In the summer of 2005, Alexis Ohanian, a tech entrepreneur, sent an email to his colleague Steve Huffman with the subject line: “Meet the enemy.” The email contained a link to Digg, a community-focused social message board where users shared and discussed news articles and links to other sites. At the time, Ohanian and Huffman had founded a similar platform called Reddit, and they viewed Digg and its founder, Kevin Rose, as competitors. Over the next two decades, these entrepreneurs pursued various projects across the tech industry. During this period, Digg’s popularity waned significantly, nearly fading into obscurity.
On Wednesday, Kevin Rose announced that he had repurchased Digg from Money Group, a digital media company, for an undisclosed amount. Rose plans to rebuild the platform to compete with Reddit, and he has partnered with an unexpected ally: Alexis Ohanian. “This is the perfect time to revisit this idea with fresh eyes,” said Rose, now a venture capitalist at True Ventures. He emphasized that social media no longer needs to follow a “winner-takes-all” model, adding, “we don’t need to take down Reddit to win.”
The relaunch of Digg comes amid significant turmoil in the social media landscape. Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it as X, the platform has increasingly reflected his personal influence. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is shifting focus toward video content to compete with TikTok. Meanwhile, Reddit, which went public a year ago, has introduced gamelike features to increase user engagement and ad exposure.
— news from The New York Times