Remember the internet of the mid-2000s? A simpler time, maybe. Now, imagine hearing that a digital artifact from that era—something akin to finding your old Myspace profile—is back from the dead. Digg, once a kingmaker of internet content, has been resurrected, and it’s sporting some new tech.
For those who weren’t around or have forgotten, Digg predated Reddit as a place where users voted on shared links. The two sites battled for dominance until Digg shot itself in the foot with a disastrous redesign. After changing hands multiple times, Digg is back in open beta.
A Second Chance at Life
Kevin Rose, Digg’s original co-founder, and Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian, bought the site back last year. Techcrunch reported that Rose expressed sadness over the internet becoming “toxic, messy, and riddled with misinformation”. Their idea? Use the rise of AI to rebuild Digg.
It almost sounds like a noble quest to fight back against the AI onslaught. A David versus Goliath story. Except… that’s not quite the full story.
The press release announcing the purchase clarified that Rose and Ohanian plan to combat AI’s negative impact *with* AI. They envision “AI innovations designed to enhance the user experience and build a human-centered alternative.”
Digg’s “About” page claims it will “bring back social discovery built by communities, not by algorithms,” which is a bit of a head-scratcher. It seems the goal is for AI to handle the “grunt work” while humans focus on community. The specifics are vague, but the aim seems to be reducing the burden on human moderators.
How will AI enhance the user experience?
The answer isn’t totally clear, but it might be a silent partner, quietly influencing things behind the scenes.
Digg 2.0: Familiar but Different
If you used Digg back in the day, the new version will feel familiar. It retains the polished feel of the original. As the site is in beta, the selection of communities is limited. New users will find themselves immersed in the initial 21 communities. The site promises that algorithmic curation ends there: “You decide which communities you’ll join, and that’s what appears in your feed. It’s that simple.”
Is Digg better than Reddit?
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Digg was always more design-conscious than Reddit. Only time will tell if that translates to a better experience in the long run.
Much of the early chatter revolves around the new interface, spam bot concerns, and a healthy dose of nostalgia. One popular question in the /digg community is how to opt out of the AI-powered “TLDR” feature, which generates summaries of links, and the AI-hosted podcast. Mashable reported that Digg is considering adding human hosts to the podcast after user feedback.
Could podcasts play a role in Digg’s relaunch?
Podcasts didn’t exist when Digg first appeared in 2004, so their inclusion now shows how much has shifted.
The fact that using human podcast hosts is even up for debate shows just how much the internet has transformed. Back in 2004, the term “podcast” was brand new, and iTunes didn’t support them until 2005. Now, we’re swimming in a sea of AI-generated content.
It might be a long shot for a Web 2.0 site to thrive in the age of Web3, especially with the ongoing problems at Reddit. But hey, nostalgia is powerful, and stranger things have happened. Could this be a genuine revival, or just another zombie brand shuffling back into the spotlight?