I thought his letter was really distasteful and out of touch. I mean, does he know for sure that this was a VC motivated initiative?
Coincidentally enough, I'm working on a site (howl.com, check the ask HN section) that pretty much exactly the same as what Digg decided to evolve into: more personalized sharing. I don't know Alex, but maybe he just got a bit big headed in assuming what Digg was doing was simply a hack of popular features.
In my eyes, I already know the new features together make sense, its something I wanted, thats why I'm building it. It may feel like a bunch of hot functions thrown together, but that doesn't mean it wont be good or give value to users.
I don't know for sure - I said that in the very first sentence of my post. I'm out of touch by my own admission.
To me, the simplest explanation is: a company that's already raised a SeriesC with VCs impatient about getting that grand return they'd dreamed of. The CEO left bc of it and the burden is now on Kevin. FWIW, I think he's absolutely capable of filling the void between our 'real' facebook friend networks and the vast twitter network for an optimal signal to noise ratio with serendipity.
I just don't think VCs care about that so deep into their investment.
But I hope it does make digg even stronger - or that Howl crushes everyone with a killer execution - bc we'd all benefit.
Coincidentally enough, I'm working on a site (howl.com, check the ask HN section) that pretty much exactly the same as what Digg decided to evolve into: more personalized sharing. I don't know Alex, but maybe he just got a bit big headed in assuming what Digg was doing was simply a hack of popular features.
In my eyes, I already know the new features together make sense, its something I wanted, thats why I'm building it. It may feel like a bunch of hot functions thrown together, but that doesn't mean it wont be good or give value to users.