2006 headlines really feel like they’re from one other planet.
Credit score: Internet Design Museum
Digg, the dominant hyperlink aggregator of the mid-2000s, is making an attempt yet one more comeback. Kevin Rose, one in every of Digg’s authentic founders, has acquired the model identify for an undisclosed sum and is teaming up with Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian to construct a new-ish social community. The plan was introduced this morning in articles on Techcrunch and within the New York Occasions.
There aren’t many concrete particulars in these articles about what the location will appear to be, although they do notice it’ll use AI as a key moderation device. “On-line communities thrive when there’s a stability between expertise and human judgment,” Ohanian instructed Techcrunch, including that, “AI ought to deal with the grunt work within the background whereas people give attention to what they do finest: constructing actual connections.” Rose surveyed present Reddit moderators in an try to be taught what improved moderation instruments might appear to be.
That is about it when it comes to specifics—each items focus much less on the tech and extra on the founders themselves. However we do know the brand new Digg will not appear to be an “old style discussion board” based on Rose. He mentioned that, in a number of years, it “can be an interface that’s not like some other that you have seen.” No matter meaning.
Digg was based in 2004—greater than 20 years in the past, an eternity in web phrases—by Rose and different collaborators. Reddit arrived on the scene round a yr later, in 2005, based by present CEO Steve Huffman, the late hacktivist Aaron Swartz, and Ohanian. The 2 web sites fought to be the dominate hyperlink aggregator for a half-decade, a contest Reddit ultimately received. A method of this historical past is that Reddit finally received over customers, although you can additionally argue that Digg destroyed itself: A particularly buggy and extensively unpopular 2010 redesign, launched beneath Rose’s management, prioritized the posts of sure contributors and finally led to a mass exodus of customers. The location by no means recovered and was quickly roughly offered off piecemeal in 2012.
How to enroll in early entry to the brand new Digg
Invites to the brand new model of the location can be despatched within the subsequent few weeks—you’ll be able to join right here to attempt it when you’re curious. Hopefully it will not simply be yet one more place to yell about screenshots taken from different social networks; the web positive might use one thing that is truly new. Solely time will inform, although.
