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Betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg

blog.betaworks.com

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Re: Betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg

#31

Post by chimi »

Sorry for my ignorance. I've been searching for exactly what went wrong with the Digg redesign, but I can't find anything that really spells it out. Something with side-by-side comparisons or a deeper analysis than "Users leave in drove after Digg redesign that alienates user base." How did it alienate those users? Of course I was aware that it happened, but because I wasn't part of the community, I never understood what it was, exactly.

Also, is this an example that illustrates why craigslist refuses to redesign their site? A redesign really could spell the end of craiglist like digg.

Re: Betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg

#34

Post by citricsquid »

jgroome wrote: post #13

> The News.me team will take Digg back to its essence: the best place to find, read and share the stories the internet is talking about. Right now. With my cynicism hat on nice and tight, it seems a bit late for that. Digg WAS, in its heyday, the best place to find and share online content. But as the management undertook on iffy decision after another, and as imitators sprung up left right and centre, it lost its pl…

There is always room for a better content aggregator, reddit etc. all have their own set of flaws and problems. If the Betaworks team have the ideas to make a great content aggregator then purchasing the Digg brand is absolutely brilliant. The hard part of launching a new site is traction, if they can launch with "the new Digg" (and the site is impressive) that $500k will be the best $500k they could possibly spend on marketing. Techcrunch, Mashable, Reddit... it would be the front page of everywhere, "Digg crashed and burned and after being bought for $500k it's back and it's amazing!", hell maybe even CNN and the BBC would cover it. Not only that they have the entire userbase of Digg to market their new site to. A social news site biggest problem is getting users; this solves that problem (and them some)

If we assume that instead of the thought process being "We can have Digg for $500k... should we do it?" the thought process was actually: "We have this brilliant idea for content aggregation, how can we most effectively implement and market this?" then it sounds like a much safer and sensible thing to do.

Re: Betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg

#35

Post by hello_asdf »

jgroome wrote: post #13

> The News.me team will take Digg back to its essence: the best place to find, read and share the stories the internet is talking about. Right now. With my cynicism hat on nice and tight, it seems a bit late for that. Digg WAS, in its heyday, the best place to find and share online content. But as the management undertook on iffy decision after another, and as imitators sprung up left right and centre, it lost its pl…

I liked Reddit back when it was less well known. Now, it just appears that the content appeals to the lowest common denominator. Some of the content is still great (i.e. r/dwarffortress), but a lot of the site has degraded into junk. If anyone has some good subreddits that are still decent, I'd love to know what they are.

Re: Betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg

#37

Post by grassclip »

chimi wrote: post #31

Sorry for my ignorance. I've been searching for exactly what went wrong with the Digg redesign, but I can't find anything that really spells it out. Something with side-by-side comparisons or a deeper analysis than "Users leave in drove after Digg redesign that alienates user base." How did it alienate those users? Of course I was aware that it happened, but because I wasn't part of the community, I never understood…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg#Digg_v4

I believe there were "sponsored" posts as well.

Re: Betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg

#38

Post by lifeisstillgood »

uptown wrote: post #2

From WSJ: "The price was just $500,000, three people familiar with the matter said—a pittance for a company that raised $45 million from prominent investors including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Marc Andreessen." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230437380457752...

Just to clarify - they raised 45m

So either they spent 45m in past 4 years,

or they did not draw down all of it

or someone paid 1/2m for 10m in the bank?

Or am I fundamentally missing something obvious

Re: Betaworks has acquired the core assets of Digg

#39

Post by ig1 »

runn1ng wrote: post #20
uptown wrote: post #2

From WSJ: "The price was just $500,000, three people familiar with the matter said—a pittance for a company that raised $45 million from prominent investors including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Marc Andreessen." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230437380457752...

"None of Digg's remaining employees will join Betaworks as part of the acquisition." what did they acually buy? The know how? The technology? None of that is revolutionary today. And there is no community on digg right now whatsoever (unlike /. which still lives its own life). Maybe the name is worth something, but I don't really think that it matters that much.

7 million uniques a month disagree.
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