According to the Wall Street Journal:
Digg Inc., a social-media pioneer once valued at more than $160 million, is selling for the deeply discounted price of about $500,000, 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.
The Wikipedia entry for Digg offers a fairly comprehensive history and overview:
The site’s main function is to let users discover, share and recommend web content. Members of the community can submit a webpage for general consideration. Other members can vote that page up (“digg”) or down (“bury”). Voting takes place on digg.com, and many websites add “digg” buttons to each page, allowing users to vote as they read content. The end product is a series of wide-ranging, constantly-updated lists of popular and trending content from around the Internet, aggregated by a social network.
Here are a round-up of various pundits’ takes on the social network’s demise:
- The Big Digg Lesson: A Social Network Is Worth Precisely as Much as Its Community – The Atlantic
- Kevin Rose: Digg Failed Because ‘Social Media Grew Up’ – WSJ
- After Raising $45M, Digg Sells for Pennies on the Dollar – Wired
- Digg buried into News.me – C|Net
- Betaworks Buys What’s Left of Social News Site Digg – NYT
- Five Social Media Companies That Went From Fabulous To Flameout – WSJ
Image courtesy ninjanoodles
AEC Forensics 