"Within hours, we got a taste of what we'd only heard rumors about. The internet is now populated, in meaningful part, by sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts. We knew bots were part of the landscape, but the scale and sophistication of the problem became immediately apparent when we relaunched."
"Rose was responsible for building Digg, in its heyday of 2008, to an estimated value of $160 million. A 2010 redesign was so unpopular, however, that the audience migrated over to Reddit (which offered a similar upvote/downvote functionality). Rose sold the company in 2012 for just $500,000."
"Last year, however, he and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian bought Digg back with plans to revive it. Backed by True Ventures (where Rose is a partner) and Ohanian's Seven Seven Six, the revived Digg said it would offer a human-centered experience."
Digg, the pioneering social news site that once rivaled Reddit and Facebook, is shutting down following a failed relaunch attempt. CEO Justin Mezzell announced the closure just two months after the open beta launch, citing the need to significantly downsize the team and reassess strategy. Founder Kevin Rose will return full-time in April. The platform, which revolutionized social media with upvoting and downvoting mechanics, has struggled since a disastrous 2010 redesign that drove users to Reddit. After Rose and Alexis Ohanian purchased Digg back last year for revival, the relaunched site was immediately overwhelmed by bots and AI-driven spam from SEO manipulators exploiting Digg's remaining Google authority.
Read at Fast Company
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