Two experienced social media entrepreneurs are uniting in an effort to bring back Digg, the former "homepage of the internet."
What Happened: Digg founder Kevin Rose and Reddit (NYSE:RDDT) co-founder Alexis Ohanian have teamed up to acquire and reboot Digg, a move that comes while Ohanian is also part of a group bidding to acquire social media platform TikTok.
"Two OG internet founders & former rivals team up with goal of using AI to bring humanity back to social media," a press release announcing the reboot of Digg reads.
The duo have a plan to restore the old spirt of discovery and community of Digg and Reddit along with new growth plans to bring the platform into the new era, according to the release.
Digg will use AI and other tools to fight off misinformation, spam and hostile interactions, all items that keep users off of social media.
"Digg plans to become an online destination with humanity and connection at its core."
Users can sign up for early access for when invites go public. A counter shows 189,000 signups as of Wednesday afternoon.
"The front page of the internet, now with superpowers," the website reads.
"At various times over the years I had been approached to repurchase Digg; it never felt right. The technologies to solve our biggest pain points didn't exist," Rose said.
Rose will serve as Digg's board chair, an investor and key advisor. Rose said AI will help users and moderators without replacing human conversation.
"With Alexis on board, we bring a shared history, a deep respect for online communities, and a new perspective on what the internet needs today."
Ohanian said the goal of bringing Digg back is to build something different than existing social media platforms.
"Online communities thrive when there's a balance between technology and human judgment. We're bringing Digg back to ensure that balance exists," Ohanian said.
Ohanian said AI will "handle the grunt work" while humans focus on building real connections.
"No one dreams of spending their day hunting down spam or playing content police – they want to create, connect, and build thriving communities. I'm all in on this chapter."
Read Also: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Prints Mean Tweets And Screenshots: How He Uses Them As Motivation
Why It's Important: Digg launched in 2004 with a crowdsourced voting system that highlighted the top trending content. Once called the "homepage of the internet," Digg had 40 million monthly unique visitors at its peak.
Rose later sold Digg to Betaworks, with some of the company's assets, including patents, acquired by LinkedIn.
Digg is backed by True Ventures, where Rose is a partner and Seven Seven Six, founded by Ohanian.
Justin Mezzell, a longtime collaborator with Rose, will be Digg's new CEO. Mezzell previously worked at companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter and PayPal.
Digg's board of directors will include Mezzell, Rose, Ohanian, and Tony Conrad, a partner at True Ventures.
Once rivals due to the competition of Digg and Reddit, the storyline of Rose and Ohanian joining forces could make the reboot of Digg a top social media story to watch. The two entrepreneurs have been connected through several ventures in recent years with Ohanian investing in Moonbirds, an NFT project launched by Rose previously, before it was sold to Yuga Labs.
A successful reboot of Digg could be bad news for Reddit, as it would likely be the closest competitor based on the concept and with Ohanian on board could follow a similar structure.
Read Next:
- Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Explains Investments In NFTs, Says This Is The Difference Web3 Provides
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