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View Full Version : Digg sold for parts and scrap metal.



Harold Mansfield
07-30-2012, 10:00 AM
Anyone who's been on the web a couple of years knows how influential Digg, the Social Bookmarking site, was. Before the explosion of Facebook and Twitter, having an article make it to the top of Digg was the holy grail of viral marketing.

At the height of it's influence and traffic on the web, offers were rumored to be in the hundreds of millions for the site, which raised a little over $45 million in venture financing. However, they didn't sell when the getting was good, and decided to hold out, and redesign the site...and that move failed miserably. It wasn't just the redesign which readers hated, but at the same time Facebook and Twitter were unstoppable forces that basically took over the web sharing.

Recently Digg was sold for between $12-15Million for it's patents to Linked IN and the Washington post, with remaining assets going for a measly $500k.

The moral to the story? The web is unpredictable. If you have $45 million invested and people start throwing around buy out numbers in the hundreds of millions. SELL!
Digg Sold To LinkedIn AND The Washington Post And Betaworks | TechCrunch (http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/12/digg-sold-to-linkedin-and-the-washington-post-and-betaworks/)

vangogh
07-30-2012, 11:35 AM
Yeah I saw this last week. Hard to believe given they once had offers of $200 million.

I don't know if the takeaway is you should always sell when someone makes a good offer. I think it's more to realize that things can change and change in a hurry. Whoever you are and whatever your business, any success you have right now could easily be taken away by competition with a better product or shifting tastes or a few missteps on your part.

For those of us who remember Digg at its height, it's not too hard to imagine a time where something similar could happen to Twitter or even Facebook. I think it would be harder for either to sink so quickly, since they both are in stronger positions now than Digg ever was, but something else could always come along and replace them.

Business Attorney
07-31-2012, 10:12 AM
I agree that it is less likely that Facebook or Twitter will sink so quickly, but I think that there is a good possibility that something else will overtake them at some point. While Digg is a drastic example, look at where AOL is today. Yahoo, with its revolving door top management, has also suffered greatly, though it is still a force on the Internet.

Two of my 20-something sons have basically abandoned Facebook. A lot of the Facebook use was apparently due to the games, and reports are that the recent games have been duds. Personally, I think Facebook's purchase of Instagram will prove to be a billion dollar bust. If they continue to make moves like that, they may accelerate their own demise.

As for Twitter, I am the only one in my family (of 7) that has an account. I know its usefulness depends on who you follow and who follows you, but I find it almost useless. I get a lot of spammy followers who I don't follow back. I probably follow too many users: local TV, radio and newspapers; local college and professional sports teams; local businesses and business organizations; local government and government officials, etc... All are of interest to me but along with tweets from a few friends, neighbors and miscellaneous others, the volume is overwhelming. The tweet seems to be the new RSS feed, except that organizing the information is much more cumbersome. Yes, you can create lists, but creating them and adding tweeters to the lists takes far more effort than it should, and moving someone from one list to another is like going back to square one.

I believe that unless Twitter evolves significantly, it will not be a force in a relatively few years.

Harold Mansfield
07-31-2012, 10:24 AM
I totally agree with you on Twitter. To me it's just a glorified message board and offers no entertainment or interaction value. It's core basic function is still short text blurbs and you have to add on extensions to even interact with the posts. To me that is so 1990's and pretty boring.

I think it will always have it's place, and can be used effectively for certain kinds of businessesm but it's not really a social network. It's a message board.

vangogh
07-31-2012, 12:49 PM
it is less likely that Facebook or Twitter will sink so quickly, but I think that there is a good possibility that something else will overtake them at some point.

I completely agree. All of these sites are just tools to connect with other people. Facebook and Twitter have so many people using them it's hard to think either will just go away. It wasn't that along ago people said the same thing about Digg or MySpace. Any of these sites can make a few missteps or another site could offer a compelling reason for some people to switch and then grow to the point where the masses begin to migrate.


I totally agree with you on Twitter. To me it's just a glorified message board and offers no entertainment or interaction value.

That's probably a selling point to many. Personally I think Facebook does too much and can be confusing to use. To each his own. I think each service has its strengths and weaknesses and appeals to different people for different things. You might be interested though that rumors suggest Twitter might want to become more Facebook like with fuller profiles. Just rumors so who knows, but I can see them going that route.

Harold Mansfield
07-31-2012, 12:53 PM
I personally think that Social Networking has reached it's plateau. I just don't see people getting exited about another one and I think Facebook will linger on because of it. As the standard. Unless someone comes up with something so incredible, so easy to use, and so integrated perfectly with mobile, that it changes the web.

Look out for Microsoft. They are back on thier game again. And looking good.

Harold Mansfield
08-01-2012, 12:18 AM
And just that quick,the new owners launch the new Digg a day early. It's aid to feature tight Facebook and Twitter Intergration:
Digg - What the Internet is talking about right now (http://digg.com/)

vangogh
08-01-2012, 12:22 AM
I'm not sure about that. At their core social networks are about the social. Human being have a need to connect. There's always going to be something out there helping us communicate with each other. With today's social networks I think you'll see niche communities growing. The biggest problem Facebook and Twitter have is their so big. They generate a lot of noise. Now a lot of that noise is signal to someone, but it doesn't always reach the right someone.

I can see social sites developing more around our different interests. People will go to the Facebook to connect with family and friends they know in real life and then visit their favorite sports community or book group online or whatever interest it is.

In time though someone will develop the next level of communication and all of these sites could quickly fall by the wayside.

ClarkLorraine
08-05-2012, 10:11 PM
I agree with Business Attorney. Facebook and Twitter have become so interwoven into our everyday lives that I don’t foresee them going away like Digg did. If they do go away it won’t be for quite a long time.

A-E
08-08-2012, 10:45 AM
I think twitter clearer platform made it move forward.
I still don't know many people who actually use twitter to GAIN any knowledge. They mostly used it to SUPPLY information. I see a lot more interactions and conversations on digg.

vangogh
08-08-2012, 03:45 PM
I think people get news from Twitter. If something is breaking it'll probably be on Twitter before it reaches anything else. Twitter is also good for following links to interesting things, assuming you're following people with similar interests that you trust.

I do have to say the new version of Digg looks really nice. They seem to be turning into a site with curated stories. Voting will still take place, but the curation should keep spam off the front page. I don't expect Digg to reach the heights it reached a few years ago, but at least it looks like the site has a chance to stick around and grow again.

Dan Furman
08-08-2012, 10:45 PM
Facebook will hang around because Grandma is on Facebook.

Even Twitter has enough mainstream to be viable for a long time. Tweets are here to stay.

DIGG.... they never got beyond geek. Kiss of death on the internet. The cutting edge can be a scary place to dwell for too long.

vangogh
08-09-2012, 10:47 AM
Even Facebook and Twitter could go away with some missteps. For example Twitter lately seems to be in combat with 3rd party developers. Those developers created tools that helped Twitter grow, albeit with power users. Those power users are the ones who created replies and hash tags and many other things that helped Twitter grow. Maybe they no longer need that. Maybe they're pushing away the very people who would give them something new.

Facebook pushes the envelope on privacy a lot. Perhaps they cross the line one too many times. Perhaps another community gains enough traction to really pull people away. I do agree with you though. I don't see either going away any time soon, because both are popular with the mainstream. However I don't think either is automatically safe because they got big.

Digg was mainly a geek thing and didn't grow enough beyond it's geek roots. Things could be different now. I don't see Digg growing to Facebook or Twitter size, but it looks like it's now a site made for more than geeks. Still pretty tech heavy, but I'm seeing news stories on the front page that have nothing to do with geeks. Guess we'll see where it grows.