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Who will buy Digg and how powerful is Digg ?

seopedia.org — Michael Arrington just gave the news about Digg being in recent acquisition discussions with a number of companies, including News Corp. This had to come for some time now, simply because of Digg ’s inability to monetize the website and/or keep up with the bandwidth costs. They supposedly use 75 servers that do the work of what 25 servers should do

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  • kevinjpredeek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Interesting story, would like to see dig independent of another news organization.
    • CristianMezei, on 10/12/2007, -16/+3IMHO, Digg is visited by almost all US based surfers. Altough Slashdot has more than 50.000 subscribers in Bloglines (and Digg has 4500), Digg packs a hell of a punch.
    • treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I don't think Digg/Kevin will sell for less than $200mil... as Kevin has said there's still a lot more he'd like to do with the site.
    • darthsnoopy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14"unable to monetize!?"

      This is something that's getitng interesting..instead of a bunches of investors dumping tons of money into tons of stocks for companies that have no solid business plan, but only an idea, which they hope to spark into profit...which led to the DotCom bubble..

      we now have tons of investors burning tons of venture capital on a few companies with business plans but no proven way of making money themselves...

      If a site as popular as Digg can't find a way to turn a profit, and sites like YouTube, Flickr, Myspace, etc. don't find a way to stabalize and pull in a profitable revenue stream...then I believe we could see Web 2.0 become DotCom 2.0

      Of course, Amazon lost money for ages before turning it around....
    • carapi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7treelovin'...why would you even attempt to put a concerte value on what they would sell it for when you have no idea about any of the actual financial aspects ofthe site? You have no idea what they make per month, if anything, etc. Basically, you are just making a completely random guess.
    • treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@carapi

      Exactly, it's actually the same random number Business Week decided to pump out... the point is, Kevin won't want to sell unless the offer is very good... as he wants to do more with the site and it has a lot more potential.

      The final sale price of Digg.com won't be based entirely on their revenues at the time. In fact the major 'value' of Digg is the algorithms and stuff happening behind the scenes. As I mentioned a little furthur down in the comments, they are sitting on a gold-mine of information about each Digg user to the point where they can do heaps of very cool things.... and most importantly from a business perspective, they will have the ability to run customised and targetted advertising campaigns for each individual user.

      e.g. you've Dugg all sorts of stuff on say XBOX 360. Digg can find advertisers of the 360 and display them to you only. They can also display those same ads to your friends who are likely to have similar interests

      And the possibilites go on....

      It won't be till a couple of years down the track that Digg will be fully utilising it's technology.

      I mean they've already got the NYT and other traditional media websites worried... imagine when they actually go beyond just "links and diggs"!
    • CristianMezei, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3I still think Digg worths more than $200 million.
    • pooslinger, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2 digg : internet :: ubuntu : linux



    • Hydraulix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"They supposedly use 75 servers that do the work of what 25 servers should do"

      Switching over to VMware ESX server takes care of the problem.
    • joeydoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Google will buy digg. They already have it integrated on a small level.
      Kevin has been to the campus, he likes google, and they like him.
      Also there is no chance he would sell digg to Rupert Murdoch.
      It's fairly obvious. Google would pay crap heaps for just user data alone.
      Has anyone realised just how much digg user account data is worth for advertising purposes?
      It's a ***** load! Google will know what your digg account is (if they don't already) and it's very simple to link that to targeted advertising.
  • alex.will, on 10/12/2007, -19/+41http://duggmirror.com

    ATTENTION NOOBS: Before you digg me down, realize that duggmirror checks the referring URL.
    • Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -38/+8Dugg down just for calling me a noob.
    • Dested, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16How powerful is Digg? Apparently very...
    • alex.will, on 10/12/2007, -19/+10I only put the disclaimer because almost every time I post duggmirror I get someone replying with HERE IS THE REAL URL: etc.
    • ScottDaMan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Maybe it is because a lot of people/browsers block referrers and it doesn't work.
    • Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13And apparently digg is still without humor.
    • jcone, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3Opening in a new tab will not send the referer.

      (Why on earth is this?)
    • trylleklovn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3In defend i must refer to people who use lynx (or wait that that even block referers?)
    • pufuwozu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19http://duggmirror.com/tech_news/Who_will_buy_Digg_and_how_powerful_is_Digg/

      Is that much harder to also include those people that decide to block referers?
    • junkmail02, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3how do i unblock referrers in firefox? please help me. thanks
    • soogy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7If you blocked the referrer header in the first place, you should know how to enable it again.
    • junkmail02, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1can someone please just telling me without being a dick. i never blocked it in the first place and it seems to be blocked. thanks
  • Calypsoaf, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4Open Bidding for Digg starts here!

    I bid 1 dollar, who's got more than that?
    • priceless721, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7i'll give you a nintendo wii reservation slip for digg. haha no i am keeping it but if kevin asked i might send him one too.
    • xtr3m, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20You should totally post the scan of that slip here -- it's a front page material on digg.
    • darkixion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Yup...everyone hates Fox News. That is why they have more viewers than all the other cable news channels COMBINED"

      'Thanks for falling for Fox News, you will come back tomorrow, and Hail Bush!'

      You're merely highlighting the extent of people's ignorance.

      If Murdoch's empire bought Digg, I would drop it permanently. I didn't need to drop MySpace as it's a terribly designed site. News Corp hates democrats and their democracy, so that would be the first feature to leave Digg. A Digg up from a News Corp employee would probably equal 400 Diggs, and all anti-Bush/Walmart/Pfeizer/Monsanto/Exxon articles somehow result in time-outs on the submission page.
    • priceless721, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@extr3m

      not retarded. sorry.
      i am a manager at gamestop.

      i know that sounds like an oxymoron.
  • erkokite, on 10/12/2007, -7/+20Google is the only one worthy to own digg. I certainly don't want to deal with those News Corp. asshats censoring my news.
    • syl1985, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Indeed, and that is part of the equation as to how valuable digg is.

      To news corp digg is worth nothing, because all they'd be buying an easily creatable piece of web 2.0 as every current digg user would leave for alternatives.

      Digg's audience is not worth that much to a lot of companies, but I could see it being rather valuable to a company that digg's users would respect, e.g- google (Not 100% of course, but it would still be able to maintain most of it's current population and even grow a whole lot) Google owning digg would take it out of the u,s to world-wide audiences a lot faster.

      All that being said, I would prefer digg to stay in the hands of Kevin Rose and co., they are doing a great job and obviously have plenty of plans for the future, as a diig fan do your bit and ***** CLICK AN AD! once in a while, don't get trigger happy.
    • carapi, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3syl...you have no idea what you are talking about.

      Yeah...everyone hates NewsCorp. right. That is why everything they do is extremely successful. Yup...everyone hates Fox News. That is why they have more viewers than all the other cable news channels COMBINED.

      MOSt people do not have this little blind pussy hatred of NewsCorp

      Diggs' user base is a DETRIMENT. No one wants a site that is filled with the ultra left "Bush planned 9/11" crowd. Notice that those ultra left wacko conpsiracy sites don't make money?
    • syl1985, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@ carapi

      I didn't say I hated News Corp., I simply said that with a site like this, most people would leave if it was owned by them- e.g: most people on digg do.

      All you did was simply point out EXACTLY WHAT I WAS SAYING.

      What you failed to see though, was the power digg could wield with the information they gather about people's digging habits etc, to advertise. This, with it's sustained and expanding userbase.

      And if you are so ***** in love with News Corp etc, and this site is full of people of different opinions to your own(as you so kindly pointed out) and therefore the news presented here is different, than ***** OFF AND STOP TROLLING.

      You complete ass-hat.
    • carapi, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1See, this is a perfect example of what I am talking about. You have created this fantasy world for yourself where just becuase you THINK something is true, it is. But you have ZERO eviecnce, other than a few whiners here to bakc up your assertion that any significant number of users will leave. And quite fnkraly, those that would leave would make the site BETTER for leaving.

      This fantasy world you created also leads you to beleive that an intelligent person still uses the word asshat in 2006, whereas in the REAL world, people stopped using that word...oh...about 5 1/2 years ago. (Seriously...I jusyt HAVE to ask...when you typed that, were you thinking to yourself "Oooh, this will show him! I'll call him a word that people used to use around the turn of the century! It'll make me look SO cool! And timely")
    • syl1985, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@ carapi

      Not in any way shapre or form did I think ass-hat would promote me, nor does it bother me that the word is "old news" to you.

      I really do not care.

      My assertions are based on guesses, much as anyone knows, but I can still make them... and simply by looking around you, you could notice that a lot of people would leave.

      Regardless carapi, you and you your 2 dugg articles can ***** off for all I care, I am more interested in people who submit some opinions than people who sit their just bitching and trying to put others down, until you contribute anything to this world, I do not give a ***** about you or your opinions, and considering that will probably be when you are mulch, pushing up daisies.
    • timing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Makes me think of: http://digg.com/tech_deals/Google_may_be_buying_Digg_com
  • bigvics, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13Unfortunately DIGG is not as big as most of the hype found here would have you believe.
    The fact is that DIGG will never become the next uTube, noone will buy DIGG because its simply not worth very much.
    • stephenwq, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3You have seen the article on how much a digg is worth, right?
    • bigvics, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5yea ive seen it, its bull.
      mark my words, noone will buy DIGG, atleast not for the amount people here are forecasting.
    • carapi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4stephen..anecdotal "evidence" from one or two people does not really make a true article. A digg is not worth anything significant.
  • piratearggghhh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5IMO digg is a cool website but ultimately created to be sold. It literally produces nothing except gather info from other places. This is just not a sound business model. If it werent for Kevin Rose's celebrity from techtv this site wouldn't be as successful. Don't get me wrong, this is one of my fav sites but I just get the feeling they're just waiting to pull a youtube.
    • treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Ahhh, but that's what the masses think: that Digg is just a bunch of links

      ... but in the background Digg is actually gathering very valuable information about each of use in regards to the topics/news that we like and what our friends like (and the massive inter-network between all of that).

      There are soo many different things they can create with that information... and in terms of a business-model, they can produce targetted advertising customised for each individual user. And THAT IS WHERE THE BIG BUCKS WILL BE AT :)
    • kingfelix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4google doesn't produce any content either. how is it that they are able to leverage a business out of what they do?

      the secret is this: information = money. getting to the good stuff faster = lots more money.
    • carapi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0kingfelix...Doogle produces the ad sense. The stuff that doesn't create any new content ALL lose money for Google. Nothing they have done other than the serach engine andthe ad sense has been profitable. They have ALL been money losers. Everything else, like Google EArth, Gmail, Google Talk, Google Video, Desktop are all being funded by Google's original two "products"
  • javaj, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Welcome to the new Internet bubble 2.0 beta

    but yeah News Corp would truly suck...
  • greenbox, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1i honestly don't think Kevin Rose will ever sell digg. i mean it started as an experiment and grew to a phenomenon that only worked because the people behind digg thought about the users and not how to make money. i mean there's still so much more to improve on this site. if selling digg means losing creative control then you can forget about the future of this site. i know for sure everyone behind digg will manage any troubles they face and just stay independent as usual. but that' just my opinion.
    • carapi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1And you are basing this on what exactly? What gives you the impression that Kevin Rose doesn't want to live comfortably for the next 55-60 years?
  • misterjangles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I don't understand what the point of mentioning 75 servers, as if that is some kind of slam on the digg IT department. For all we know they're all running at .001% capacity.

    Besides, hardware is cheap. Loyal visitors are not.
    • syl1985, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That is a good point, everything is scalable and the fact they are apparently running servers inefficiently will not contribute much to the value of the site.

      The cost of buying/maintaining 50 servers at only 33% capacity can be very low...
  • randomboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"...Digg ’s inability to monetize the website..." - Where are the friggin google ads?
    • carapi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4What do you mean? If you ever come to this page without an ad blocker on, you will see that Digg has become one of the WORST ad sites on the internet. Ok, perhaps an exaggeration, but they have plenty, including the annoying flash ads.

      The problem is, when users don't click on them they don't get much.
    • MagicBobert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Worst ad sites? Far from it. Myspace is FAR worse. I practically have to look at a full page porn ad every time I log in.
  • carapi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2This has tobe some of the worst writing I've ever read. Take these two sentences..."Comscore’s traffic estimations of 1.3 million uniques per month for Digg, that Michael reports in his post too are indeed impossible and are anyway US based. Altough Digg has mostly US traffic, European and Asiatic countries form a good majority of the users too." Michael reports in his post too are indeed and are anyway US based? What the hell does that mean?

    And then he said that Digg is mostly US users, but a good majority are from outside the US.

    I LITERALLY laughed my ass off when I rea that.
  • thetron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1What a load of crap

    As soon it mentioned news corp. This articles a joke/fake
    • thetron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You -1 me?

      Why? Cause i didn't see the sense in digg being sold and the value of the site is slowly increasing. The site has great potential to double/triple it current estimate valuation in years time

      In short. It's too soon to sell the site and practically they'd be giving the site away for a packet of chips
  • Neilich, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Blatantly, how beautiful Digg is (worth) is in the eyes of the beholder...but here's a thing. Someone wrote about contextual advertising - but this model is (because every other site on the web is doing it) getting less and less effective. Publisher rev is going down as the amount of contextual ads on the net goes up and up. Google wins, individual sites lose. Added to that, Digg wouldn't work if you had to pay to use it. Would Digg work if some of the stories were "planted" i.e. PR?
  • radiofrequency, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It would be a big disappointment if digg sold out. I was disappointed when google went public too, and would have fought that tooth and nail if I were a founder.

    Privately-held companies might take longer to become widely profitable, but once they're profitable the founders rake in the most. And after they pay off/buy out the initial investors, it's practically free money with no concerns about shareholders, no filing quarterly reports to the SEC, no sarbanes-oxley. You don't have to share how much the company makes, whether revenue is up or down, nothing. No pressure to constantly exceed pointless metrics, no armies of accountants, no seas of lawyers, no PR flacks, no one to answer to but the customers.

    One of my favorite private companies: Rolex. They sell close to 1 million watches per year - at an average price of $4000/watch (a very, very conservative figure), Rolex is a $4 billion/year company with no demands from shareholders or other unionized creditors. Were sales up this year? Who cares. Was a particular model line in trouble? Won't tell, and no stock to tank on the news. Sure, Rolex experienced some lean years in the 80s when digital watches were all the craze and quartz movements were considered "better". If Rolex were public during that time, they would have been sold for pennies on the dollar to satisfy the whims of panicked shareholders, or acquired by Seiko or something. Rolex would never have reapt the rewards of the return to mechanical movements and quality watches. Instead, Rolex is now the 800-pound gorilla acquiring other watchmakers quietly.

    Wall Street is a scam. Technology companies that turn to the suits go to hell, stop innovating, become just another business process. To think, today Brin and Page do nothing more than worry about selling classified ads on their site - they're CS PhDs (well, one of them) and their intellectual contribution is now limited to something as stupid as sales. Stay away from the suits, keep improving the product and you'll rule the world - there's more money in it!
  • RoryH, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3If News Corp buys it, you can find me a Netscape.com or some other similar site.
  • dwb325, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I don't want anything to do with News Corp. I blame FOX News for a lot of America's problems. If News Corp buys digg, I'll stop using it, and I suggest all the diggers that routinely digg articles about Fox News being misleading do the same.
    If you don't like FOX News, don't use News Crop. services. It's the only way we can send a message Murdoch will actually hear.
    • thetron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree. it would be bad for business and diggs reputation

      Especially if the owners wanted to "rigg digg" front page results
    • MagicBobert, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"I blame FOX News for a lot of America's problems."

      You can't be serious. Yeah, we're all fatter than hell because of Fox News. We're one of the worst educated nations because of Fox News.

      You, my friend, are a narrow-thinking, kool-aid drinking, jaded dumbass.
  • mrynit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1digg > *

    i wonder if digg will go public
  • Tabascoforever, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow, I'd hate to have to make that decision...$200 million or selling out to Murdoch.

    Kevin sell it to Murdoch, we'll all stop using it then start up something similar with the money and let Satan take the hit.
  • mobilehavoc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Funny how people here are saying they'd be upset if Digg "sold out". You're either really immature or don't have a firm grip on reality. No matter what you may think, everyone is in it to be successful....I'd love to meet someone who would honestly turn down $x million dollars just because they didn't want to "sell out".

    In the original dot.com age and this new web 2.0 age, that is a viable business model - make something that's free and build up a big user base then get bought out and be an instant millionaire.
  • Moggers87, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm not saying that Digg isn't as popular as the article says, but who uses Alexa for web stats?

    I hope DIgg stays owned by DIgg
    • sfatoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree. Also, most digg users tend to be tech-savvy and firefox browser usage has a much higher market share among tech-savvy users than most web users. This means that digg's rank may be much higher because the Alexa plugin only works on Internet Explorer.
  • rkenward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3IMO - Sell Digg, put the money into Revision3. Buy a studio, create real full length shows with creative premises. Possibly buy the old TechTV studio in San Fran if no one else has... continue the dream. I'd say they should do something like Tom Green but more polished.
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