Digg returns: Betaworks gives the site a second chance – The Verge

Instapaper acquired by Betaworks, owner of Digg

2013-04-25T18:06:04-04:00

via assets.sbnation.com

Instapaper founder Marco Arment has just announced that he doesn't own his creation anymore. Betaworks, which also owns Digg, has acquired a majority stake in the read-it-later service. In a post on his personal blog, Arment explains that Instapaper had grown beyond its original beginnings in 2008 as a web-only service, and that maintaining it was no longer feasible for a one-person operation. "To really shine, it needs a full-time staff of at least a few people," he writes; hence the deal with Betaworks.

While it was an early pioneer in the world of iOS apps, in recent years Instapaper has faced increased competition from services like Poc …

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Digg will build its own version of Google Reader, should sync with existing clients

2013-03-14T14:39:56-04:00

digg stock 2040

Faithful Google Reader users have spent the last day asking themselves what they'll do when the RSS service shuts down on July 1st, and one of the more unlikely options might be coming from Digg. The company just announced in a blog post that it plans to build its own version of Google Reader that "makes the Internet a more approachable and digestible place." The company's vision involves identifying and rebuilding the best features of Reader while simultaneously making it "fit the Internet of 2013." From the sound of things, that'll include plenty of ways to hook your RSS into the social web, as the company explicitly mentioned sites like T …

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Digg’s traffic rebounds after relaunch, but users remain on the sidelines

2013-02-04T13:47:01-05:00

digg fp

Once a popular website begins to decline, it can be very difficult to revive - just look at Myspace. But over the summer, a group of New Yorkers at the startup incubator Betaworks attempted to do just that by launching a new version of the once-powerful Digg.com. It's been six months, and the new team has avoided the doom that can befall a big relaunch: while it's nowhere near its former peak, Digg's traffic is increasing at a strong pace.

Back from the dead

The news-and-ephemera aggregator used to set the daily agenda for the rest of the web. But due to the proliferation of spammers and new competition from other sites, Digg found itself play …

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Digg: We’ve doubled our users since August

2013-01-10T12:13:13-05:00

the new digg homepage

Digg has revealed in a blog post that the site has doubled its users since the relaunch in August. The company failed to decline to provide exact numbers, however, and traffic analytic sites seem to counter Digg's claims. Data from Alexa and Quantcast suggests that traffic has been on a steady decline since the site's launch in July, with Google Trends also indicating that interest in the site has dropped off. That doesn't mean the site is floundering, though: Digg is starting to drive some healthy referral traffic once again.

The social news aggregation is now turning its attention to monetization. In the blog post, Digg talks about how th …

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Digg Archive offers users access to their old data

2012-08-30T19:04:11-04:00

Digg Archive

Longtime users of the aggregation service known as Digg were at a loss when the site's new owners unveiled a complete redesign earlier this year and cut off access to the years of submissions, articles, comments, and Diggs that users had accumulated. The new Digg promised that users would eventually be able to access all of their old data, and today the company launched the Digg Archive, a tool for them to do just that. The Digg Archive contains it all: Diggs, articles, submissions, comments - essentially everything that users had posted to the old version of the site.

Once you have signed in and accessed your data, Digg has made it simple …

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Spammers and web marketers hate the new Digg

2012-08-01T16:40:48-04:00

neal rodriguez digg

The response to the new Digg released this week has been as mixed as can be expected for a total relaunch of a site with a lot of history. But a very loud contingent of Diggers is very pissed off: the people who used it to promote themselves and their clients. As it evolved to hugeness, Digg saw its community suffer as spammers, marketers, and voting rings gained too much influence over the site. Of course, the spammers, certain marketers, and voting rings loved it - they had access to the crowdsourced content aggregator that at its peak commanded 29 million unique monthly visitors.

Online marketer Neal Rodriguez, who wrote an ebook claiming …

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Digg’s resurrection: can Betaworks revive the once-loved site?

2012-08-01T12:42:12-04:00

Digg v1

Digg.com, the beloved aggregator that rose to become one of the most influential sites on the web but then fell into disrepair, relaunched yesterday from a completely clean slate. None of the old Digg remains, and the 10-person team working on the project is calling the new site Digg version 1. The familiar list of links on the front page is gone, pushed aside in favor of a news-style layout curated by three editors who pick top stories and protect the site from spam.

The new Digg team is all from the Betaworks business incubator in New York that bought the Digg name, branding, and codebase. Betaworks developed the social news reading appli …

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Digg launches redesign and new app with editorial curation, no comments

2012-07-31T19:04:41-04:00

the new digg homepage

Digg's "Rethought' redesign after its acquisition by Betaworks has just gone live, just one day after the company showed off its v1 preview that was the result of a very rapid 6-week redesign process. It's technically a day earlier than its original goal of August 1st, which could be a sign that the site intends to be just as "fast and thin" as the new look itself. Old features like the Newsbar and Newsrooms have been scuttled in favor of a simpler site that emphasizes top stories, popular stories, and "upcoming" stories. Betaworks also says that it's changed the Digg score to take social sharing from Facebook and Twitter into account when r …

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‘Rethought’ Digg previewed ahead of launch with a focus on simplicity

2012-07-30T13:26:03-04:00

Digg v1 preview

Digg is just days away from relaunching under the umbrella of new owner Betaworks, and its developers are providing a behind-the-scenes look at what you can expect when v1 of the site goes live on August 1st. Shortly after closing the acquisition - the total cost of which remains unclear - Betaworks announced Rethink Digg, a project aimed at redesigning what was once a hugely popular web destination from scratch in just six weeks. Now we're seeing the results of that effort, with v1 of Digg described as a "fast and thin" experience that's been tailored for desktop browsers and mobile devices alike. You won't see any ads on the new site, whic …

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Digg announces ‘Rethink Digg’ plan to rebuild in six weeks

2012-07-20T13:13:07-04:00

Digg

On July 12th, ailing social aggregation site Digg announced that it had been acquired by Betaworks. At the time, Betaworks confirmed that Digg would be folded into its News.me property. Today, Digg has another announcement, in the form of new site rethinkdigg.com, where it says it plans to rebuild the brand from the "scratch," and it intends to do so in just six weeks.

On August 1st it will roll out its first version, and Digg is now taking feedback from users in the form of an online survey.

Read the full story at The Verge.