Digg may not be the hottest thing in Silicon Valley at the moment, thanks to Facebook and Twitter stealing all the spotlight, but don't discount the social news aggregator just yet. As it turns five years old, the site is looking forward to a new chapter in its history as the features implemented over the past year begin to shift Digg towards a new but promising direction. Oh, and it also gets a rather official recognition, as December 4 gets proclaimed Digg.com Day in San Francisco where its headquarters are.

“Five years ago today, Digg.com went live. What started as a simple idea has certainly come a long way. From a vision of a new way to surface news, and a team of three, to 40+ million monthly visitors and 80+ passionate employees…well, suffice it to say that I’m very proud of what we’ve become,” Digg Co-founder Kevin Rose wrote on the site's blog.

“There have been a lot of memorable moments over the years. From the Paris Hilton phone hacking incident to cracking the HD-DVD key, you guys have defined Digg and are the reason for our growth. To date, we’ve had over 14 Million stories submitted and Dugg by you,” he added.

The site has come a long way from its launch five years ago but, at the same time, it has managed to maintain its core principles, it's still all about the users choosing the stories they find the most interesting or important. Even with 14 million stories submitted so far, there are a few that have stood out over the years and managed to get the most attention.

However, stories, even the most popular ones, have a very short lifespan on Digg, so the site launched Digg 365, a tool to surface the biggest stories of the years passed with a very slick interface. With it, you can view the top stories of the day, month or year and the most popular in each category for the year. But, even if Digg is looking at the past today, the service is about to get a major revamp as the “real-time” web has swooped in to take over as the fastest way to get the latest stories. Now that it has managed to get some financial insurance, growth is the focus for the immediate future.