14 DAY TRIAL // The new Digg has been in the works for many, many months and several delays have pushed it back way beyond its initial scheduled release date. But Digg v4 is finally very close with the latest indication of the impending launch being the closing of new registrations on the site. Visitors wanting to sign up are being asked to hold on and wait for the new Digg which is coming soon.
“Temporarily, we're not accepting new Digg accounts. The New Digg is Coming. Give us your email and you'll be the first to be notified when you can join the new Digg,” the registration page reads.
The obvious explanation for the move is that Digg is very close to launching the new version and is now in the process of porting the user data from the existing Digg to the revamped one. The company has had to stop registrations in order to make sure that new users are not left behind and that there are no unwanted side-effects during the merger process.
Digg is not saying anything else than what’s available on the registration page. No announcement of any kind has been made, but the site has said before that the new version is getting closer to launch. Digg v4 has been in testing during a private beta period with several users given access to the new features a few months in advance of the public launch.
The new Digg promises to be a major revamp of the site which has been losing users and relevance in a world dominated by Twitter. In fact, the microblogging service has served as an inspiration for many of the changes in Digg v4. The revamp is thorough enough to completely change the way people use the site and some of the features look promising. Critics, though, say that ‘borrowing’ the best features of existing sites may not be the best course of action for Digg. But it’s clear that the site must do something to stay relevant.