Digg

New Digg CEO calls previous launch 'a tragedy'

Matt Williams was named CEO of Digg late last summer, just a week after the social news service pushed out a long-awaited relaunch that went terribly wrong, taking its site down and upsetting users (and when Digg users are angry, they let you know!).

Now, five months into the job, Williams is finding a voice of his own separate from Digg founder Kevin Rose and is trying it out on the Digg community; the longtime veteran of Amazon.com participated in a well-received Digg Dialogg video interview posted yesterday to answer user questions. (It is viewable here.)

"There was … Read more

Ex-Digg CEO Jay Adelson lands at SimpleGeo

Jay Adelson, who departed his post at the helm of Digg as the company's downward spiral became increasingly evident, has been hired as the CEO of geolocation software start-up SimpleGeo. Co-founder and existing CEO Matt Galligan, who previously founded a social aggregator called Socialthing and sold it to AOL, has stepped aside to take the title of chief strategy officer.

"A little over a month ago, I approached our board and discussed the idea of me moving into a new role that would allow me to focus on what I'm best at--company strategy, evangelism, and new concepts … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1337: It's one thing to sniff the cookie...

It's our long-awaited Nerd Show (i.e., episode 1337), and in my opinion, we rose to the occasion admirably. Our show covers everything from the iPhone security secret sequence to how to become a lazy hacker. Plus, WiFi Direct certification, a ghostly white iPhone sighting, and PAT vs. NAT. Again. -- m011yW00t

Beleaguered Digg announces more layoffs

Long gone are the days when then-Digg execs Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson would make joint appearances at tech industry conferences and giddily discuss a cluster of new features coming to the social-news site--as well as the fact that they were, invariably, looking to hire new employees.

On Monday, following a report in AllThingsD that publisher and Chief Revenue Officer Chas Edwards was bailing for a start-up, Pixazza, CEO Matt Williams e-mailed staffers to announce that "the burn rate is too high" at the company and that it would be laying off 25 of its 67 staffers, a … Read more

Digg publisher and chief revenue officer departs for start-up

Chas Edwards (pictured here), the publisher and chief revenue officer for Digg, the social news discovery service, is leaving the San Francisco company, according to sources.

The exec, who came to Digg in May of 2009 from Federated Media, will move to a start-up called Pixazza, a photo-tagging site for advertising, "by enabling consumers to simply mouse over images to learn more and see related products."

Edwards' title at Pixazza-which confirmed the move-will be as chief revenue officer and publisher development.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has garnered almost $18 million in funding from Google Ventures, CMEA … Read more

Sony unveils Google TV sets

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded: Sony unveils Google TV products Macs get Windows Phone 7 sync School district pays up for webcams Digg gets bury button back

Buzz Out Loud 1328: Molly predicts new PowerBooks! (podcast)

It's a special episode of Buzzed Out Loud, where Darren Kitchen is high on pain meds and refusing to get a car and we're high on good news--from Chilean mine rescues to Google do-gooding. Also, Digg is hoping that the Coke Classic approach will help stop the bleeding. --Molly

Digg bringing back the bury, changing its look

In a note introducing himself to users, Digg's latest CEO Matt Williams, who came on at the end of August, today penned an apology to the Digg community, saying that changes are on the way that should remedy some of the biggest complaints that have cropped up since the company completely retooled the site in late August.

"As many of you know, the launch of Digg v4 didn't go smoothly, and we're deeply sorry that we disappointed our Digg community in the process," Williams said. "Thank you for your patience and your extremely candid … Read more

The 404 685: Where we get the Fflick outta here (podcast)

Our guest on this morning's episode of The 404 Podcast is Ron Gorodetzky, CTO of Fflick.com, a new site that uses Twitter to aggregate public opinion on popular movies. We're anxious to talk to Ron about the new site, but first Wilson grills him about his former position as Systems Engineering Manager at Digg.

Ron is certainly not a newcomer to the world of start-up Web sites. Back in 2004, he was asked by Kevin Rose to be part of a small social news site you might have heard floating around the Internet: Digg. After helping build Digg into the ubiquitous powerhouse it is now, Ron left and joined up with three other former Digg employees to found Fflick.com, a new online tool that uses Twitter to show you instant movie reviews from your online social circle.

Here's how Fflick works: the first step is to log into your Twitter account on the Fflick home page that also shows all the newest movies in theaters and opening soon, and a small percentage rating that represents the public's general sentiment about the film.

If you see a particular title of interest, you can click through to see public tweets and even filter through your friends' posts as well as positive tweets, negative tweets, interesting tweets, and the latest tweets. There's also a convenient menu on top that routes you to information on show times, ticket purchasing, Netflix queuing, and more.

Ron tells us about the team of engineers who work in the background to ensure the site stays populated with opinions, including the learning machine that scans for keywords to help Fflick recognize a title within a tweet and quality it for the site. Not to worry though, as much as it sounds like Skynet, Ron assures us we're safe...for now.

Ron also gives us a quick preview of the long-term road map for Fflick, and while the site focuses only on movie reviews for now, the engine behind Fflick can theoretically be used for scanning the public sentiment for a variety of issues, including political opinions, music reviews, and more. There are lots of exciting things in the works for a company that's been around for less than two months, so start Fflicking and be sure to tell your friends you heard about it on The 404 first!

Episode 685 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Why I gave up on Digg

This is a love story with a happy ending--and a little heartbreak along the way.

My love affair with Digg began in 2005, about a year after the site launched and roughly two years before I started working at CNET. At the time, I was printing out marketing materials for a tiny company about an hour outside of San Francisco that was on its way to certain doom.

Things there were bleak, and everybody knew it. My days were spent as an office drone, doing menial tasks with long breaks between the action--a workday that made Digg an appealing place. … Read more