14 DAY TRIAL // Digg has had an interesting year in 2009 as the site struggled to regain its identity in a world ruled by Twitter and Facebook. It mostly focused on revenue and apparently has managed to fix that particular problem and now it's looking at growth again planning some radical changes to make the site relevant again as a news source. Talking with the Telegraph, Digg founder Kevin Rose said the site was heading for a major redesign and that some pretty big features were on the chopping block.
"We're making some drastic changes, but they're much-needed drastic changes," he said. "People are going to be shocked at some of the directions we're taking. You have to be comfortable with completely tearing down and throwing away a bunch of ideas."
Those certainly sound like fighting words from Digg's founder and if the changes coming are as drastic as they seem, the site is going to have to handle a full-blown mutiny from the loyal and tight-knight community. The site enjoys a great following among its heavy users, but those are the ones more likely to get upset over the changes.
Harsh as it may seem though, Digg is certainly in need of a change if it wants to do more than just survive in the short-term future. Just a couple of years ago it was the hottest thing in Silicon Valley and the best place online to find the latest news. Now Twitter has taken over that role thanks to its instant reaction time. Digg is now looking at taking some cues from the microblogging service by borrowing some real-time features.
"We've realised there's so much more happening around the web – people are 'touching' pieces of content that they care about, and sharing it with their friends. We want to embrace all these different channels – Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, email – in which people are touching content," Rose added.
From what Rose is describing, Digg is going to be more of an aggregator and rely on more than just user votes to get a story on the homepage. Interestingly, it also looks like it will be borrowing a couple of features from FriendFeed, which was largely held to be better than Twitter at real-time content but failed to gain the kind of traction the microblogging site saw.
"In the next version of Digg you'll see stories being presented to you in a more real-time nature, especially stories that your friends have touched. It will not be just about Digg.com, but also embracing all the content that your friends touch on other websites," he said.