Digg, the early internet community and former rival to Reddit, launched its open beta to the public Wednesday. The rebooted platform, now under the ownership of its original founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, aims to recapture its earlier success by offering a similar user experience to Reddit.
The new Digg features a website and mobile app where users can browse feeds from various communities, join groups aligned with their interests, and post, comment, and upvote content, a process the site refers to as "digging." This marks a significant step for Digg, which was once a leading news aggregation site during the Web 2.0 era.
Originally valued at $175 million in 2008, Digg was later eclipsed by Reddit. In 2012, the original version of Digg was divided, with Betaworks acquiring the largest stake, while LinkedIn and The Washington Post purchased other components. An additional investment was made in this iteration of Digg in 2016, but it was subsequently sold to a digital advertising company in 2018.
Reddit, in contrast, has continued to thrive as a community-focused platform. The company has since gone public and is generating revenue through content licensing agreements with AI companies, including Google. The return of Digg to the social media landscape introduces a new competitor to Reddit, potentially impacting the dynamics of online community engagement and content sharing. The success of the reboot will depend on its ability to attract and retain users in a market now dominated by established platforms.
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