Digg Really Sold For $16 Million, Not $500,000

Sites include Digg.com . Published on August 6th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

The decline and eventual sale of Digg is a tale of how social media properties can suffer when they fail to keep up with the times. There was a time when getting to the front-page of Digg was the holy grail of social and online relevance; but that was when people had few places to go for their news. Today social networking has made it possible for people to get everything in one single feed, on one device.

What has been particular tragic about dig though is the news that it was sold for a paltry $500,000. Those reports caused many to question the authenticity of the sale but now thanks to updated and more accurate figures, we know that Digg was actually sold for $16 million.

Now there are few times when a $16 million sale would be somewhat bitter sweet news, but in Digg’s case it is still a far cry from what many thought was a $100 million company. Between social irrelevance and too many changes that hurt user experience, the people running Digg made a hash of what was once a popular platform. Now all they have to show for all those glory years is $16 million.

In some respects this under-valued sale of Digg is bad news for news aggregation in general. At the very least it shows that investors/buyers are now putting their faith in other social mediums.

What a shame.

Do you think Digg should have been sold for more? Share your thoughts in the comments below.