
Kevin Rose Resigns From Digg, Closing Round On New Startup - joshbert
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/18/kevin-rose-resigns-from-digg-closing-round-on-new-startup/
======
reason
Kevin Rose usually gets a lot of crap about Digg when posts about him show up.
And you know, sure, Digg might be considered a tragedy to some (which, come
on, really isn't), but I really, really respect the guy.

He really helped usher in the social web era, as neither a designer or a
coder, mind you. He hustled his site using the opportunities at hand, raised
tons of money, got shot to be on covers of some really huge magazines, and
probably had a ridiculously fun time through it all.

If you listen to some of his videos, it's easy to see that he's got lots of
big ideas, and he's put himself in a position to make it happen (again,
without bringing any technical skills to the table, which, I think, is
impressive and speaks to his ability to inspire people). If you look at his
about.me/kevinrose, you'll find that he's also an investor in lots of really
popular services, and he's well-connected with the best of the best in the
valley.

So, props to Kevin. He's done some big things (Digg, Revision3), other smaller
ones (Pownce, WeFollow), and seems to be onto others. I certainly would love
to be in his position.

~~~
jrockway
How was Digg fundamentally different from Slashdot? No editors?

~~~
blutonium
Yeah, articles on /. were approved by CmdrTaco et al. Digg was basically the
first to let users vote on stories to get them to the front page.

~~~
jdp23
well, kuro5hin and others had done this before. Digg was the first to break
through to broad usage on this (at least in the US).

~~~
ojbyrne
Digg really took off when two things happened:

1\. Silverorange came on board and made a beautiful design.

2\. We jumped all over this cool new thing called "Ajax," though really we
were on it when it was still XMLHttpRequest.

Humbly, I think I deserve credit for 2 at digg. I didn't invent ajax, but I
was kind of enthusiastic about it back in 2005, enough to make it work for us.

------
ajays
I'm reminded of the BW cover:
[http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Technology/images/kevi...](http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Technology/images/kevin-
rose-business-week.jpg)

My, how times have changed.

~~~
joshu
i was in that article. what an awful piece of "journalism"

~~~
timcederman
Not the most auspicious introduction (for me at least) to Sarah Lacy.

~~~
joshu
Indeed. Lying to your subjects about what the article is about is scummy as
hell.

~~~
_pius
Just out of curiosity, what was the article supposed to be about?

~~~
joshu
New entrepreneurs. Instead it was more about Kevin's posse or something.

------
nkassis
Why are they comparing twitter to digg? It's not at all the same thing. I
mean, twitter is like drinking from a fire hose, no curation at all just tons
of stuff being dumped. Digg was more like sink water, decently cleaned can be
enjoyed all the time. Reddit is more like good spring water (you can pick the
spring you want too, depending on your mood) and HN is Evian water ;p

Again you don't use fire hose for the same thing you'd use water from the
sink. It's complementary.

~~~
m0nastic
I would argue that both Reddit and Digg are like drinking from the Ganges
river; in that the amount of shittiness is related to where along the source
you decide to drink from.

~~~
jedberg
I love this, and am sharing it with the rest of team reddit right now. Thank
you.

------
staunch
He should merge Revision3 with Leo Laporte's TWiT network and go for the gold.

~~~
dusing
The combination of live conversation style TWiT shows and the highly produced
Rev3 stuff would really be unstoppable.

~~~
nkassis
I'm puzzled by why they haven't teamed up. I was under the impression they had
a good time during the screen savers.

~~~
jonursenbach
Last I remember, Kevin no longer has any involvement at Rev3.

~~~
nabilt
I'm not sure Rev3 and TWIT should merge. TWIT seems to focus more on niche
tech topics like Security Now and Floss Weekly so they can build a relatively
small loyal following. Rev3 seems to be going for the mass market, which is
why they produce lots of movie and game review shows.

Rev3 is more like G4 while TWIT is more like TechTV.

~~~
dusing
TWiT has a lot of air time to spare on produced content.

You mention two of the least watched TWiT shows... They are more defined by
This week in, Macbreak, and iPad numbers wise

------
olivercameron
Just as Digg seemed to be on a slight up, this happens. Perhaps the last nail
in the coffin? Hopefully he is re-kindling the idea of Pownce:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pownce>

~~~
DiggEmployee2
Kevin has not been actively involved with Digg for months. The slight up has
had nothing to do with him and his official resignation will make no
difference

~~~
olivercameron
That's good news, then! Rooting for Digg, it has a special place in this
scene.

------
ido
Did he make so little money from digg that he needs to raise funding to get
$1m for his new start-up?

~~~
raganwald
Even if he can afford to do the whole thing himself, remember the old adage:

 _If you need advice, ask for money. If you need money, ask for advice._

He may have raised money specifically to bring in some investors who can
contribute some wisdom and experience.

------
cduruk
Digg's CEO Matt Williams responded on Digg comments about this:
[http://digg.com/news/business/kevin_rose_resigns_from_digg_c...](http://digg.com/news/business/kevin_rose_resigns_from_digg_closing_round_on_new_startup/20110318233453:ae8c984ad504485598461a8db7d0f86c#20110318233453:ae8c984ad504485598461a8db7d0f86c)

Disclaimer: I work at Digg.

------
protomyth
Is there an actual link to a source other than the TechCrunch article?

~~~
bkudria
This is Techcrunch we're talking about here, not the New York Times.

~~~
talbina
How can you link to "say multiple sources"?

------
Andrex
End of an era.

------
city41
I really like this news. the whole world has watched Digg go down in flames
over the past year or so. It had to be at least a little embarrassing for
Rose. It's refreshing to see someone that public pick up the pieces, move on,
and try again.

------
staunch
Kevin Rose needed a Sean Parker to help him maintain board control and guide
him.

~~~
vessenes
Maybe. Digg is also old enough it was structured and architectured under an
old-school (You need at least 15 to 30 engineers) approach for a content site.
In that way, it was a sort of bridge to what we've got now -- it got the
social crowd-sourcing of content part together, but it didn't have the minimal
engineer part together.

You can bet that getting the money to pay all those guys, who then needed
sales guys to make the big sales to pay them and the engineers, who then ...
contributed significantly to Digg losing its place in the world. I betcha that
the new startup has significantly tighter hiring policies.

------
kasperset
Reddit down to one developer and Kevin Rose resigns from Digg. This sounds
like a recipe.

------
nikcub
muchos props to krose. he has put up with a lot of shit from people and
handles it really well. pioneer in the space. he should write a book! (and
then a movie)

i'm looking forward to the business week headline covering this

------
ddelony
If there are "multiple sources", wouldn't it be possible to name them?

------
mkramlich
his next startup? I'm calling it now: Dug.com

