Former rivals Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian have made a surprising move in the tech world by teaming up to revive Digg, the once-popular news aggregation platform.
Rose, Digg’s original founder, has reclaimed ownership of the site he created nearly two decades ago, with Reddit co-founder Ohanian joining as co-owner.
The partnership marks an unexpected twist in tech history, as Digg and Reddit were once fierce competitors in the social news space after launching within a year of each other.
Rose and Ohanian Team Up to Rebuild Digg
While Reddit has thrived, eventually going public last year with continued user growth, Digg’s journey took a different path.
After its initial success, Digg was broken up and sold to various entities in 2012, including Betaworks, LinkedIn, and the Washington Post. The platform later received funding from USA Today owner Gannett before being acquired by digital advertising company BuySellAds in 2018.
Now, Rose and Ohanian aim to breathe new life into the platform with what they describe as a “fresh vision to restore the spirit of discovery and genuine community that made the early web a fun and exciting place to be.”
Rose revealed that he had been approached multiple times over the years about buying back Digg, but the timing never felt right until now.
When he learned the platform was for sale recently, he reached out to friends including Twitter co-founder Ev Williams and Ohanian, whom Rose once viewed as a competitor but has grown closer to in recent years.
“I realized that there was so much on the cutting room floor on his side — the stuff that he never built [and] that he wanted to see, and the same was true for me,” Rose said of his conversations with Ohanian.
Rose, Ohanian Reboot Digg with AI and a Focus on Genuine Connection
The duo believes the timing is perfect for several reasons. They point to the increasingly toxic and misinformation-filled social media landscape as an opportunity to create something better.
Rose is particularly excited about how AI can address these issues, noting that current AI technology can analyze comments for problematic content like hate speech or violence in milliseconds – capabilities that “just wasn’t possible five years ago.”
Ohanian echoed these sentiments, stating, “Online communities thrive when there’s a balance between technology and human judgment. We’re bringing Digg back to ensure that balance exists.”
He emphasized their vision of using AI to handle background tasks while humans focus on building genuine connections.
The new Digg will be led day-to-day by Justin Mezzell, a product designer who has collaborated with Rose for years. Rose will serve as chairperson and adviser, while Ohanian will sit on the board.
Both Rose’s True Ventures and Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six venture firm are investing in the relaunched platform.
While a new version of Digg is launching soon with invites rolling out in the coming weeks, Rose cautions that the full vision will take time to materialize.
“Where we’re really going is, a year, year and a half from now, is when you come to Digg, it’s going to be very much more like the leap that happened to Figma, where it’s free form, it’s dynamic, it’s an interface that is unlike any other that you’ve seen,” Rose explained. “It’s not your old-school forums.”
In the meantime, interested users can visit Digg’s landing page to submit their email for updates and a chance to claim usernames on a first-come, first-served basis when the platform goes live.
