What is Digg?50 Comments
- jayadelson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21FM has set our expectations from the start. This is not "on the tip of my tongue."
We knew FM was growing and we're giving them an opportunity to do so. We love their model, and we're enjoying the fact that we have time to let them scale. Futhermore, Digg doesn't even use up FM's resources; They have assigned specific people to us (they have more than four people, I assure you) and it does not take away from their other clients. - jayadelson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Our business model is not to be bought out. We have a fully funded business plan, and are headed towards profitabiity. We never talk about our revenue numbers, I wonder why people assume we (or FM) is not entirely on target?
(Also, Radiant, where on earth do you get those numbers? And what do you mean by "losing money," who said that?) - jayadelson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Thanks for the offer! (Are you sure you don't want to work for FM? I hear working for John Battelle is cool!)
- jayadelson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Well, FM isn't entirely self-service. They also have a salesforce, essentially the same thing we would be doing if we had our own sales team.
- ansonparker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9So what is it particularly about FM's model you like? I'm curious as to a) why you've outsourced advertising at all and b) why you think their self-service model is the way to go.
With your own advertising solution you could deliver some really well-targetted advertising on Digg -- for example Apple ads to people with a trend for digging Apple related stories. Surely FM could never offer you this level of sophistication. - canewediggit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9jay, i guess i should have addressed the above for you. imo, you are the guys on the cover of business week, they need to be meeting and exceeding your expectations, not setting them for you. if you need a closer......
- canewediggit, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12best point made- if you want really sell ads, use the phone.
kevin, i'll happily crack the phones for you, holler! - klitscher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7FTA: "This phrase, first coined by star quarterback Rod Tidwell in the movie Jerry Maguire"
Except Cuba Gooding's character was a Wide Receiver, not a QB...regardless interesting article with Jay's response updated... - chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@Yeyui
Uh, obviously you've never heard of this concept called a "business." - RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Digg can be lax about ad revenue because their business model is to attract users and get bought out, not to become profitable based on ad revenue and merchandise. Federated Media is the company that turned BoingBoing into Nascar. The sheer number of ads on BB tells me that you need a banner blizzard to make a blog profitable. This business model is stretched to the limit even on a popular site like BB. No wonder why FM is struggling.
- vdxc, on 09/29/2008, -0/+4Kevin recently said that Digg is breaking even at the moment, not loosing money.
- shout, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12how bout generate a business plan that actually makes money
- greymaxcat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I'd pay a subscription for Digg...
But I cant stand ads... - RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7In the end, none of this matters because the majority of Diggers use Firefox + adblock :)
- AhmedF, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Err Jay - its from the BusinessWeek article and the further followups (started off with breaking even at 3 million/year, and then either you or Kevin stated that you guys were actually losing a bit).
- hemphill81, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@lakawak
Wow you have to be the most negative person I have seen on Digg. In your comments you constantly put people down. Do you have a bully (yes I saw the comment where you stated do adults use the term bully) in your school that keeps beating you up so you come here to flame people anonymously to vent aggression? Please do share.
p.s. Use the check spelling button next time. - hemphill81, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5You would be surprised by how many users do not use ad-block. I don't use it I feel that I am using their site and they should be fairly compensated for it.
- chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There are 3 possible business models for Digg:
1 - Attempt to get bought out
2 - Survive on ads and clicks
3 - Use your IP address to localize trends and sell that data to advertising and marketing companies - garthvh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1All of these sites have the same demographic, web geeks.
The inventory is not sold because there are too many pageviews for a single demographic that is already saturated with low cost options.
Ask microsoft or google if they could sell more inventory if they had it, they can.
This is a FM / digg / web 2.0 business model problem and not an online advertising in general problem. - Kryose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I am not surprised that Digg is having a hard time finding relevant sponsors and ads. If you think of it, Digg links the user to countless stories about almost anything. These can be horror stories about possible sponsors and their products. If I were Sony, I know I wouldn't want to have ads on Digg right now mainly because of all the negative PS3 stories.
Another thing to think about, If I am Sony, and I buy ad space from Digg, I would probably want to pressure (if not force) Kevin Rose to bury the negative Sony stories so that they never come up on the front page. That is something that Kevin is probably aware of and is avoiding (making it harder to find good sponsors). - Yeyui, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Speraking of ads and companies distibutng them not getting along...
Right now I see two adsense ads telling people not to use adsense! - ccheath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1those types of advertisers would not be 'good' sponsors
- ccheath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1there's whitelisting built into adblock and adblockplus BTW
- mregusci, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Digg is the best site on the web, and if any website deserves to be flouting in cash it is you!
My career is business development and marketing and I know it makes no sense to point out an "opportunity" to better yourself without also providing possible solutions!
Fact: Digg is the best site in the world (okay that is an opinion) with a massive dedicated following (that is a fact).
Opportunity: Digg needs an effective way to convert the dedicated viewership into a lucratively consistent revenue source.
Possible Solutions:
1. Provide an opt-in e-mail list:
-- Send updates, e-mail stories that you think I might digg due to my history,
knowing my digg history you will be able to sell direct adds to customers to
target me in an opt-in e-mail with the stories you provide.
2. Allow your dedicated viewership to "digg" ads:
-- You have an amazing concept: USE IT!!!!
-- Can you imagine how powerful your site would be to online advertisers if they
were able to "try out" ads on your site before they spent a ton of money on a
massive internet campaign?
-- We, your viewers, could rate ads, comment on them and you would be able to
provide that to your customers in "REAL TIME!!!"
-- Benefit: I would love to tell advertisers their add is crap! I would also love to tell
them that it is good. We, your viewers, are an amazing active potential
resource, Use Us!
3. I have more ideas but this is getting too long as it is. Lets stop bagging on Digg and give them IDEAS!
Digg does not need FM it has us.
- ansonparker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Ah, thanks klitscher. Wide receiver.
- kowgod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Does Federated Media handle advertising for Revision3 as well? Or will they? For just the website, or for the podcasts as well? Will the new website even have banner advertising, or will you be hoping to rely strictly on content advertising to pay the bills?
- psychotron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nobody puts this time and effort into something this complex for fun. Digg has to make money and they are entitled to it.
- curtissthompson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow you fall directly into stereotypes, very easily. I am willing to bet that the majority of diggers here, aren't the "stereotypical geek" you claim they are. The average geek, ISN'T was is portrayed by Hollywood genius!
- spankaccount, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thats funny, I don't see any of the ads...
- timf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't want potential. I want the goods. SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!
- justinwhitaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No. Digg is just one of many competitors in the same market-if they don't make tons of money now, when are they going to? When they get disintermediated by some RSS/AJAX Webdesktop that combines socal browsing, news, myspace, flickr, and pizza delivery?
- shout, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5but they get a cut. maybe put dan huard on the task. he's probably tired of censoring posts.
- bedakdeo, on 08/03/2008, -0/+0hi;
i belive you can get an optimal earning from google....
you can visit this.... fot the solution....
http://www.best-adsense.com/
nice to help you...... - digitalbuddha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I had a chance to hear Kevin speak at the Future of Web Apps in SF yesterday. With a million uniques a day, I'd say it's time to hold an auction. Who wants to serve up the contextual ads for the next few years? Google? Yahoo? Anyone else? Step right up and submit your bid. It's time to get off the "rate card" mentality.
BTW, I appreciate what FM is doing but 40% is a helluva lot of margin to be giving up if you are a breakaway site like Digg. - GlennF, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm a little baffled by Anson's post and some of the related material. Anson, you didn't check your facts, and didn't rely on well-known, publicly available information. Federated Media has grown quite rapidly, and has a dedicated sales staff. I signed up with Federated for my Wi-Fi Networking News site -- actually begged to be part of the federation, really -- nearly a year ago. I would love for the money to be better right now, but I love the process they're going through to make sure advertisers understand the value of my site and the others that they represent.
I expected one to two years of work on FM's part to achieve the point where my site will be the kind of media buy I have hoped it would be and achieve the sort of revenue per page that makes my sites viable for me to devote most of my time to as a reporter and writer. (Right now, I devote about 20 to 30 percent of my time to it, the rest to print reporting and a combination of entrepreneurial stuff.)
Their goal is to work to ratchet up the CPM (cost per thousand ad impressions) as the sites in the federation are able to prove to advertisers that we deliver the editorial oomphf to also provide the advertising punch. The ol' one-two. We, as writers and bloggers and such, don't have to think about this at all. FM does it for us. We just keep doing what we're doing. It takes time to prove out CPMs, it takes time to fill inventories. Agencies and advertisers move on a glacial timeframe, even in the Internet age.
I expect that I could have made more money quicker by signing with a different group, hiring some part-time ad guy or gal, or more highly monetizing my pages. None of those seemed appealing. As it stands with the forecasts and deals that FM has kept me apprised of, I expect that averaging the first two years of working with them will be much higher than any other method I could have chosen because even if I'd achieved higher rates in early months, I don't see another model that produces ever-better CPMs. Even Google AdSense, which has been fine for me, suffers advertiser and surfer fatigue. - Yeyui, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5Why does a 'hot web property' have to make lots of money? Isn't enough to just make enough to keep the servers online and maintained, the employees payed? As people in teh know have pointed out, Digg is not losing money. In my opinion, that means they are doing well. Is there oportunity for a profit? I don't know, but I would feel betrayed and stop using the site if those controlling it decided that thier goal was to earn money rather than provide the service.
- skarbreeze, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Indeed... who sees adds in this day and age? It's good for fleecing the technically inept, but your most educated readers (arguably most likely the more affluent users) will be skipping right over the advertising. Sooner or later companies will start noticing this.
- brundlefly76, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@unreal32
If digg is not surviving on $1M of ad revenue a month then it is not well managed.
The product is excellent and extremely well-executed but should not require spending over $1M/mo.
If this is true and digg gets bought, I think they will be embarrased at the efficiency with which the buyer (say, goog or yhoo) manages the product. - Jacob, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I used to but I've gotten to the point that digg is the only site I go to regularly and the ads are hardly intrusive so I turned adblock off. If a site is really bad with ads I just won't go to it.
- freebit50, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Adds? What adds? I see no stinkin adds.
- unreal32, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4@Radiant:
You make a good point. Some blogs like TechCrunch can make $600,000 a month from ads and be extremely profitable. Digg makes $1,000,000+ a month, and is losing money.
It's almost like being too popular is the kiss of death of an ad-based site. FM is smart... In the Advertiser-Adsesne-Website relationship, I'd pick the Adsense role any day. Advertisers lose money on ads, and Websites hardly make any money. Where does it all go? - mregusci, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0sorry for posting this twice!
- greymaxcat, on 10/12/2007, -8/+6See ads? I haven't seen an ad on line in forever... Adblock dude... Sorry digg.
- davidu, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1I doubt that a majority of them do... I know I don't.
- mregusci, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0Digg is the best site on the web, and if any website deserves to be floating in cash it is you!
My career is business development and marketing and I know it makes no sense to point out an "opportunity" to better yourself without also providing possible solutions!
Fact: Digg is the best site in the world (okay that is an opinion) with a massive dedicated following (that is a fact).
Opportunity: Digg needs an effective way to convert the dedicated viewership into a lucratively consistent revenue source.
Possible Solutions:
1. Provide an opt-in e-mail list:
-- Send updates, e-mail stories that you think I might digg due to my history,
knowing my digg history you will be able to sell direct adds to customers to
target me in an opt-in e-mail with the stories you provide.
2. Allow your dedicated viewership to "digg" ads:
-- You have an amazing concept: USE IT!!!!
-- Can you imagine how powerful your site would be to online advertisers if they
were able to "try out" ads on your site before they spent a ton of money on a
massive internet campaign?
-- We, your viewers, could rate ads, comment on them and you would be able to
provide that to your customers in "REAL TIME!!!"
-- Benefit: I would love to tell advertisers their add is crap! I would also love to tell
them that it is good. We, your viewers, are an amazing active potential
resource, Use Us!
3. I have more ideas but this is getting too long as it is. Lets stop bagging on Digg and give them IDEAS!
Digg does not need FM it has us.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0Just because YOU think itis one of hte hottest web propoerties goingright now, doesn't make it so.
99%+ of the country has NEVER HEARD of digg. And many of hte remaining less than 1% have heard about it but don't give a ***** about it.
Those that have are NOT normal. (I mean that in the WORST possible way.) Advertisers don't care about you.
Seriouly...you are all (KEvin Rose included) the peopel that get laughed at all your lives. You all ate your lunch in the bathroom at school becuase no one would let you sit at your table. There is no "geek revolution" Yuo are all still jokes.
The very fact that you ctually think that Digg is big time PROVES this. - wbreim, on 10/12/2007, -14/+8Digg has ads? i don't see any
- ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Some joke about the # of Firefox users. ;)
- skunkman62, on 10/12/2007, -18/+2"kevin, i'll happily crack the phones for you, holler!"
that is teh ghey. just like kevin rose.
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is