

Digg is dead: lessons of a failed startup - Nemisis7654
http://qdork.com/2010/11/digg-is-dead-lessons-of-a-failed-startup/

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brk
This article is full of nonsensical garbage (or, I've just had too much red
wine tonight).

It mentions their VC funding, and specifically says "That’s $28.7 million that
they will have to pay back." Venture Capital doesn't work that way. It's an
_investment_ not a _loan_. They don't have to pay anything back if the company
does not succeed.

There is also the mention of businesses "only" needing a $5/month website. WTF
is this guy talking about? You're not going to build a social news aggregation
app like Digg on a $5/mo hosting plan.

The 'Wandering Aimlessly' paragraph also has some things that don't make
sense. Many of the features Digg was adding were targeted towards commercial
clients that wanted to get info on the stories they posted, or the stories
other users submitted that linked to those corporate properties. IMO, this
made sense as a strategy, as if successful Digg could have charged for access
to this information because the users weren't going to pay for the service.

This guy has some interesting thoughts, but I'm not sure any of it is rooted
in anything other than wild-ass speculation.

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michaelhart
I agree. The entire time I skimmed over this article (a process of about 10
seconds), I was able to clearly determine that the author had no idea what
they were talking about. Needless to say, his website isn't even ranked by
Alexa, Compete, or Google because it's THAT low. That's a feat I haven't
accomplished in several years. Aside from that, I'm unimpressed.

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RtodaAV
Plus he's using the default theme of wordpress.

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jtchang
Haven't really heard of the author. I think the author is just trying to
predict the death of Digg and hopefully get some karma from it should it
eventually happen.

Some of the valid points include the large amount of VC funding and staff.
However Digg is trying. The fact they are even laying off staff means they
know the money won't last forever. Features targeted toward commercial clients
means they are trying to pivot. Is it too late? Who the hell knows.

Author points to their business plan when they started. Just because they
didn't know how to monetize out the gate doesn't mean it is bad. You rarely
know everything when you start. And exactly how is "getting bought up" a bad
plan. It might be foolish to rely on it solely but it certainly can factor in
marketing position and overall strategy.

-Jeff

