Rose Digging in, Adelson out
Jay Adelson, Digg CEO, announced in a Digg blog post that he will be stepping down to pursue new entrepreneurial efforts elsewhere. Digg co-founder Kevin Rose will be the new chair and CEO, though the role-changing date was not disclosed.
Adelson said a new Digg is getting ready to launch, Digg ads are doing well, and the company is hiring.
“The entrepreneurial calling is strong, and I am ready to incubate some new business ideas over the next twelve months,” Adelson posted. As the economy exits a very deep recession, I believe that it is an excellent time for new companies to develop. Of course, I will continue to serve as an adviser to Digg.”
In an interview with MediaWeek, Rose confirmed a major push into Digg mobile, including IPhone and Android apps. No mention of IPad.
Google exec leaving for newly-created Digg role
Digg has lured six-year Google executive Keval Desai away from his directorship of product management to take the newly-created job of VP of product at Digg, TechCrunch has just reported. Oversight of Digg product development has been shared by various Digg executives over the years, and now with the content-sharing site hard at work on a site revamp, a permanent product head was needed. Desai’s hiring follows the hiring of three other key executives including new head designer Jeffrey Kalmikoff, in charge of the new Digg site.
“I’ve known Desai for a decade,” wrote TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. “We first worked together at Achex, a startup I cofounded in 1999 and that we sold in 2001. He is an intense, intelligent and highly capable executive. He’ll be a great fit at Digg.”
TechCrunch guesstimates $15 million Digg revenue for 2009.
Digging it just got easier
Jen Burton, senior community manager for Digg, recently introduced an e-mail alert feature via the Digg Blog. Here’s what he said:
“You know those amazingly witty comment replies you always post on Digg? Does it sometimes seem as if the original commenter didn’t see them? Based on your feedback, we’re releasing a small feature that will send an email to that original commenter – now you’ll know for sure if they’re ignoring you. We’re hoping this new feature will foster even more communication and sharing within the Digg community.”
Now Digg has yet another product, an API that makes Digging a news article more tantalizing – and easier – for a publisher, even via mobile. While Digg isn’t talking about it so far, we discovered the news via Google Groups and VentureBeat.
“The API will allow other Web sites or applications to submit new entries for Digg and will undoubtedly encourage software developers to enable their sites and apps to publish links to interesting URLs on Digg automatically, rather than requiring a human user to click through the steps currently required to submit an item,” reported VentureBeat.
While we don’t know as yet, the API might make it possible for visitors to submit an article to Digg, or vote for one already submitted, without having to leave the site they’re currently visiting. More on this as we “digg” up the details for our clients.
