Digg, once dubbed “the front page of the Internet,” is making a comeback with its original founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian uniting to revitalize the platform. Following a failed redesign in 2010, Digg’s popularity plummeted, leading to its fragmentation in 2012. The revival aims to enhance community engagement by utilizing AI to assist with spam filtering and toxic content removal, enabling users and moderators to focus on meaningful discussions. Justin Mezzell, an experienced tech leader, will serve as CEO, with backing from True Ventures and Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six. Users can sign up for updates on Digg’s new features.
If you’re among the older crowd, you might recall Digg – a platform for social link sharing. For those of you who are younger, it was once dubbed “the front page of the Internet” before Reddit claimed that title. Following a disastrous redesign in 2010, Digg struggled significantly and never fully recovered – but it’s making a comeback now.
Kevin Rose, the original founder of Digg, has partnered with Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, to “revitalize the social platform with a new vision aimed at restoring the spirit of discovery and authentic community that made the early internet an enjoyable and thrilling space.”
After its redesign in 2010, Digg experienced a decline, leading to its division into three parts and eventual sale in 2012. Having changed ownership numerous times, what prompted Rose to revisit Digg and attempt its revival at this moment?
“We’ve recently reached a point where AI can serve as a beneficial assistant to users and moderators, not intended to replace human interaction, but to enhance it, enabling users to dig deeper while alleviating much of the repetitive workload for community moderators,” explains Rose.
Kevin Rose (left) and Alexis Ohanian (right)
The concept is that AI will handle the labor-intensive tasks of spam filtering and eliminating harmful content, allowing human moderators and users to concentrate on discovering and discussing exciting new content on the internet.
Rose will assume the role of Board Chair and key advisor, while Justin Mezzell will act as CEO. Mezzell brings over 15 years of experience and has worked with prominent companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and PayPal. Rose, Mezzell, and Ohanian will be part of the board of directors, joined by Tony Conrad from True Ventures. True Ventures is supporting Digg’s resurgence, and both Rose and Conrad are partners there. Additionally, Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six is backing the new Digg.
You can visit the Digg homepage – the leading post (“Digg is rebooting!”) will redirect you to a sign-up page for notifications regarding early access invites. Plus, you can even click the “digg” (i.e., upvote) button.
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