Digg started out focusing on technology news. They had to grow so they did the obvious:
- they expanded the news section
- and they added community features.
Alot of sites add community & social networking features, even if there is no need for them. Why… because an active community increases a sites stickiness. An active community = $$$
Why expand the number of news sections?
Mainstream news = potentially larger audience. The Digg formula works just as good for non-tech news so why not try to transition from the tech niche to mainstream news.
Ok now Digg has expanded their news section and they’ve added community features. These additions have been a success. Digg is a success, so whats the problem?
- Digg has peaked. The expansion of news sections and increased community features where no brainers, those additions where inevitable. There’s no more obvious features that Digg can add that will have a large impact on its traffic.
- Plus bigger isn’t always better. I preferred the focused tech content provided by the tighter 2006 community than the current diverse content on todays Digg. That is, at this point I think that the more users Digg has the worse the quality gets.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Digg was aggressively being shopped. It looks like it peaked, what do you think?
REVERSAL- Why it may make sense not to sell Digg yet
Digg probably won’t need to raise any more money. Since Digg’s advertising partnership with Microsoft there may not be an impetus to sell.
Also if you take the point of view that generally over time the value of an asset will increase (eg real estate) it may be worth holding out for more money.
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March 11th, 2008 at 1:19 am
Yup the obvious has been done. Digg was the innovator in this space, but I dont see what else they can do to excite their users.
On the plus side their competition doesn’t seem that great. They’re all copycats coming out with sub par products.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:44 am
The biggest problem with Digg is also it’s biggest asset… the users. Digg’s users and secret super users are pushing stories as if there is an agenda and casual users are tired of it, thus, less traffic.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
How’s that “real estate increasing over time” assumption working out for ya these days?