Digg has been sold by its former owner, Betaworks, to ad-tech company BuySellAds for an undisclosed amount. The story, first reported by FastCompany, comes nearly a month after the news aggregation site shut down its RSS client Digg Reader. You could call this sale the death of an internet icon, but that happened when the original Digg was sold in 2012. What we’ve got now is a Digg in name only, and who knows how valuable that is (or isn’t).
BuySellAds CEO Todd Garland claimed Digg would remain editorially independent, though “the company plans to streamline Digg and build up its ad stack,” according to FastCompany. We’ve reached out to BuySellAds and Betaworks for more information.
Digg’s gone through quite a ride since its creation in 2004 by Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose. In 2012, Digg was essentially sold for parts, with Betaworks acquiring the front-facing Digg brand and creating both a revamped Digg news site as well as building Digg Reader, which served as a spiritual successor to Google’s RSS client.
You’d think BuySellAds would want to keep that goodwill by hanging on to Digg Reader, but I guess maintaining an RSS client can be more trouble than it’s worth.