Two years ago today, after about $2,000 in development costs, Kevin Rose launched Digg and changed the way millions of people consume online news.
The guy that built the original Digg prototype, Owen Byrne, wrote a post on the Digg blog today to mark the birthday. He also includes some great trivia about the site:
Hard to believe, but two years ago today, Kevin decided my code was bug- free enough to take down the beta sign and unleash Digg upon the world. It’s been a crazy and exciting time since then, and we owe it all to you – the loyal and passionate members of the Digg community.
To those of you who have spent countless hours finding the coolest and timeliest content on the Internet, I and the entire Digg team would like to personally thank you for your contributions and loyalty.
Some trivia –
* First story to hit the home page after officially releasing: http://digg.com/tech_news/Google_Cheat_Sheet
* # of users who registered in the first week: 578
* # of registered users today: 707,593* First 10 users who registered and are still actively Digging:
http://digg.com/users/Waldoze
http://digg.com/users/drinet
http://digg.com/users/mkirk
http://digg.com/users/jkenzer
http://digg.com/users/nickster
http://digg.com/users/Anthony
http://digg.com/users/dkurfurst
http://digg.com/users/bnitro
http://digg.com/users/CUBApete
http://digg.com/users/martinhuard* # of servers Digg had at launch: 1 (rented)
* # of servers Digg has today: 103* # of stories submitted the first week: 923
* # of stories submitted last week: 15,412
* # of stories submitted (all-time): 1,001,865
Congratulations to the Digg team. And to their investors, who are going to make a boatload of money. Our extended coverage of Digg is here, and an interview with the founders is here.
The cool logo is care of Go2Web2.