Digg’s return, a star of web 2.0

In the summer of 2005, Alexis Ohanian, a technical entrepreneur, sent an email to his colleague Steve Hafman with an inauspicious theme line: “Meet the enemy.”

The body of the email had just one line-a link to the diggy, a community-focused social message board where people shared and discussed the links of news articles and other sites, which they found interesting. Mr. Ohanian and Mr. Hafman, who established a uniform attempt called Redit, set their competitive places on Dig and its founder, Kevin Rose.

In 20 years, these entrepreneurs have moved to other projects and, in the right silicon Valley fashion, dip in other parts of the tech. The way, Dig, who went to popular, went to everyone, but died.

On Wednesday, Mr. Rose announced that he had bought Dig for an unknown amount from a digital media company, Money Group, and would be rebuilt to take it on a redit. And he is doing it with an unexpected colleague: Mr. Ohanian.

“This is the right time to see this idea again with fresh eyes,” Sri Rose, who is now an enterprise capitalist of True Ventures, said in an interview. He said that social media had become so universal that “it does not need to be the winner,” saying that “we do not need to take the Redit down to win.”

The 41 -year -old Mr. Rose and Mr. Ohanian are resumeing Dig when they are in social media tumors. Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 and changed its name, turned the stage into his own mirror. Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, is becoming more video-centered to compete with Tikokok. And reddit, which was made public a year ago, has added gamelike features to users to naked users to spend more time on the site – and more time to see the advertisement.

Between this turmoil, Mr. Rose and Mr. Ohanian gave Dig the opportunity to reinforce Dig, which can cut through some disadvantages of modern social media and focus on online “connections and humanity”.

“The world has changed a lot in the last few years,” said in an interview, Mr. Ohanian, who left the Redit board in 2020. “When Kevin told me that he was buying Digar back, I had a part that thought, ‘Okay, curse, can we do it again?” ,

Not long ago, Dig was at the top of the world. Established in 2004, it was among a class of early social news sites, such as slashdots, del.icio.us and reddit, which rely on a community of unpaid users, which were to cure the subjects of articles or interest on the web. The DIGG stood out for his strong user base of active contributors, who regularly returned to the site.

The company raised millions of dollars and fielded proposals for acquisition from Google and others. In 2006, Mr. Rose posted a business cover cover for now for a now, sported a wide grin and gave two thumbs, with the headline “How this child earned $ 60 million in 18 months”. (Mr. Rose hated the photo.)

The cover proved to be ill. Dig later gave a new form of his site, which was widely rejected by his community. The users eventually left into the draw, as the authorities did. Mr. Rose left Dig in 2012. The same year, the company was divided and Sold for parts for BetavorsLinkedIn and Washington Post.

In contrast, Reddit became a viable business. Mr. Hafman, who left the site for other projects, returned in 2015 and stabilized the company. Now 41, they have made Laisez Faire content of reddit to embrace the site more rigorous, leading advertisers.

Some of those changes generated a backlash. Some Redit Moderators of the “subdits” of the forums dedicated to subjects such as guitar or basketball or cute puppies said they felt neglected by the management. In 2023, hundreds of sub -classes darkened after several executive decisions, harassing the mediators, threatening the business of the Reddit.

Seeing the uproar, Mr. Rose, who dubbed into investment and other start-ups, decided to work. He said that he was itching to get his roots back in social and community sites, he said, and always regret it in such a way that the way things ended with Dig.

“I look back how that company was run, and I was very frightened to stand for myself in a lot of cases,” Mr. Rose remembered. “I didn’t have maturity to go out and ask hard questions right now.”

Mr. Rose started doing ground work to return Dig. He ran thousands of dollars targeted advertisements in Reddit with a detailed questionnaire for intermediaries, asking for the greatest difficulties in overseeing subredits and other issues. He scored results through an artificial intelligence program to think about new methods to address problems.

“These mediators are putting their lives in this,” he said. “We think we can do it better.”

He also approached Shri Ohanian, with whom he tied his platforms to run. Mr. Ohanian said that he was “all love” for his former company. “At the end of the day, Redit was a large part of my life,” he said.

Mr. Rose and Shri Ohanian raised an unknown amount to renovate Digharid and build a new version of the company. His investors include True Ventures, where Mr. is a partner Rose, and intake intake Six, a venture firm, which was founded by Mr. Ohanian.

He hired less than a dozen engineers and designers for the new Dig and brought to a long -time associate Justin Mezel of Sri Rose, who was the Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Rose and Mr. Ohanian will join Dig’s board as a chair with Mr. Rose.

In the coming weeks, new DIGG invitations will be distributed, they said, and the site will be mainly aimed at mobile devices. AI will also play a big role in making Digg more accessible to users, Mr. Rose said. For example, he said, a community of science-story enthusiasts may have translated its discussions in Klingon, the language used by the foreign caste. AI tools can also help reduce spam, misinformation and harassment, he said.

Less glamorous – but perhaps the most important – they will pay attention to the mediators. Mr. Ohanian and Mr. Rose said that they wanted to empower the mediators with better equipment to help maintain online communities, which welcome the site to users.

Shri Ohanian said, “What we never focused on is the end behind.” “But this is the back end that actually, really matters.”

The initial response to DIGG’s relay may be silent, Mr. Rose said, some people are likely to see the resurrection as a cute signal for a retro version of the social web. But he has grand plans, he said.

“Because there are a lot of giants in this space who are going to slow down to move, it means that we can be agile,” said Mr. Rose. “We will not have everything that we want Dig is on 1 day. But from now a year, we will have a very different conversation.”