Digg is back. (But do we care?)

For those who don’t know what Digg is or have already forgotten about its existence, let me tell you something about one of the most interesting “after-the-bubble” internet stories.

Digg is a social news aggregator founded by Kevin Rose in 2004. From Wikipedia:

“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, plus many websites add “digg” buttons to their pages, allowing users to vote as they browse the web. 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.”

One of the main Digg’s goals was to democratize online news and content.. and it was without any doubt a success. In 2008 it was valued $160 million and it was in talks with Google about an acquisition for $200 million. 4 years later, in July 2012, Digg was sold in 3 parts for around $16 million. What has happened?

One of the biggest missteps was the website’s redesign in 2010. Digg removed some of the core features and presented a whole new design while insisting it was the same. Users’ response was catastrophic, the traffic dropped around 34% and many moved to Reddit, which enjoyed new visitors.

In addition, when Facebook and Twitter became mainstream, people discovered a new way of sharing the news, It is easy, fast and more social. As Rose acknowledged, it took 8 steps to submit a post on Digg, which is an eternity on the Internet. The only advantage Digg has, is the anonymity.

Finally, Digg’s voting algorithm had a dark side too. Reports suggested, that more than a half of the home page content was controlled by only 100 Digg’s users (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/top-100-digg-users-control-56-of-diggs-homepage-content). When the number of monthly visitors is in millions, something went wrong.

Lesson to learn?

• Respect your audience
• Don’t make radical design changes (without a good explanation)
• Make sure your product works
• Continue to innovate

As the title says, Digg is back. It has a new design, with similar features and honestly, I like it. But then again, there is Facebook, Twitter, Flipboard and many more and it just might be too late.

M.