By Jessica Roy 8/01/12 6:31pm

Can You Digg It?

The infamous pic. (Photo: Businessweek)

Kevin Rose Explains Embarrassing Businessweek Cover: Photog ‘Promised Me He Wouldn’t Use It’

Last night, Digg founder Kevin Rose announced that he was doing an AMA on Reddit. Following the announcement, he immediately vacated the site and did not return to it for 24 hours. As many of the interested Redditors are refugees from Digg, they did not take kindly to this crucial misunderstanding of how exactly Reddit works. Generally, you don’t announce you’re doing an AMA unless you intend to answer questions at that very moment.

“Kevin just tweeted an Instagram picture at Alcatraz,” wrote one user. “Pretty sure he forgot about this.”

“Maybe it is symbolic of being trapped in an AMA he regrets,” retorted another.

Some time this afternoon, Mr. Rose returned to the thread in order to answer the (mostly indignant) questions that had collected while he was away. Perhaps to make up for his tardiness, he even took the time to record a few video replies to Redditors’ questions. Read More

By Jessica Roy 8/01/12 8:47am

Can You Digg It?

Mr. Rose (Photo: flickr.com/joi)

The Digg Bang Theory: Can Betaworks Make a Run on Reddit?

In the winter of 2004, soon after the husks of once-great dot-com startups had dried and shriveled, a 27-year-old college dropout named Kevin Rose deployed a barebones new site, simply named “Digg.”

It was one of the first social networks in existence. Back then, the term “social networking” hadn’t shouldered its way into our lexicon yet. Facebook was a nascent, walled platform for college gossip; Google was still idly toying with its search algorithm; Twitter wouldn’t launch for another two years.

News itself was a hierarchical affair, largely produced and disseminated by trusted broadcasters and editors. Journalism’s democratizing forces hadn’t congealed, yet; bloggers weren’t sitting front row at fashion shows or making a living off of Google Ads. The idea that a community of Internet geeks could manipulate the news cycle would’ve elicited howls of mocking laughter from the Conde kingmakers. Read More

By Jessica Roy 8/01/12 8:21am

Linkages

(Photo: Network World)

Booting Up: There’s No Such Thing as a Gmail Killer Edition

Microsoft Outlook now operates in-browser and is apparently a legitimate Gmail competitor? No flipping desks for Steve Ballmer today. [Wired]

Things are not looking good in iPad mag land. The Daily has laid off a 1/3rd of its staff. [AllThingsD]

Kevin Rose did an AMA, just in time for the release of the new Digg. It got less than 1,000 upvotes and apparently he didn’t actually answer any questions. [Reddit]

Two online poker sites are paying millions in damages following fraud and money laundering charges. Guess the government called their bluff. [New York Times]

Times Square will broadcast the Mars landing on one of those gigantic screens. The space geek in us is currently fighting with the person in us who fucking hates Times Square. [NASA]

UBS lost $356 million in the Facebook IPO. Yikes. [The New York Times]

By Jessica Roy 7/30/12 11:54am

Can You Digg It?

v1 wireframes. (Photo: Rethink Digg)

Betaworks Releases Preview of New Digg: ‘Beautiful, Image-Friendly and Ad-Free’

The clock is ticking for the team at Betaworks, which has promised to overhaul its newly-acquired social news site Digg by Thursday. Today the team published a preview of V1, complete with photos of design wireframes and some hints as to what we can expect of the new release.

Rethink Digg stresses that V1 will adhere to minimalist themes. Many of the bloated features tacked on to the old version of Digg as an afterthought–features that drove many of its users permanently to Reddit–will be lumped off in favor of three core principles: “Top Stories, Popular and Upcoming.”

Hmm, that sounds familiar. Read More

By Jessica Roy 7/26/12 8:04am

Linkages

(Original photo: App Advice)

Booting Up: Nobody Wants a Stupid Facebook Phone Edition

Deconstructing the myth of the “booth babe.” [Jezebel]

Speaking of myths, the Facebook phone is apparently a reality, which is a shame because nobody wants a stupid Facebook phone. [Bloomberg]

Roku continues getting cozy with pay TV, raises $45 million from News Corps. and BSkyB. [TechCrunch]

Kevin Rose on the new Betaworks incarnation of Digg: “It’s very simple, and there’s a lot of emphasis on real-time.” Version one of the new Digg is set to debut in one week. [GigaOm]

Google is livestreaming its announcement about rolling out a fiber network in Kansas City today. [Google]

Zynga shares tumbled 42 percent yesterday; not even gullible mothers taking care of virtual crops can fix that. [Bloomberg]

By Jessica Roy 7/24/12 12:00pm

Can You Digg It?

(Photo: Rethink Digg)

Rethink Digg Survey Says: 92 Percent of Respondents Wouldn’t Recommend Digg to a Friend

Looks like the ambitious and hardworking folks behind Rethink Digg have their work cut out for them. On Friday, the team–which is tasked with revamping the ailing social news site in the next eight days–released a survey to gather user feedback on the current and future status of Digg. The results? “92% of survey respondents said that they would not recommend the current Digg to a friend.” Ouch. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 7/13/12 5:40pm

Planet Reddit

Could this be our last chance to use this wonderful image?

Redditors Have Some Feelings About this Digg Acquisition

Tomorrow (or maybe Monday, unless Betaworks is really cracking that whip) the work of rebuilding Digg will begin. But today is a day of eulogies. What slew Digg, the once-mighty social site at one time thought to be worth $200 million? The Wall Street Journal points to Twitter and Facebook. This Forbes contributor is pretty sure it was Reddit.

Actually, Redditors are pretty sure that Digg killed Digg.

We popped over to the /r/technology subreddit, where Redditors–many of them self-confessed former Digg devotees–were discussing that Forbes article. Between nostalgic ASCII spam and arguments about Ron Paul, users were pretty much unanimous (or as unanimous as Redditors get) regarding what the site had evolved into. Read More

By Nitasha Tiku and Kelly Faircloth 7/12/12 6:35pm

Can You Digg It?

Could this be our last chance to use this wonderful image?

Betaworks Acquires Digg, John Borthwick Promises, ‘We Are Reverting Digg to a Startup’

Just a couple of months after the Washington Post poached most of its staff, Digg proper–the “core assets,” anyway–finally has a fate: It’s been purchased by New York’s own Betaworks, to be combined with News.me.

As for what to expect: Betaworks CEO John Borthwick told Betabeat by email, “We are reverting digg to a startup, expect more things like paperboy,” a feature that lets you automatically update whenever you leave your house.

As for the price tag, well, that’s a little unclear. Mr. Borthwick refused to comment. However, someone with knowledge of the deal told Betabeat said that ballpark number of $500,000 had been floating around and that was the only figure the source had heard. That’s a long way from the $200 million Google is rumored to have once offered for the service, before an acquisition fell through. Read More