A Sneak Peek at the Upcoming Digg v4 (Video)

A Digg redesign has been in the works for a long time and, after several delays, it looks like the launch date is finally getting closer. A video of founder and now CEO Kevin Rose going over the changes in the upcoming Digg v4 has been ‘leaked’ and it makes for a good idea of what to expect. The new Digg seems to be borrowing a lot of features from Twitter and other popular ‘social’ websites, but that may not be such a bad thing.

The biggest change is the emphasis on the social aspects of the site, which are very simple at the moment. Users will be able to follow friends, tastemakers or publishers, just like on Twitter, and will then receive the stories they submitted. When they first log into the new Digg, users will be asked to import their contacts from Facebook, Twitter and other sources.

Once this process has been completed, users will be taken to their new homepage dubbed My News. This personalized page features the stories dugg or submitted by the people they are following. It also features the top stories as dugg by their friends. Of course, the current Digg homepage will still be accessible, now labeled Top News, and will work just like it has so far.

The social graph becomes very important with the new Digg. When users digg a story, it gets pushed to all their followers. If one of them also diggs it, it creates a chain reaction and the story is spread in the Digg ecosystem. For publishers, this makes Digg a totally different beast.

With the current system, the top 120-140 stories that make it to the homepage get a huge amount of traffic, while the rest get very little. The social graph ensures that all stories get at least some traffic from Digg. Another big change for publishers is that they’ll be encouraged to submit their own stories. They can even set up an automatic system based on the publisher’s RSS feed.