  1. ^ About, Digg.com, archived from the original on November 29, 2018, retrieved February 28, 2009
  2. ^ "Digg Inc.: Private Company Information". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on September 23, 2018. Retrieved September 23, 2018.
  3. ^ Kevin Rose's Next Move: Partner at Google Ventures, archived from the original on August 5, 2012, retrieved August 2, 2012
  4. ^ "Accelent fills CEO position for Digg". April 5, 2017. Archived from the original on September 21, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2018.
  5. ^ "FAQ". Digg.com. Archived from the original on October 19, 2020. Retrieved October 19, 2020.
  6. ^ "Jobs". Digg.com. Archived from the original on November 28, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  7. ^ "digg.com – Quantcast Audience Profile". Quantcast.com. July 16, 2012. Archived from the original on June 24, 2012. Retrieved July 16, 2012.
  8. ^ McCarthy, Pat (September 10, 2006). "Revisiting Top 10 Web Predictions of 2006". Conversionrater.com. Archived from the original on October 7, 2008. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
  9. ^ Madrigal, Alexis C. "The Big Digg Lesson: A Social Network Is Worth Precisely as Much as Its Community". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on March 22, 2018. Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  10. ^ Walker, Joseph; Ante, Spencer E. (July 13, 2012). "Once a Social Media Star, Digg Sells for $500,000". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 15, 2014. Retrieved July 16, 2012.
  11. ^ Tsukayama, Hayley (May 10, 2012). "SocialCode hires 15 employees from Digg.com". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 19, 2012. Retrieved July 16, 2012.
  12. ^ Burns, Chris (July 13, 2012). "Digg sale splits the company three ways for $16m total". Slashgear. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Retrieved July 16, 2012.
  13. ^ "The beloved Digg, once the chief rival to Reddit, was just sold to an advertising tech company". Business Insider. April 25, 2018. Archived from the original on September 23, 2018. Retrieved September 23, 2018.