Digg was fantastic. It just committed suicide with Digg version 4 - http://searchengineland.com/digg-v4-how-to-successfully-kill...

A bunch of people, including me, just kept commenting "Roll back!!!" But for some reason that's beyond my understanding, they said they could not rollback the upgrade. And that was the end.

That said, I actually still use Digg in its current form today because I find it very useful. I just wish it had the on-site comments, but I understand the moderation nightmare task they'd be taking on if they enabled comments like the old Digg.

People also forget that Digg invented (or at least popularized) the iframe buttons now ubiquitous around the internet used by facebook, twitter, etc.

At some point those vote-driven-websites are expected to mature and turn into proper publishing businesses.

Anything that's driven by users rather than vetted and sanitised by trusted writers/editors, will scare lucrative brand based advertisers. Just look at Google Adsense's content rules to see how much advertising shapes the web's content.

I think that's what happened with Digg. I speculate that something similar is happening with Reddit but at a much slower rate - like closing undesirable sub-reddits etc.

Digg almost killed Slashdot. Digg then killed itself with v4 and we were left with a less polished alternative Reddit. Reddit has been overrun by 4chan/mainstream. For some years, HN is the new /. with the most insightful comments. Though, I miss the comfort functions of the old /. comment system like collapsing threads (and tags like funny/insightful/etc).

For collapsing comment threads & a whole lot more, try Hacker News Enhancement Suite: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-enhanc...

It would be nice to be able to tag things as "Funny" or "Insightful". Instead we're left with arbitrarily penalizing funny things.

People forget that Digg was already on the decline when it released v4. v4 was a bold attempt at trying to reinvent the site with the trends of the time. It failed and Reddit stayed the course and became a phenomenon.

The Digg brand sold for $500K, other parts (staff and patents) went for $16 million.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/12/digg-sold-to-linkedin-and-t...

Granted, but even at 16 million it wasn't a positive exit. I know, and many others have pointed out, that Rose has a great network and knack for picking who to invest in. So going back to the original post I replied to that said "I co-founded Digg, give me money" is ironically the worst credential he could offer up.

Rose also worked for Google Ventures, so he has connections.

He moved to Google after his startup Oink/Milk crashed and burned, of course.

Connections seem to be all that matters.

In the show "Silicon Valley" they even made a joke about how Rose had to fail at a bunch of stuff before he could "succeed" with Digg, and then subsequently failed at a bunch of other stuff afterward as well.

It was also allegedly in "final talks" to be acquired by Google for 200mm at one point according to insiders.

He was an angel in twitter, and a bunch of other early startups. Creates a tightly connected network.