Digg for sale?

HMTKSteve

Anyone else heard the $150M rumors about Digg being in acquisition with News Corp? I posted some Details about it but I can't get all my facts in line because Alexa will not display traffic graphs for myspace at this moment...

I don't see why anyone other then a search company would want to buy Digg. All Digg is IS a user-generated news search website.

Apreche

Web startups like Digg and YouTube are designed to be sold. They have no other way of making money. They simply create something which does not generate large revenues, but does have a lot of value to other companies who have big wallets. I would not be surprised if any large company bought Digg, because that is what Digg and every other Web 2.0 business wants. They want to create something valuable to other companies, so they they will get bought.

You see, in the first web bubble, the startups had nobody else to rely on for monetization. Nobody was buying them up or giving them AdSense. The companies that did not monetize are dead. The companies that managed to monetize themselves, like Google, Yahoo and Amazon are now huge beasts. They conquered the web because they made the valuable product that made money on its own. By not relying on others, they built themselves up into something to be relied on.

Web 2.0 is a completely different beast. Nobody is actually forming their own huge company the way Google did. Nobody is trying to make it on their own. They are basically employees of the bigger companies, in a way. They use their own money to invest in new technologies that are hit or miss. They don't make money on their own, and they don't grow into real companies on their own. All they do is try to get their project absorbed into a real company. Real companies love this because it is risk-free research and development.

When you buy YouTube or Digg, you aren't buying technology. I could make a website like YouTube or Digg with a weeks work. I wouldn't have the same horsepower to run it on, but that's not the point. The technology of Digg is so well known that it would be pointless to pay millions for it. Buying Digg for their servers is equally pointless since you can get computers from Sun or someone else for less money. If you want to buy a company like Digg, you buy it for three things. You buy it for the smart people who work at Digg, you buy it for the brand of Digg and you buy it for the eyeballs of the Diggers.

This is the way of the web now. You have a few players with all the moneys and all the say. People trying to make something new are unable or unwilling to become one of the big boys. Instead, they just try their best to be absorbed and get a big payoff. When Digg, or any other web 2.0 startup, gets rolling there are only four questions to ask. Will it sell? When will it sell? To whom will it sell? For how much will it sell? No matter what the answers are to those questions, I am never surprised.

Kiey

Every time I've heard stuff about Digg selling itself to someone else, Kevin Rose always comes out and says they aren't going to do that.

I think it's very likely that if Digg were sold that the site would die, especially if News Corp bought them.

Apreche

I think it's very likely that if Digg were sold that the site would die, especially if News Corp bought them.

That couldn't be further from the truth. I already showed that if anyone is buying Digg, it's for the eyeballs. Killing the site would defeat the purpose of buying it. I think you can expect Digg to stick around for a long time.

HMTKSteve

I think what he means is that the large "left-leaning, anti-Fox News, anti-Bush" types that have invaded since the politics areas were added will leave.

Hey, maybe that's a good thing?

I can't stand the inclusion of politics on Digg.

It's akin to allowing the mental patients into your store so you can say you get more foot traffic...

Apreche

When Digg added more topics, I was pleased. I would still like Digg to have these categories in the future. However, when I see what stories actually get Dugg up, it is very disconcerting. I'd love to read politics and science stories, but the ones that get Dugg are almost always bullshit. How many times do we need to debunk the crazy conspiracy nutcases? How many times do people need to be told about the basic laws of physics? How many times do people need to be told that magic herbs and vitamins do not cure cancer?

I'm all for a democratic process as opposed to an editorial one, but there needs to be some sort of filter. The founding fathers of the US knew that the masses couldn't be trusted with unbridled pure democracy. That's why we have representatives and electors to act as a stupidity filter. Purely editorial sites like Slashdot have pros and cons. Sites like Digg have a different set of pros and cons. What we need is something in-between. It will be far from perfect, but it will be better than anything else we can get. I believe it was an old quote from Winston Churchill, or at least it is according to the Internetron.

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."

Digg should have as many categories as it can handle. It just needs a way to keep the bullshit out.

HMTKSteve

I think my biggest problem with the political things on Digg is that it becomes a race to be the first to submit one so you can write the title to your particular political leanings.

I've seen some sensational titles but... Some of those Diggers leave even the NYT in the dust in their headlines!

I keep expecting to see: "Babies die. Death's blamed on Bush."

OR

"Soldiers die. Blamed on aid and comfort given to Al Qaeda by Liberal Senators."

etc...

In fact, I once went to submit a political opinion piece and found it had been submitted 3 minutes before me with a headline that was no where near what the article would have suggested.

Apreche

I totally agree. Sometimes I think that digg should allow us to bury stories if the title and description don't match the headline, but there is a better solution. Digg should take it's title and description from the article itself, like Google News does. Either that, or democratize the headline and description by wiki-izing it. Wikinews is a surprisingly unbiased news source, but it is tremendously slow.

LiquidTim

What is everyone's Digg user name?

HMTKSteve

I use the same user name just about everywhere.

Andrew

Rhiannon1214

blast flame

blast_flame

Apreche

I'll let you guess.