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Google In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For "Around $200 Million"
- huhtenberg 18y agoTruly Epic Lulz !!!!1 Ahem .. quote, unquote
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- ojbyrne 18y agoIf this is true (please ;-)) I'd like to point out that valleywag has been pushing this story for about a month now.
- paulgb 18y agoCongratulations ;)
- nickb 18y agoSo, any truth to it ;). You can tell us... no one will know. PS: Speaking of Valleywag, they're now saying that Github will be purchased by Yahoo as soon as the new board is elected.
- ojbyrne 18y agoNobody tells me anything. Really.
- ojbyrne 18y agoAlthough... I had a very vivid dream a week ago, where I was at the "Google acquires Digg" party. I spent the whole party apologizing for stuff I've said on the web since leaving ;-)
- iamelgringo 18y agoI really hope that it happens for your sake, Owen. We're rooting for you.
- ojbyrne 18y agoYou'd be surprised how much I appreciate it. Startuppers and hackers and all.
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- alaskamiller 18y agohttp://valleywag.com/5024012/digg-ceo-and-google-cofounder-smiling-so-hard-its-like-they-just-wrapped-up-a-deal http://valleywag.com/5024012/digg-ceo-and-google-cofounder-s...
- aston 18y agoThis is like Arrington coming here to upvote Techcrunch. I thought you were better than this, Alaska...
- alaskamiller 18y agoI don't think that's a fair analogy. First, I rarely upvote or downvote links or comments, I just read and discuss. Secondly, someone brought up a reference and I gave a link for context. On a website meant for sharing links, I find it odd that you would find what I did offensive.
- aston 18y agoActually, I was just kidding. I assume the upmods are people who don't like Valleywag?
- alaskamiller 18y agoMaybe. It's a pretty crazy world. <3 Can I get an invite for dropbox?
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- unalone 18y agoWhat's your email address? I have 10 invites left.
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- hbien 18y agoCongrats!
- sdpurtill 18y agoIt will be very interesting to see how the Digg community takes this (if true). I think it will be a smooth transition, people don't view Google as evil (yet).
- unalone 18y agoI think the majority will be happy that it's not Microsoft buying. But there'll be the group that says Digg ought to remain forever independent. They won't be too pleased.
- invisible 18y agoI truly feel it's about time they get acquired. They've been searching for a good fit, and I think everyone knew the obvious pair would be with Google. Microsoft acquiring digg on the other hand? That would be a death notice to digg's userbase.
- iseff 18y agoReally? It's not clear to me that they are an obvious pair. Google really excels at building technical solutions to challenging problems, while Digg has done a great job building a community-based solution to a challenging problem. It seems to me every time Google attempts community, they more or less fail (Dodgeball, Jaiku, the new Lively hasn't done much, etc).
- agotterer 18y agoAren't digg ads run by Microsoft? If so any idea how long that contract is?
- hectorhector 18y agortfa - 3 years
- invisible 18y agoI think what makes them an obvious pair is their differences. Google is seeking community, relevant news, and more user interaction. On the other hand, Digg has seen it's pitfalls in the technical sense (most undoubtedly with the previous commenting system), and in some senses widespread acceptance. That is why, in my mind, they're an obvious pair to improve one another.
- unalone 18y agoExcept that it's not likely they actually improve one another. Google is extremely fit technically, yes. It can almost certainly help Digg out in that regard. But will it? They've been extremely lax in working with some of their services. (Jaiku, for instance.) Meanwhile, Google continues its search for community. But is Digg really the sort of community Google wants? Its community is roundly dissed around the 'net for being immature, juvenile, shortsighted, and fanatic. I mean, compare it to reddit. The fanatics on reddit have NOTHING on the average Digg user. Google doesn't get that community involves finding a way to get people to connect with other people. Orkut was a round failure because of that - it didn't innovate, like Facebook did, it just maintained status quo. By acquiring Digg, they've acquired a community on paper, but in reality they've really just risked their reputation for being mature and classy.
- bprater 18y agoGoogle's track record with companies hasn't been stellar: see GrandCentral and Delicious. A list of all Google Acquisitions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_acquisitions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_acquisitions
- ivank 18y agoYahoo acquired del.icio.us
- davidw 18y ago(Yahoo got Delicious)
- chedigitz 18y agothat's true google does have a nice track record with acquisitions. wait, I thought, Delicious was purchased by Yahoo...
- joshwa 18y agoDelicious is owned by Yahoo, not Google. But c.f. JotSpot nonetheless...
- agotterer 18y agoObviously an error by the poster. On that note, Google has acquired a lot of properties that never really went anywhere afterward.
- mrkurt 18y agoThat seems like a ridiculously high number to me.
- ashleyw 18y agoMaybe, but its a very well known online brand name, its only going to keep growing. Though as it grows it has less and less tech stuff and more and more mainstream content, but I guess from the standpoint of investors that is only a good thing. Tech people don't like ads and even go as far as blocking them, non-techies don't (or are less likely too). It would be a good investment, and I would hope it goes to Google rather than Microsoft, AOL, or any other company who will seek to change it in a major way.
- henning 18y agoSo what is it worth? Once you get into numbers that high, how do you even make a reasonable decision?
- Retric 18y agoWhat are the odds it will make Google 20million a year profit starting today or 40million a year profit in 5 years. Granted you need to add in indirect profit but Digg has been going down hill for a while so they need to recover 300+ million within 10 years or it's a bad investment IMO.
- greendestiny 18y agoI think a lot of people underestimate the value of web front pages. Capitalising on them has been a mixed bag but Digg has been around for a while.
- rbanffy 18y agoIsn't Digg using Microsoft for their ads? I wouldn't like to be a chair in Redmond now.
- jm4 18y agoUgh... I thought I was done reading stupid chair jokes when I left Slashdot...
- vaksel 18y agoits a good acquisition if Google wanted its own highly visible brand for a social network(like youtube), but I can't see this doing that much to their bottom line, since the same person who knows that a site like digg exists is also probably aware of Google, has a Gmail account, and uses other Google products. Its probably just a way for google to show investors: "See we are buying stuff"
- utnick 18y agoBut does the same person that knows that Google exists know that Digg exists?
- hugh 18y agoThis is what I'm wondering. Digg as it currently exists isn't worth $400 million, but if google can use its clout to bring it into the mainstream then maybe it would be. Of course, there's the question of how a site like digg could cope with ten times more active users (and hence ten times more votes and comments), but perhaps they have ideas for that. Combine digg's popularity-based voting with google's knowledge of what _you_ are interested in, and you might have a pretty good algorithm for delivering interesting, targeted news.
- petercooper 18y agoIf Google can merely use its clout to bring it into the mainstream, however, they could do the same with far smaller Digg-like sites and for less money. I think that if Google buys Digg for, say, $400 million, then Digg must actually be worth that. Okay, it might not have the revenues to warrant it, but it has a rampant audience, many of who treat Digg like a game and spend hours on it every day increasing their karma. That sort of support is what can fuel the site enough to drag it into the mainstream with Google's help, and why it's worth mega money.
- gojomo 18y agoCuriously enough, the BusinessWeek cover story on Digg almost two years ago claimed "people in the know say Digg is easily worth $200 million". http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_33/b3997001.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_33/b3997001.... Has Digg's value been stagnant for 2 years? Did BW overestimate? I suspect a little of both...
- azharcs 18y agoI am wondering, how will Google handle the fanboys. Maybe bad comments in Digg will get fanboys blog downgraded in Google search. Google is capable of doing that.
- jm4 18y agoAre you serious? Do you have any idea of the negative impact on Google's business if they manipulated search results to squelch a bunch of big mouth bloggers because they said "bad" things? Besides, the comments on Digg are about on par with Youtube comments (read: unintelligible). I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that perhaps Google has more important things to worry about.
- pierrefar 18y agoWhat about the Digg API? Will Google kill it? I ask because Google and APIs are not on best of terms.
- jm4 18y agoWhat do you mean by that? I'm not a big user of Google APIs so I can't attest to the quality, but it seems like they provide them for quite a few things. Maybe they would do a mediocre job of maintaining and improving the Digg API, but it wouldn't seem to make sense for them to get rid of it completely.
- pierrefar 18y agoIt's mostly JS-based. Only recently did they re-open a backdoor to allow developers to use server side programming languages with the Google search API. I feel they have an ethos of being overly controlling. Yahoo! is much more open and helpful. Digg is great too.