Digg is returning thanks to Digg and Reddit co-founders Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian (1 Viewer)

[Cpvr]

Digg – once known as “the homepage of the internet” – is making a come-back, after being bought by its co-founder Kevin Rose in partnership with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

It’s an interesting move given that Reddit was a competitor who pretty much inherited that “homepage of the web” accolade. Also ‘interesting’ is the pair’s belief that most moderation can be done by AI …

A quick guide to Digg​

For those not old enough to have used it, Digg was essentially a social news site. Both editors and users could post links, and users would then upvote them (“digg”) or downvote them (“bury”).

A key feature was that other sites could embed those digg buttons, allowing users to vote on links even without visiting the site itself.

Digg was so influential that even larger sites could find themselves unable to cope with the traffic resulting from a link making it to the top of the homepage.

The site was essentially killed by a combination of an unpopular update, widespread manipulation, and the growing popularity of Facebook – whose Like and Share buttons proved more popular. In 2012, the company was broken up and sold for parts.

Digg is returning​

The New York Times reports that Digg co-founder has bought the domain and other assets, and is planning to relaunch it with the assistance of Alexis Ohanian.

On Wednesday, Mr. Rose announced that he had bought back Digg for an undisclosed sum from Money Group, a digital media company, and would rebuild it to take on Reddit. And he is doing it with an unlikely ally: Mr. Ohanian.

“This is the perfect time to revisit this idea with fresh eyes,” Mr. Rose, 48, now a venture capitalist at True Ventures, said in an interview. He said social media had become so ubiquitous that “it doesn’t need to be winner take all,” adding that “we don’t need to take down Reddit to win” […]

Their investors include True Ventures, where Mr. Rose is a partner, and Seven Seven Six, a venture firm founded by Mr. Ohanian. They also hired fewer than a dozen engineers and designers for the new Digg and brought on Justin Mezzell, a longtime collaborator of Mr. Rose’s, to be chief executive. Mr. Rose and Mr. Ohanian will join Digg’s board, with Mr. Rose as chair.

Most moderation will be done by AI​

It’s not known how much they paid, nor is it entirely clear what the USP will be, but The Vergereports that – unlike Reddit – they believe human moderators are largely unnecessary.

So much of a moderator’s job, Rose says, is just grunt work: fighting spam, reviewing obvious policy violations, litigating pointless fights. “How can we remove the janitorial work of moderators and community managers,” he says, “and convert what they do every day into more of a kind of ‘director of vibes, culture and community’ than someone that is just sitting there doing the laborious crappy stuff that comes in through the front door?”

The new Digg, Rose says, will include lots of AI-forward ways to sort through and make decisions on content.

You can sign up for early access​

The domain is live, and you can register your email address to be given early access once it relaunches.

What’s your view? Do you think there’s a place for a revamped Digg, or has that time come and gone?
Source: https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/05/digg...it-co-founders-kevin-rose-and-alexis-ohanian/

 

[Cloaked]

I loved Digg. In a way it was the start of the wain in popularity of forums.

 

[Cpvr]

I loved Digg. In a way it was the start of the wain in popularity of forums.

Same here. It was a great place to advertise forums as well.

Kevin Rose, Alexis Ohanian acquire Digg | TechCrunch

Digg is now back under the ownership of original founder Kevin Rose, who is joined by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

techcrunch.com

So why now? It’s a combination of reasons, according to Rose, who says that the existing social media landscape has become toxic, messy, and riddled with misinformation — and AI is well-placed to address that. Just the “out of the box stuff” is “insane,” Rose observes, noting there are “Google endpoints already where I don’t even have to mess with a model at all, where I can get sub 200 millisecond response times on any comment under about 300 characters and rated across 20 plus different vectors of of sentiment, so violence, toxicity, hate speech — you name it. Like, that just wasn’t possible five years ago.”

More broadly, says Rose, “We’re at this other inflection point around AI and what it can do. And when you think about these big shifts, they require you to go and step back and revisit first principles and think about how you might change [a business] from the ground up, and that’s what Alexis and I and Justin [Mezzell],” who is a longtime collaborator of Rose and now Digg’s CEO, will be doing, he said.

Ohanian echoes Rose’s sentiments in a press release about the new Digg. “Online communities thrive when there’s a balance between technology and human judgment,” he said. “We’re bringing Digg back to ensure that balance exists. Kevin and I are here to build something better than what social platforms are offering today. AI should handle the grunt work in the background while humans focus on what they do best: building real connections.”

Ohanian, for his part, has dipped in and out of Reddit over time. He first left the company in 2009 before returning as its chairman in 2014 and then stepped down from the boardaltogether in 2020.

Both Rose and Ohanian have invested in other companies through the years, both as individuals and through institutional funds. Just this week, Ohanian joined Frank McCourt’s bid to buy TikTok’s U.S. business.

Their parallel paths as investors have now converged, with True Ventures, where Rose as a general partner, and Ohanian’s venture firm Seven Seven Six, both investing in Digg.

While Mezzell, a veteran product designer, will lead the company’s day-to-day operations, Rose will serve as Digg’s chairperson and adviser, and Ohanian will sit on the board.

A new version of the Digg platform is launching soon. Invites will be rolled out in the coming weeks. In the meantime, noted Rose, there is now a landing page that allows people to input their email.

“Then there will be kind of a first come, first served [system] for user name picking and things of that nature,” says Rose. “We’re not spammers,” he continues. “We’re not going to sign you up to some crazy weekly digest or some s—. If you just go over there and input it in your credentials — your email — then we’ll just let you know when it’s live, and you can come grab a user name, kick the tires, tell us where we’re messing up, and and we promise to fast follow and fix all that stuff.”

Even then, says Rose, don’t expect too much straightaway. Turnarounds take time.

“Where we’re really going is, a year, year and a half from now, is when you come to Digg, it’s going to be very much more like the leap that happened to Figma, where it’s free form, it’s dynamic, it’s an interface that is unlike any other that you’ve seen,” says Rose. “It’s not your old-school forums.”

 

[Ravenfreak]

I never used Digg before, it pretty much died I think before I got even interested in Reddit. Though if they're going to rely on AI for moderation, you can forget about me joining the website. There's going to be issues left and right with the moderation if they rely on AI. I guess they really want to earn more money and that's why they decided to bring it back. :V

 

[Cpvr]

I signed up to receive early access to the new Digg, so I’ll provide updates once I receive access to the new version!

Thanks for signing up to be one of the first to experience the all-new Digg! We're excited to show you what we've been building.

Keep an eye on your inbox—invites will start rolling out in the coming weeks!

In the meantime, you can click the button below to learn more about the reboot.