Kevin Rose introduced Digg to the world in a December 2004 episode of The Screen Savers (Kevin was a host of the show). The video clip, now safely archived at YouTube, is embedded below.
Kevin discusses Slashdot to start the clip, saying its a great site, but he also says that the fact that editors control what’s on the home page of Slashdot “takes the power away from the people.” He then gives a demo of digg (great v.1 screenshots), which he says “looks much like a Slashdot,” but gives the power “back to the people.” At no point in the clip does Kevin state that he is the founder or in any way connected with Digg.
It’s always fun to go back and review vintage video of startups before they’ve rocketed to success. Given the ease of sharing and archiving video clips today, all startups should be sure to take the time to record the early days. And using video to spread the message of your company virally isn’t a bad idea, either.
Thanks Orli for digging this up and sending it to us.
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This is so cool. I just enjoyed seeing an episode of the ScreenSavers. Man, I really miss that show. It is so cool to see the beginning of something that has taken off like Digg. I wonder how many projects are out there right now at that beginning stage that will take off and become something great.
I wonder if anyone at the show realized he was pimping his own product?
TSS was a cool show, G4 ruined that station
One of the co-founders of YouTube gave a talk last weekend at the University of Illinois:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nssfmTo7SZg
it also includes early video clips from the garage where YouTube was built.
I think the only reason Kevin didn’t mention he was the founder was because Digg was in it’s very early stages at the time.
Heh I like how keeps referring to “they” instead of “me”.
Good stuff though.
I thought it was interesting that he said “they don’t allow you to double dig ot anything like that - they keep track of that - they block it.” He not only didn’t mention that he was the founder but also intentionally made it seem like he wasn’t affiliated with the site by referring to the owers as a third party. Perhaps the producers of the show didn’t know it was his site also and maybe would have cut the segment if they knew about the conflict of interest.
It is very likely that the producers of the show didn’t know that Kevin was behind Digg. I read somewhere that Kevin registered the domain Digg under his friend’s name becuase he did not want his name to be associated with the website.
If you listen closely he says let’s take a look at “my” site. Though after that he says “they”. You can’t tell me that anyone in this position would not do the same. I mean does Michael not post info on his products on Tech Crunch, so if that’s ok, should this be?
I would do the same.
As a side note I found some RSS weirdness in this post: http://www.ishopr.com/blog/?p=21
“I mean does Michael not post info on his products on Tech Crunch, so if that’s ok, should this be?”
Arrington’s been ridiculously good about disclosing things he’s involved in, when they get posted on TechCrunch.
Honestly, I can see the ethical argument behind Kevin not doing the same, but as with all things Digg, I really don’t care.
I can’t get over how much Kevin sounds like one of those people on the Home Shopping Network while describing Digg in the video.
Raj - He knows how to sell crap well.
Give Kevin a break. It’s very hard to make $60 million in 18 months when you’re ethical.
Horseshit is all I say. We sit here talking about ethics, and not even one note from Michael about the fact that Kevin doesn’t say that this is his site. Blah. Just makes me lower my rating for Digg.
Vik #7 - the show is not responsible for that ultimately Kevin had a responsibility to tell the users that he was behind this.
Another example of a site owner thinking its users are morons.
Hey Mike - why don’t you call up Kevin and ask him - why didn’t he mention he was the owner.
one correction - I meant to say that Michael made one note about it (corrected from not even one note).
Allen #14- I never said the show was responsible for doing their investigation. I was just saying that perhaps the producers of the show wouldn’t have allowed Kevin to do this piece if they had known that he was behind Digg. But it is very unlikely that they knew this because the digg.com domain was registered under the name of Kevin’s friend.
I don’t know Kevin on a personal level and as such, I cannot be the judge of his character. However, I feel that Kevin, as the host of a show, held a special duty of honesty and candor towards his viewers and he clearly breached that duty in this clip. For that, shame on him!
‘Fame and fortune’ — that seems to override any notion of ‘ethics’ with some of these upstarts. Amzing this guy can so enthusiastically promote his own work in public as if it isnt his…what a slezboll.
He should cash in now before Karma catches up with him..
#16 vic - I completely agree. Shame on him double!
#17 nemrut = I think what happens is that you take people who were probably of average wealth and give them a boatload of cash and watch what happens. The truth is that eventually it will catchup to you. Ask our enron friend who now will sit in jail for the rest of his life. Every single thing you do in life you should ask yourself a simple question, “should I be doing this?” when you do that, it should be easy to see the right and wrong path. Money is the root of all evil. That and being a “superstar” in the eyes of Internet. There are several other sites and blogs that are starting to reach this level. Will be interesting to watch their ethical decisions as they move up the bar.
Frankly, digg is supposed to serve two purposes whether people see the second or not. First it is supposed to help you as a user get to stories that interest you. The second is to get traffic to your site. CenterNetworks first digg got us 20,000 unique visitors in 24 hours. The last 2 diggs net somewhere about 1,500 uniques in that same period. I wonder if Digg is losing its edge.
Kevin Rose pretends to be a disinterested, objective third party, and then proceeds to shamelessly promote his own product, unbeknowest to viewers. That is, in a word, Unethical.
Further, we have in the video, some evidence that Kevin knew that what he was doing was wrong. Look at the very beginning of video again. You’ll see that right after he accidentally says what sounds like “mine”, Rose puts his finger over his mouth.
“Let me show you mine [garbled]. [Rose puts finger over mouth] This one here is called digg.com”
The Hand-To-Mouth gesture is well known as a body language gesture indicating regret, dishonesty or both.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G......27s_mouth
http://www.hodu.com/lying.shtml
Do a search on your own and you’ll see that there are countless other body language websites that point out that hand-to-mouth is one of the strongest indicators of lying. It’s actually called the “Speak No Evil” gesture. Yeah, Kevin, speak no evil…unless it’ll help to make you rich.
Allen: you forgot the third purpose. That is to make boatloads of money for the founders/management and investors.
There’s a saying that behind every great fortune, is a great crime. Was Kevin Rose’s promotion of Digg on TechTV a crime? Probably not (unless there were clauses in his contract prohibiting this sort of behavior). Was it unethical? Certainly, and anybody that argues otherwise being dishonest with themselves. We look at a lot of the popular Web 2.0 startups and many have their successes attributed to viral growth when the reality is a bit more complicated in some cases. It’s been reported (but not highly-publicized) that a number of the more successful startups used spam and other less-than-ethical techniques to jumpstart their growth. Let’s not fool ourselves. We live in a competitive world where this type of behavior is the rule. I’m not an idealist with unrealistic ideas about how the world works. What makes this unethical behavior amusing to watch in the Web 2.0 space is that the people who have engaged in it all portray themselves as down-to-earth do-gooders. They espouse all sorts of visions about the wisdom of the crowd, helping the world communicate better through technology, yadda yadda. Anybody that thinks that Web 2.0 is purely about giving power back to the users and isn’t a big moneygrab is living in a world that doesn’t exist.
Given the fact that Digg is now reporting (according to TechCrunch) 20 million unique visitors a month while comScore and other sources show an exponentially lower figure, and that we now see how slickly Kevin promoted his site in a manner that violated all principles of journalistic integrity and his moral (if not legal) obligations to his employer and their viewing audience, it simply makes you wonder. I’ll leave it at that.
Hey Drama - any chance you could send me an email sometime? Would love to chat with you - allen at centernetworks.com
thanks
I am little disappointed to read this. It reminds me that the YouTube phenomenon had some serious eyes and access to serious moola through their connections at PayPal (don’t get me wrong, I love YT, but let’s not make it out to be something like a kid in Kansas strikes it rich…)
It makes me wonder what is the story with Facebook, and Mr. Z’s connections. I can see he is a master promoter of himself…anything more behind it?
So, Kevin, ya let me down on the aw-shucks routine with this one…still like digg, but somehow it is knocked down a peg or two in my idealistic mind.
He should have mentioned he was affiliated with Digg in order to maintain Screensaver’s objectivity. I am sure show watchers and website users want to know the content they consume as ‘news’ is authentic and not advertisements. However, since he was on his way out, why not use screensavers to advertise his next product. I am sure there was wink wink agreement that allowed him to do this, as long as it didn’t look like an advertisement.
anways, get your paper, k-ro.
Listen to the last part of the video. Kevin uses the word “quickly” as he starts discussing del.icio.us. This means that he spent most of his allotted time going over Digg.
Man, the more I watch this clip, the more I hate Kevin. Grrrrrrrrrr!!
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I heard Kevin say “lets check out MY site” - or was it something else?
I love how Kevin, and he does this on Diggnation too, never calls his website his.
Judge not lest ye be judged. Kevin can do whatever he wants. Nobody was hurt in any way, shape, or form. He wasn’t on trial and doesn’t have to say anything he doesn’t want to. A lot of people sound like player haters and there aint no time to hate. I wish him and all of You great success in life.
I love digg…but that whole “they” “they” “they” had me chuckling. A visionary entrepreneur using completely unethical tactics to promote his business. Classic.
But, I’m not sure I can blame him. He obviously should have made clear that digg was his site…but, I mean, he had a great platform to promote his product to his target audience (tech-savvy folks). Why not use it?
Well the thing, people might have been MORE interested if he said it was his site, it probably would have made me listen a bit more attentively at the time.
Wow, that’s awesome. I used to watch The Screensavers all the time. I wonder if I saw that live, but never actually thought anything of it. Kevin Rose is now worth a lot of money because of that site. Pretty crazy
Yeah Greg. These pplz all be playa hating. Kevin be on a paper chase and in the streetz of the SVC only true gangstaz survive. Props to K-Ro for staying on the grind and hustling. Only god can judge that boy! Believe that! Pretty soon he be driving through the hood sittin on 24s and riding spinnaz with mad b*tchez on his jock. They sayz there ain’t no atheists in foxholes and there ain’t no moral pimps in the SVC. Word. Kevin Rose big up yourself! Much respect. Westside.
http://1digg.notlong.com
Here is a lSearch Feeds link the complete topics submitted to digg
from Day one to the Present - in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
I used to track interesting stories through digg by using it like a search engine.For example If I want to track a latest news about walmart,I will try the following
http://www.digg.com/view/world.....?s=walmart
So much have changed since then. ScreenSavers was my favorite show as I’m more interested in tech. A really nice way to give his product a heads up. Way to go Kevin.
I wish that I had an emplorer that would let me use there resources to promote my personal projects….
Best,
E. David Zotter
@ Andy (comment #8):
If you’re a regular reader of TechCrunch then you should know that Arrington makes a full disclosure if there is a post about something that he is affiliated with and he usually leaves those kinds of posts to someone else. We only saw a part of that ScreenSavers clip, so we don’t really know if Kevin disclosed his affiliation with Digg before or after that demo. For his sake I really hope he did.
IIRC, Digg was shown on TSS well before the G4 take-over, when Patrick and Leo were co-hosting, and Kevin and Dan were merely on the sidelines. Again, IIRC, Leo made it clear that Kevin had created the site.
I think it’s likely that a techtv producer gave Kevin the go ahead provided he not make the bit look like an ad (which would bother the g4/comcast people). As Chris (#29) said, if he had noted that he was behind the day’s featured site it would probably attract more attention. He did direct users to his profile which linked to his personal site, so people could figure it out if they did some browsing. A response from Kevin would be nice though.
If an idea strikes, write it down. It doesn’t matter if you finish it — just get it into a file. A time will come along, and you’ll see that it is the right time to pull that file out, refine it, polish it, and publish it.
Thanks I had an emplorer that would let me use there resources to promote my personal project
Thanks. So much have changed since then. ScreenSavers was my favorite show as I’m more interested in tech. A really nice way to give his product a heads up. Way to go Kevin.