Digg Does The Acquisition Dance With News Corp.

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1. Markus
   

   October 24th, 2006 at 7:27 pm

   I could see 20 million visitors a month because of a hyper active userbase. But 20 million uniques is impossible because that would imply they have entered the mainstream in a major major way. I can’t see there being 20 million unique users in the tech industry in the english speaking world… Let alone all of them reading digg.

   I think digg is huge, and has a lot of momentum but to justify that kind of valuation I think they need to break into the non tech crowd then the sky is the limit.

2. Farhad
   

   October 24th, 2006 at 7:33 pm

   We’re in a bubble…

3. Peter
   

   October 24th, 2006 at 7:36 pm

   Dude, How in the hell do you manage to scoop all of these stories? Incredible.

4. Search Engines WEB
   

   October 24th, 2006 at 7:44 pm

   It is ONLY a matter of time before Digg gets Acquire…they are the last remaining of the * Innovative Foursome* that changed the modern Web

   Craiglist
   MySpace
   YouTube

5. Jeff
   

   October 24th, 2006 at 7:50 pm

   >I could see 20 million visitors a month because of a hyper active userbase. >But 20 million uniques is impossible because that would imply they have >entered the mainstream in a major major way. I can’t see there being 20 >million unique users in the tech industry in the english speaking world… Let >alone all of them reading digg.

   Actually, people who read digg doesn’t have to be related to the tech industry. I know several people, who know nothing about computers, and they read digg on a daily basis for sports, videos, political news. My friends even go on digg for the videos that are submitted.

   Maybe not 20 million uniques a month, I can see at least 10 million uniques a month.

6. David Cancel
   

   October 24th, 2006 at 7:51 pm

   Compete, (www.compete.com), is showing US uniques at over 2.26 million with a nice spike in the last month.

   You can see it at our free Snapshot service (just launched today): http://snapshot.compete.com/digg.com/

   Disclosure: Compete is my Employer

7. Matthew Leitz
   

   October 24th, 2006 at 7:54 pm

   I do not believe that Digg is the last company yet to be acquired who has been an innovator, but it definitely seems that they should strike while the iron is still hot.

   While they do have the obvious possibility of further expanding their offering to the non-tech world, it seems like a deplicatable site that could recreated by any of the big boys. I have found several open source versions, and I am not sure what would stop a yahoo or a google from simply adding Digg features to their existing offering.

   I might have missed it, did Craiglist get acquired? (other than the piece sold by a former employee to eBay)

8. Alaska Miller
   

   October 24th, 2006 at 8:04 pm

   So then, how much is Slashdot worth based on this hype?

   Oh, and to the idiot that think Digg is a pillar of the modern web…. wow… just wow.

9. joeblow
   

   October 24th, 2006 at 8:04 pm

   1 to 2 mm uniques and change sounds about right - which ranks it outside the top 100 news sites on the net. Combine that with the fact that they really have no unique technology (netscape and searchmob pretty put up the same site over night) and no real revenue, and $150 mm seems a bit high. Rupert probably can’t help but chuckle remember the pointcast history as the news corp./ digg negotiations go on….

10. Bryce
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 8:14 pm

    Wow, if 20 million visitors is true - that’s a lot - the entire population of Australia.

11. John C
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 8:25 pm

    “It is ONLY a matter of time before Digg gets Acquire…they are the last remaining of the * Innovative Foursome* that changed the modern Web

    Craiglist
    MySpace
    YouTube ”

    Craigslist???? Are you out of your mind? Myspace….an innovator?

12. threz
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 8:37 pm

    Why the hell do they need more funding?

    How can they not be making a profit with the traffic they get?

13. Nemrut
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 8:47 pm

    What’s the ‘barrier to entry’ to creating somehting Digg-like? If the ‘competent’ folks at Netscape/AOL can copy it what’s to stop others..

    SeaWeeb..i’ll have whatever you’re smokin if you think Digg and Myspace are innovative. As for CL, it started out as a mailing list and grew to it’s online form over ‘years’ of effort. The only reason it is so austere and hasnt been bought out is that Craig never had ambitions to cash out. Although it is the first to successfully develop community without of lot hype.

    Lastly, YouTube is innovative not because of ‘community’ as others would believe but bcause they developed a ‘better mousetrap’ using existing tools to serve up immdiate gratification–somehting Google failed to accomplish despite their intellectual horsepower and fat piggy bank.

14. Emre Sokullu
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 8:57 pm

    Unstoppable growth, best news site around and most fresh brains of the Silicon Valley. This would be a perfect fit for the new media empire of News Corp, hope to see this acquisition really taking place.

    Netscape and Newsvine showed that Digg has a natural “Aspirin” barrier to entry and I think it deserves even much more than $150M.

15. Marc
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 9:08 pm

    You spelt “source” wrong.. Sorry it was just really irritating me.

16. threz
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 9:25 pm

    “This would be a perfect fit for the new media empire of News Corp”

    I don’t think News Corp is interested in paying $150M for a million or so geek visitors, they wouldn’t know what to do with them for a start..

    I suspect they’ll just make a myspace digg-clone targeted at the other 99% of the population. It would dwarf digg overnight.

17. Fred
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 9:28 pm

    Why do you think Comscore is significantly under-reporting Digg’s numbers yet you rely on Comscore for reliable numbers for all other sites? Digg’s users are 100% tech geeks, which is a terrible market for advertising, which makes Digg significantly worth less than $150M.

18. Cristian Mezei
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 9:41 pm

    Digg’s users are 100% tech geeks, which is a terrible market for advertising,

    And Slashdot’s are what ? 98% tech geeks ?

19. Daniel
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 10:05 pm

    News Corp would be a disaster and they would lose their entire original base of users if they sold to them.

20. pwb
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 10:23 pm

    Now *this* is a stretch. I wouldn’t value Digg any more than Flickr or Delicious (ie, $20-50m). Facebook at $1.5b is a better buy.

21. Drew Olanoff
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 10:26 pm

    Definitely not the time to sell. Give it another year guys.

22. Emre Sokullu
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 10:41 pm

    @21: pwb says
    “I wouldn’t value Digg any more than Flickr or Delicious (ie, $20-50m). Facebook at $1.5b is a better buy.”

    Are you kidding, I wonder your arguments for this..

23. JL
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 11:13 pm

    Facebook at $1.5b is a better buy cause it’s a marketers wet dream. Peoples info all over the place, trends, likes, dislikes, etc. (MySpace is infiltrated with garbage, fake accounts, and more)

    Digg = people clicking boxes for stories/comments they like. Marketers don’t really care about that since most of the stories are predictable.

    Hence why Facebook is worth the money.

24. Peter
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 11:18 pm

    “One point of controversy was around Digg’s claim of 20 million unique monthly visitors and steep monthly growth, whereas the Comscore’s most recent September report shows only 1.3 million monthly unique visitors and flat growth since April (see chart below).”

    Is it *that* hard to understand that Comscore reports US numbers only, and that there the United States, as important as it is, is but one of about 200 countries in the world?

    Comparing 20 million to 1.3 million in the same context, and claiming “controversy” is like saying “One point of controversy was around Babe Ruth’s claim that he hit 60 home runs, when the Tigers report that he only hit 2 home runs in Tiger’s stadium.”

    THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT NUMBERS. Why compare them at all? To do so is misleading at best; irresponsible at worst.

25. Vik
    

    October 24th, 2006 at 11:18 pm

    “I have found several open source versions, and I am not sure what would stop a yahoo or a google from simply adding Digg features to their existing offering.”

    LOL, so ture. I was bored over the weekend, so in about 2 hours, I created this: http://www.lexroll.com

    If I can do it, I bet google or yahoo can do it a million times better

26. Arttu
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 12:27 am

    I can’t help thinking these big corporations are shooting themselves in the leg when they’re trying to keep up with the buzz. The surfers today are mobile - this day they’re interested in one service and tomorrow it’s something else. I think there’s not much of brand faithfulness here, users go where the best service is and the blogs are spreading the information fast.

    On the other side, this way the continuity of these services is secured (at least more than without acquisition). I think in YouTube’s case it’s a good thing. I can’t find any big value in Digg, though - maybe it’s because I’m not using it that regularly anymore to find stuff to read.

27. The Onion
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 1:07 am

    Vik,

    Did you make that site just from the SourceForge source?
    Pretty impressive for 2 hours!

28. Vishal
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 1:11 am

    If news corp cant buy digg than these are the most likey player to buy digg.

    http://vashistvishal.blogspot......uyers.html

29. Emre Sokullu
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 2:05 am

    Vishal: there are only these players on the pitch, and you say these are the most likely players.. C’mon.. Why would Yahoo! buy Digg, they don’t need any more traffic, they’re already no 1. But they just got sure that their new media kingdom dream lost against Google’s tech-intensive approach, that’s why they’re buying more tech and money making internet-ads companies. Google goes more media, Yahoo goes more techy.

30. web design uk
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 2:21 am

    Grrr I hope NewsCorp don’t buy it and turn it into a piece of garbage like they did with MySpace

31. Jeff
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 3:22 am

    I’m not suprised they didn’t get the deal , it is run by a bunch of crooks and control freaks, its not really a user driven community, it is more like run bye dicator editors and power hungry top diggers all kevins freinds. I hope reddit kicks there arse they are a true user driven site, anyway my two cents. you diggers can get lost

32. Craig
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 3:38 am

    I heard Mark Curban was interested in buying digg, anybody else here that? Nice one Vik i didn’t know it was that easy to do

33. Emre Sokullu
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 3:38 am

    Jeff, this is not a matter of loving or hating Digg. I love reddit too, but all in all Digg is very very successful, and now even mainstream users also becoming a part of their userbase. Having geekish userbase is a very good signal for the future; don’t expect to have mainstream userbase just from the beginning, this is not web 1.0 anymore, markets are not so wide now and there’s high competition.

34. Craig
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 4:29 am

    jeff yes digg is controled by editors and reddit will probably beat them in the end, but do you have to be so mean

35. rdixon
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 4:48 am

    Digg is a pyramid scheme for information. 150 million dollars?
    For a so-called news link site that includes a “spy” feature where you can watch the top 50 users in real time digging submissions at the rate of one per second?
    150 million for that?
    I don’t see that happening now or in the future.

36. cg
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 6:48 am

    I read 5-8 tech blogs a day and I don’t use Digg, know how to use Digg or care to use Digg. There are probably only 300k “real” users of the website, but they come back so often that the #’s are inflated. In a way it mirrors SocNet behavior.

    I’m guessing that b/c of the series B they are still not profitable? I love how a company that isn’t profitable can command 9 figures. God help us when a website comes out that is actually making a million dollar profit, what would THAT sell for?

37. jeff
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 6:59 am

    Alaska slashdot they would probably go for 1 million, thoughs bastards they just slashdot all theirs buddys they never slashdot real decent sites. If you go to digg and slashdot you will always see the same bloody sites you would think there is only 100 websites in the whole world if you visit them, but theres millions of great sites that never get a chance. But I think reddit will save the they they list anyone that has got a good story they got a good sysytem going there. you submit a story if alot of people pres sonit bingo you on the homepage that is what i call a fair system. Newscorp have a quite look at reddit and maybe you will just find a gem amongst a bunch of stones. ok out of here, I hope this comment rocks your world people.

38. felix
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 7:05 am

    hey Jeff have you ever heard of spell check

39. jeff
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 7:06 am

    I’m a busy guy i don’t have time for stuff like that

40. Drewsky
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 7:28 am

    Jeff, no time for spell check, just surfing and posting comments? LOL! Reminds me of someone I know.

41. Shaun
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 7:48 am

    I don’t think News Corp cares at all about advertising to this medium.. digg can be used a huge promotional machine. You want a website to get instant notice? Get it to the top of digg. What better way to control this fact, than to control the site.

    Digg is worth it, because it’s become a cornerstone of internet culture. And while it may be 100% internet geeks.. that’a alot of “geeks” and more and more “geeks” are normal people, and business owners. This site is read by the very same “geeks”

42. Laura
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 7:48 am

    It’s definitely interesting to watch these acquisitions play out. Thanks for making it easy to be a fly on the wall!

    Laura

43. Patricia
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 8:18 am

    Digg shouldn’t do this. They should hold out.

44. RJ
    

    October 25th, 2006 at 8:22 am

    comScore numbers are “flaky” BUT they are consistent. I have tracked 000’s of sites over the past years, looking at comScore numbers, Nielsen Net Ratings, my our tracking pixels and actual logs. The comScore numbers are always off, but the discrepancy is very consistent. Based on what I’ve seen, I would estimate the actual DIGG traffic to about 4-5 million unique visitors a month. And based on that, a price of $150mm is ludicrous; there are literally thousands of sites with better traffic. But DIGG, while a great site, is really over-hyped, so the valuation inflation is thriving.

45. Patricia
    

    Oct