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Digg

Digg is a user driven social content website. Everything on Digg is user-submitted. After you submit content, other people read your submission and “Digg” what they like best. If your story receives enough Diggs, it’s promoted to the front page for other visitors to see.

Kevin Rose came up with the idea for Digg in the fall of 2004. He found programmer Owen Byrne through eLance and paid him $10/hour to develop the idea. In addition, Rose paid $99 per month for hosting and $1,200 for the Digg.com domain. In December of 2004, Kevin launched his creation to the world through a post on his blog.

In February of 2005, Paris Hilton’s cell phone was hacked. Images and phone numbers from the phone were posted online and it didn’t take long for a user to post the link on Digg. The site started to receive an enormous amount of traffic and it was then, Rose says, he saw “the power of breaking stories before anyone else.”

Digg has been a force ever since. Acquisition offers have been made, Rose was on the cover of BusinessWeek and according to Alexa, Digg is in the top 100 most trafficked sites on the internet. The success hasn’t come without its share of problems though. The site has had to face services aimed at gaming the way stories hit the front page, as well as a user revolt. Digg has however been able to get over these hurdles as it continues to be one of the social news leaders.

Milestones

• Acquired WeFollow. (10/15/09)
  Posted 10/15/09 at 8:21pm
• Jeffrey Kalmikoff, Director of Design and User Experience added.
  Posted 9/16/09 at 11:35pm
• Chas Edwards, Publisher & Chief Revenue Officer added.
  Posted 7/14/09 at 1:31pm
• Mike Maser, Chief Strategy Officer added.
  Posted 5/28/09 at 11:36pm
• Daniel Burka, Creative Director added.
  Posted 4/22/09 at 4:59am
• Bob Buch, VP Business Development added.
  Posted 3/30/09 at 4:47pm
• Thomas Shin, Head of Sales added.
  Posted 1/27/09 at 4:26pm
• Scott Baker, Vice President, Operations added.
  Posted 1/6/09 at 8:43am
• Received $28.7M in Series C funding. (9/24/08)
  Posted 9/24/08 at 10:17am
• Matt Van Horn, Business Development added.
  Posted 9/24/08 at 10:24am
• Kiersten Hollars, Director of Communications added.
  Posted 9/16/08 at 5:22pm
• Anton Kast, VP of Research and Development added.
  Posted 6/30/08 at 1:05am
• Joe Stump, Lead Architect added.
  Posted 5/31/08 at 2:34pm
• Ron Gorodetzky, Senior Systems Administrator added.
  Posted 5/25/07 at 12:07pm
• Kevin Rose, Founder and Chief Architect added.
  Posted 5/25/07 at 12:04pm
• Jay Adelson, Chief Executive Officer added.
  Posted 5/25/07 at 12:05pm
• Owen Byrne, Senior Software Engineer added.
  Posted 5/25/07 at 12:06pm
• Received $8.5M in Series B funding. (12/1/06)
  Posted 7/3/07 at 8:52pm
• Received $2.8M in Series A funding. (10/1/05)
  Posted 7/3/07 at 8:56pm

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Digg

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Website	digg.com
Blog	blog.digg.com
Stage	Live
Launch Date	November 1, 2004
Tags	news, social, community

Digg is a user driven social content website split up into two sections – “Popular” stories and “Upcoming” stories. After you submit content it goes into the “Upcoming” stories section. This is where other people read your submission and “Digg” what they like best. If your story receives enough Diggs, it’s promoted to the “Popular” section and listed on the front page for other visitors to see. This effectively allows the Digg community to choose which stories are the best.

Users can also get involved in other ways. Every story has a “Bury” button to filter out bad links, off-topic content and duplicate entries. Stories also have comment sections where users can discuss the story at hand.

In addition to the site itself, Digg has released real-time Flash visualization tools and a Facebook application.

Digg also has an API that allows other sites to read data but not contribute them.

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Sources

1. Citation Needed []
2. goliath.ecnext.com []
3. marketingvox.com []
4. press release (techcrunch.com) []