WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Digg Story 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.399 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.440 --> 0:00:16.120 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.119 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.919 are you. It's a Friday, which means it's time for 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.520 a classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:35.160 way back on May fifth, twenty seventeen. It is called 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:42.760 the Dig Story. Digg known as the homepage of the Internet, 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.960 at least once upon a time. It still exists. It's 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.919 not like it's gone, but it certainly has changed a 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:55.160 great deal since its founding. So let's listen to this 0:00:55.400 --> 0:01:01.200 classic episode about Dig. Today we're going to explore the 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:05.120 story of dig dot com, what it was, how it 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.959 came about, and exactly why. Some people say it serves 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:14.160 as a lesson in community mismanagement. It's very interesting. First, 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:16.679 let me give you a quick overview of what dig 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:20.560 was all about, and to some extent, is still about, 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:25.360 though the current incarnation of dig is very different from 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.360 what was thought of as Dig back in the day. 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.160 So do you know Reddit? Okay, that's kind of what 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.959 Dig was. Dig was essentially a lot like what Reddit 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.520 is now, and a lot of people who used Dig 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.200 abandoned it for Reddit, and we'll talk about why in 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:47.360 this episode. But more specifically, Dig was a site where 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:51.640 users could share links to web pages, and it was 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:56.760 part social network, part news aggregator, and it set itself 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.400 apart from other services with similar functions, Like there was 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.720 dell ish Shuss. You might remember that you old timers 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:08.240 of the Internet. That was sort of a bookmarking app 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.840 where you could link to a page that you intend 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:13.600 to go back to over and over and you could 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.560 easily share those bookmarks with other people. But the whole 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.360 purpose was this was a reference you intended to return 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:23.640 to repeatedly. That's not really what Dig was interested in. 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.640 They were more about sharing links to timely pieces of 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:32.680 content like news articles, for example, and then users on 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:37.080 Dig's site could vote. They could boost a topic further 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:41.040 up the main page, or they could end up knocking 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:46.000 it down the main page. Boosting was called digging. You 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:50.440 would dig an article or a link and say that's awesome. 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.200 I want that promoted because I think it's really interesting. 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.000 If you wanted to vote it down, you buried it. 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:58.920 So there was digging and burying, which is odd because 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.519 if we're talking about the physical act. That's very similar, 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:06.600 but in this case, digging means I dig it. Bury 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.200 means let's bury that story. It's not interesting, it doesn't 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:13.680 belong here. It was also meant to allow users to 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.400 determine which stories were the most relevant and interesting, and 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.760 they were to have control. Really, the idea was that 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.480 the users of the site determined what went on the 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.680 site and how that content was arranged based upon their actions. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.919 So it gave a lot of control to its user base, 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.840 and that had a real appeal to it, right, And 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.560 we'll dive more into Dig in just a little bit. Also, 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.680 just in the interest of full disclosure, I should point 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.960 out that while I don't personally know the founders of dig, 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.280 we have never really officially met. I think I met 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.000 Kevin Rose once, but I know a lot of folks 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.600 who are friends with them, so we have a lot 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:02.360 of friends in common. And over the years, some of 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.680 the stuff that was going on over at dig kind 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.160 of made its way to my ears through the grapevine, 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.640 you know, just basic gossip type stuff. Now, fortunately, because 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.680 I'm me, I've forgotten almost all of that. I have 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.520 no I remember hearing a lot about Dig back in 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:21.760 the day, but I didn't retain any of that information. 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:25.600 I never really used DIG that much myself, so it 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.640 never took hold in my brain. However, I thought it 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:31.840 was important for me to disclose the fact that at 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.159 least I know some of the same people that the 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.279 founders knew, that we ran in the same circles, just 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.359 to disclose that. But I don't think any biases have 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.760 crept through in my reporting of this because my memory 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.799 is so bad. It's not that I am so ethical, 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:51.760 it's that my brain just didn't hold onto the information. 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:53.919 I'd like to think I would be ethical if my 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.880 brain did hold onto it. But we'll never know, now, 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:03.440 will we. Anyway. The founders of Dig included Jay Addelson, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:10.280 Ron Gorrigetsky owen Burn, and Kevin Rose. They started development 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:12.880 on the site back in October two thousand and four, 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.800 and they launched dig on December fourth or fifth, two 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.000 thousand and four. So let's talk a bit about each 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.119 of those guys and what they brought to DIG. First, 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.640 we're gonna mention Jay Adelson. He came from Detroit and 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.160 he grew up in as cecil of Welcome to Nightville 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.560 would say, he grew up in Michigan. He got a 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.960 degree in film and broadcasting with a concentration in computer 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:43.560 science from Boston University in nineteen ninety two. After he graduated, 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.559 he worked for companies like the ISP, the Internet service 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:51.640 provider Netcom. He helped design the Palo Alto Internet Exchange, 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.359 and he later founded a company called Equinix, which was 0:05:55.400 --> 0:06:00.280 another Internet data center and infrastructure company. So his yorick 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.359 was primarily on the inner workings of the systems that 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.800 the Internet itself depends upon, you know, not websites or 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:12.200 but rather the actual infrastructure that allows computers to communicate 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.400 with each other. He worked a lot on those those 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:19.040 sort of systems, and it was actually in his job 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:23.000 at Equinox, where the company he had co founded, where 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.960 he would first meet Kevin Rose, you know, one of 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.040 the other co founders of DIG, probably the most famous 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.320 of the founders of DIG. Kevin Rose at the time 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.159 was doing a segment for a show called The Screen Savers, 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.480 and I'll mention that show again when I get to 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.760 Kevin Addison would then become the business manager for Dig 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.840 once it became an official thing. He used his experience 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.200 to hire the initial management team for the company and 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.640 it was Adilson who led the charge in raising venture 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.479 capital shortly after dig launched. He would also become the 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.200 company's CEO in two thousand and five, and he would 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:02.440 co found Revision three along with Kevin Rose, also in 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:08.400 two thousand and five. Ron Gordetski is a software engineer. 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.360 He studied at the University of California, San Diego, and 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.840 his role on the team was to be the system's 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:18.600 engineering manager. Gorgetsky would also co found Revision three later on, 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.080 so he was one of those members. Revision three initially 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.080 was kind of a podcasting and video arm of dig 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.720 It sort of existed as its own thing, and it 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:34.360 sort of existed as an extension of dig itself. Gorydetski 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.160 also co founded a company later on on called Flick. 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:43.760 Had two f's in the beginning is fflick, so flick. 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.200 It was a film news and reviews site that based 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.720 its information off of Twitter posts. Google eventually would acquire 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.360 Flick in twenty eleven, and Gordetski went on to work 0:07:55.400 --> 0:08:01.040 for YouTube until twenty sixteen. Owen Burn, the third co founder, 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.240 built the PHP code for the original dig site, and 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.560 you might be saying, well, what is PHP. PHP is 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.440 an irritating acronym because it's a recursive acronym, which means 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.600 that it has its own acronym in its full name. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.640 The full name is PHP Hypertext Processor, which isn't a 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.600 very satisfying answer if I ask you what is PHP. 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:27.600 It's a general purpose scripting language and its open source 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.080 and it can be embedded into HTML. So essentially, what 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:34.280 Burne's job was was building out the framework for the 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.840 original dig site and to add in the functionality of 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.280 the basic purposes for DIG. So he was responsible for 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.760 making sure that he could actually develop the the basic 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:51.679 functions that DIG had when it launched. In return, he 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.080 was rewarded with equity in the company itself, so he 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.720 had some ownership of DIG when it first launched, and 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.520 his title was senior software engineer and co founder. He 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.360 would stay on with DIG until two thousand and seven. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.560 Then we get to Kevin Rose, who is two freaking 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:14.560 years younger than I am. Multi millionaire Kevin Rose two 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.160 years younger than I am. I gotta be fair. The 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:21.559 dude's brilliant. He's a very intelligent guy, so I can't 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.600 really fault him. It's just a case of sour grapes 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:29.600 with me. He has founded numerous startups, including not only Dig, 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.160 but also Revision three, a company called Pounce, and another 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.520 one called milk Now. He got his start on the 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.079 tech TV series The Screen Savers. He originally came on 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.560 to tech TV as an it kind of guy, but 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.120 eventually he started to work behind the scenes as a 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:52.880 production assistant for The Screen Savers, and gradually he transitioned 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.160 to appearing on camera and eventually became a co host 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:00.520 of the Screen Savers itself. When Leo Laporte left the show, 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.600 Kevin Rose kind of stepped into Leo Laporte's role on 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:08.199 the Screen Savers. Later on, Comcast would acquire tech TV 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.480 and merge it with another channel called G four, and 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:17.000 Kevin Rose initially would transition over with the G four team, 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.280 but by two thousand and five he negotiated his release 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.400 from his contract with G four, and of course, by 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.319 that time Dig had already become a thing. It had 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:29.920 launched in late two thousand and four. It was Rose 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.160 and Allison who first came up with the idea for 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:36.480 a social news aggregation service, and Kevin Rose decided he 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.520 would pay for this initial development out of his own pocket. 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:43.280 He took six thousand dollars of his own savings to 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:49.120 fund the building of the dig initial build, so it 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.720 really was his money. I mean, he believed in this 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.080 enough to put his own cash down. It wasn't a 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.920 case of him asking for loans from other people. He 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:00.760 was twenty seven years old at the time. The co 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.600 founders settled on the name dig because they originally wanted 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:09.439 Dig with one G. But they had a problem. Disney 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:15.280 had already registered the urlwww dot dig dot com. And 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:17.480 I don't know if you know this, but Disney's not 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.520 in the habit of giving up property that it owns typically, 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.600 so they decide instead to go with two g's and 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.280 get around that problem. They launched the site on December fifth, 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.600 two thousand and four, and on December thirteenth, two thousand 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:35.120 and four, Kevin Rose would mention dig dot com on 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.800 an episode of The screen Savers, so he essentially got 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.960 to use the screen Savers to promote this other project 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.800 he had done. He was co hosting the screen Savers 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:47.800 at the time, so he took the time to say, Hey, 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.760 we've got this new project called dig dot com. It's 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:55.480 a user generated news aggregator site. And it's a way 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.400 for us to really concentrate on the coolest stories out 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:01.760 there on the inner And so the site began to 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:06.680 gather users pretty slowly but steadily at first, and back 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.440 then the site was really simple. It listed stories by 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.760 brief headlines, which were also links, so you could click 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.840 on the little headline, which was user generated. People would 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.360 type out what they thought the story essentially was. That 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:23.200 would be your hypertext link to take you to the story. 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.160 They would also include a brief summary of what the 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:30.400 story was about. And the more users clicked dig as 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.640 in I like this on a story, the higher it 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.679 would appear on the main page. And as some stories 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.800 would climb up obviously other stories had to drop down lower. 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.280 And if a story dropped down low enough, it would 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.560 eventually roll over to the second page of dig. And 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.640 this is very much like search engines. A lot of 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.440 people will only pay attention to that first page. They 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:56.800 don't want to dig further down into the pages. So 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.800 once you end up on page two, it it's really 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:05.040 you see a massive drop off on traffic to that link. 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.320 This is true for Reddit, it's true for dig Or, 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.560 it was true for dig and it's true for search 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.079 engines as well. Being on that main page is prime 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:19.480 real estate. And if you were burying a story enough, 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:23.160 if enough users buried a story, it would drop off entirely. 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:25.440 And the only way you could see it from that 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.960 point forward is if you enabled an option in your 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.520 user profile to view things that had been buried off 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.679 the page in search results. So you could search for 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.320 something that had been buried off the page and you 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.360 could find it that way, but only if you enabled 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:46.840 that option in your profile. It was really all about 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:52.199 driving engagement and community activity. And you might want to 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.920 know what the first few dig stories were, like, what 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.600 appeared on Dig's site when it launched. What were the 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:03.240 top ten stories of dig dot com when it went live? 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.680 I got a list for you. Story number one was 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:12.400 cherryos delayed till Q one of two thousand and five, 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.800 And that raises the question, what the heck was CHERRYOS. Well, 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:20.920 that was a power PC G four emulator for Windows, 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.160 which is a fancy way of saying it was a 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.960 program meant to simulate an Apple operating system so that 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:32.400 Windows PC users could actually run Apple programs on Windows XP. 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:37.160 It was an emulator. It emulated the Apple operating system, 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:42.680 or rather the Apple processor, not really the operating system anyway. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:44.600 Back in late two thousand and four, it was apparently 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.720 big news that the program was experiencing delays. It would 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.320 eventually come out on March eighth, two thousand and five, 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.520 in case you're curious, Not that it's relevant anymore, but 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.760 there you go. Story number two said that Creative declares 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:05.960 war against the iPod. Actually it said delare's war against 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.720 the iPod. It left in a typo, but we know 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.560 they meant declare, and this ties into that topic I 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.800 covered not too long ago about the history of MP 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.120 three players. You might remember that Creative was one of 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.200 the companies designing MP three players back in the day, 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.560 and then Apple's iPod rose up to challenge Creative and 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.960 other companies. So this was a story that tied into 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.720 that the idea that these two companies were at war 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.560 with each other. Both of those first two links, cherryos 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:41.520 and Creative, were submitted by anonymous users. But the third 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:46.720 story wasn't. That story was rumors next iPod to have 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.240 downloadable games, and this was a story that Kevin Rose 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.760 himself submitted to dig back in the early development days 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:57.120 for the website. When they were still building out the site. 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.600 He submitted this. It managed to become pop seventy three 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:05.000 days before it was even submitted to the website, according 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.240 to the statistics on the page itself, which is kind 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.280 of funny because you could argue this is a bit 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.240 of foreshadowing for some of Diggs's later problems. But honestly, 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:18.840 this was probably just to test out the features before 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:20.960 they launched it. I don't think there was any real 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.960 attempt to game the system this early on. It was 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.280 more about making sure the website did what they wanted 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.960 it to do before they launched the site. Story number 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.240 four was one about a torrent search engine. I've done 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:36.520 episodes about torrents in the past if you want to 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.160 hear more about that. That was another submission from Kevin Rose, 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.920 and some people argue it was Rose attempting to get 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:48.000 a leg up by dominating Google Search for torrents search 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.680 because it was a very popular topic back in the 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:54.280 day still is to some extent. Story five was about 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.200 the Logitech Z fifty three hundred and five point one 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:02.960 surround speaker system, probably obsolete at this point. Keep in 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.080 mind that Rose was coming from a tech review and 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.800 talk show background. So it's not a huge shock that 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:12.879 almost all of the stories on dig back in the 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:18.280 day were technology related. But then comes story number six. 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.080 This was a major story one I think we all agree, 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.120 burst free from the tech centric nature of the other stories. 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:32.840 This was buy one, get one free jamba juice. Sadly, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:37.840 thirteen years later, this offer no longer applies. They laughed 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:43.480 me out of the store. Story seven was called Ben's Bargains. 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.879 There was no possessive apostrophe after the end for Ben. 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.919 The name Ben b e n, so Ben's bargains. I 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.960 assume they mean bargains that belonged to Ben. I wish 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.359 I could tell you what the story was about, but uh, 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:04.040 later on it got deleted or merged into another story, 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.480 so it's all lost on me. I suppose Ben had 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:12.960 a bargain and I missed it, bummer. Story eight was 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:17.160 a headline called Cascading Style cheat Sheet, so this goes 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:23.440 back to talking about development creating cascading styles. Story nine 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:29.920 was blog box applications, and story ten was I don't 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:35.320 know because it disappeared. It was deleted and not archived 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.000 in time, so I guess story ten is story not 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:46.359 appearing in this podcast anyway. Those were the ten, well 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.600 nine stories that first appeared on Dig when it premiered. 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:53.119 Now I've got a lot more to say about Dig, 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:58.720 how it developed and how it eventually imploded, but before 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.320 I get into that, let's take a quick break to 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:13.600 thank our sponsor, all right. So, one of the early 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:19.040 features that Dig built into its system was comments. Users 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.960 could leave comments about links. They could actually start up 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.120 an entire comment thread, so it turned Dig into kind 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.520 of a forum about news items. It wasn't just a 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:31.399 place to share or promote or bury news. It was 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:35.520 also a place to discuss it. And of course users 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.000 could end up burying a news item and make it 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.399 drop off the list entirely if they felt that it 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:45.600 was merited. Sometimes people would try to spam Dig, especially 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:47.600 in those early days. I mean really, it was true 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.600 for the entire history of Dig, because you've got people 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.800 who just like to cause mischief. So there were people 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.280 who were trying to spam the page, and luckily the 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:01.200 berry function allowed the community to respond and to get 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.760 rid of stuff that was just cluttering things up. The 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.119 same was true for anyone who was seen to be 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:10.760 promoting something that was self serving, So For example, if 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.399 I were to try and share an article that I 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.439 had written on how stuff works to Dig directly, that 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.040 would not look so great, right. It was meant to 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.880 be a place where people discovered stuff and shared it 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.600 with others, as opposed to promoting their own work. That 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.359 was the other purpose for the Barry button was to 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:35.760 make sure that this was truly a democratized user generated 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:39.440 experience and not something that was dictated to them. More 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.399 on that as we progress now. The engineers that did 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:47.040 create an algorithm to determine if a story merited inclusion 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.600 on the main site or, in a later revision of dig, 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.520 on one of its major sub sections. So like Reddit, 0:20:54.880 --> 0:21:03.840 Dig would eventually become divided into departments like gaming, Lifestyle, Entertainment, sports, science, technology, World, 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:08.600 and Business, and also the offbeat category. And of course 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:10.480 there was the main site, the main page that you 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:12.720 would go to if you went to dig dot com. 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:16.399 That was the primo real estate on dig. That's where 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:18.960 if you wrote a story, that's the page you wanted 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:20.880 it to show up on, sort of like the main 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.959 page on Reddit. Very much the same. Dig also created 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.080 a button that other sites could host on their own pages, 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.760 so you could include this bit of code in your 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:35.359 web page's HTML file, and a little button that would 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:37.679 would pop up on your page that would allow you 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:41.440 to have users click on it and submit content directly 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:45.600 from your page to Dig. That would let people either 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:50.160 submit a story entirely or to vote up or vote 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:51.880 up a story. Really, you'd had to go to dig 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.280 if you wanted to bury it. But once upon a 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.359 time you could dig stories on HowStuffWorks dot com. I 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:00.960 think we even we had a big button that was 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:03.880 active for quite some time before we did a site revision. 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:07.000 But yeah, it was one of those where if you 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.760 wanted to share what you saw, then you could click 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:12.680 on the dig button. It's very similar to the way 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:17.520 a lot of sites use Facebook and Twitter buttons today. 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:20.760 In fact, you could argue that Dig sort of paved 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:23.600 the way for those other sites to use that same 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:27.960 kind of functionality. Further down the road, Kevin Rose would 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:33.040 also launch a video podcast with Alex Albrecht called Dignation 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:36.800 that was one of the cornerstones of Revision three. That 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.640 video and podcast arm that I talked about that they 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:44.600 launched in late two thousand and five. They used Dignation 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:48.040 to talk about some of the top stories featured on Dig, 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:51.320 and the first episode published in two thousand and five, 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:56.320 several months after Dig had already launched. Depending upon what 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:00.800 source you look at, some people say it Dig started 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:03.600 or Dignation started in May one, two thousand and five. 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:06.040 Others say July first, two thousand and five, which seems 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:09.439 like a pretty big discrepancy. I was not listening to 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.919 Dignation at that time, so I cannot independently verify that 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:18.920 either way. But anyway, Dig launched in December two thousand 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:21.160 and four, so a few months later you get Dignation. 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:26.120 And one of the purposes for Dignation was to talk 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:29.240 about stories that had made their way on to Dig 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:32.600 and just to be kind of a discussion forum for it. 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:35.919 And so in a way it became a promotion for 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:39.120 the dig dot com website, and the two hosts were 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:44.240 really personable and funny and informed, and so it started 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:49.760 getting popular pretty quickly. One of the top stories that 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:53.520 very first episode was to talk about a major revision 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:56.200 to Dig, which was it was not even a year 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.440 old yet and Dig version two point zero was coming out. 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:04.040 And also it didn't hurt that Kevin Rose and Alex 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:07.280 Albrecht would drink a few beers on camera because it 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:11.199 made them more personable. They didn't get tore up on camera, 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:14.200 not typically anyway. Their shows could get a little rowdy 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:16.919 when they would do live shows at say south By Southwest, 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:21.120 but generally speaking, it just made them seem like approachable 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:24.600 human beings who were talking about cool stories. So it 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:29.400 was a really appealing pair that had a very approachable style, 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:32.920 and it led to great success for Dignation at least 0:24:32.920 --> 0:24:38.439 for several years. I only ever saw them once at 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:41.560 south By Southwest, it was just before they concluded the show. 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:46.000 In October two thousand and five, Dig reached out to 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:49.880 venture capitalysts to get some funding. Remember, Kevin Rose funded 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:52.679 the initial launch of Dig with six thousand dollars of 0:24:52.680 --> 0:24:55.359 his own money. The company managed to raise a cool 0:24:55.440 --> 0:24:58.680 two and a half million dollars from various sources, including 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:04.879 the founder of Mosaic and Netscape, Mark Andresen. The user 0:25:04.960 --> 0:25:08.520 base for Dig started to grow. It grew pretty steadily. 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:13.160 It hit eight hundred thousand users within eighteen months of launching, 0:25:13.200 --> 0:25:18.360 which is pretty impressive. Eight hundred thousand registered users, it's 0:25:18.400 --> 0:25:21.720 not bad, and the development team was busy adding more 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:24.480 functionality during that whole time, not only did they create 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:28.480 that tag system that allowed dig to divide up stories 0:25:28.520 --> 0:25:32.760 into different divisions like whether it was technology or science 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:39.040 or whatever, but they also started looking into other features 0:25:39.080 --> 0:25:42.840 as well, like a friend system where you could befriend 0:25:43.000 --> 0:25:46.040 other users and follow the kind of stuff that they liked. 0:25:46.680 --> 0:25:48.760 Maybe you might share a common interest with someone, and 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:51.320 that way it gave you even more opportunities to discover 0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:55.040 cool stories that maybe weren't on the main page when 0:25:55.040 --> 0:25:57.000 you log in, but because your friend liked it, you 0:25:57.000 --> 0:25:59.600 would be able to see more about it. So that 0:25:59.720 --> 0:26:02.400 was a but what really made dig turn more into 0:26:02.480 --> 0:26:05.480 kind of a social network than just a news aggregator. 0:26:08.160 --> 0:26:16.240 Really the name of the game was diversification. They really 0:26:16.280 --> 0:26:20.600 helped Dig a lot because when it first started, it 0:26:20.640 --> 0:26:24.800 was almost exclusively focused on technology. You remember when I 0:26:24.880 --> 0:26:28.680 was listing out those first ten stories, but first nine stories, 0:26:29.080 --> 0:26:31.520 eight of them were about tech. Only one was not 0:26:31.720 --> 0:26:35.879 directly about technology. So it had a limited appeal for 0:26:35.920 --> 0:26:39.240 a very particular audience. Let's call them nerds, because I 0:26:39.280 --> 0:26:41.560 am a nerd, I have a nerd podcast. I'm doing 0:26:41.600 --> 0:26:44.679 it right now. I'm not calling you guys nerds, but 0:26:44.760 --> 0:26:48.240 I'm a nerd, so Dig really had an appeal to 0:26:48.320 --> 0:26:52.600 nerds when it first started, and again no disrespect, I 0:26:52.640 --> 0:26:56.280 consider myself one. But by two thousand and six the 0:26:56.280 --> 0:26:58.919 site had really branched out with these other categories like 0:26:58.960 --> 0:27:02.000 sports and entertainment and lifestyle, and so it had a 0:27:02.000 --> 0:27:06.360 broader appeal. It was no longer just for technology enthusiasts. 0:27:06.400 --> 0:27:09.719 It was for anybody who wanted to learn about the 0:27:09.720 --> 0:27:13.240 coolest stories that were breaking in their particular area of interest. 0:27:14.400 --> 0:27:18.560 Another adjustment helped add some credibility to Dig. They decided 0:27:18.600 --> 0:27:21.880 to add in the capability for users to report stories 0:27:21.880 --> 0:27:26.400 as being inaccurate. So there's a lot of talk today 0:27:26.560 --> 0:27:32.440 about fake news, about sites that generate articles that are 0:27:32.480 --> 0:27:37.840 not really reflective of reality that end up being misleading 0:27:38.200 --> 0:27:42.840 or complete fabrications or lies, or they are trying to 0:27:42.840 --> 0:27:47.280 be satire but they never really succeed in being satire. Well, 0:27:47.480 --> 0:27:50.119 Dig built in this tool so that users could point 0:27:50.119 --> 0:27:53.639 that out and those links could then be pulled from 0:27:53.760 --> 0:27:57.000 the various pages on Dig so that they weren't cluttering 0:27:57.040 --> 0:28:02.000 things up. They also had filters to help catch profanity 0:28:02.320 --> 0:28:04.840 to help cut down on some flame wars that could 0:28:04.880 --> 0:28:06.800 go on in comments. As it turns out, when you 0:28:06.920 --> 0:28:10.439 let people comment, some people take advantage of that and 0:28:10.520 --> 0:28:14.399 abuse the system, So they tried to deal with that 0:28:14.480 --> 0:28:16.280 as best they could. They also wanted to make sure 0:28:16.280 --> 0:28:19.639 that they could filter out profanity in the headlines and 0:28:19.880 --> 0:28:24.040 stories themselves. It was a case of trying to make 0:28:24.119 --> 0:28:26.720 sure that people were using Dig for the weight they 0:28:26.720 --> 0:28:29.439 had intended it to be used, and not for it 0:28:29.480 --> 0:28:32.440 to turn into just the wild West, And it also 0:28:32.480 --> 0:28:37.080 showed that they still cared about how DIG operated. In 0:28:37.160 --> 0:28:41.400 August two thousand and six, BusinessWeek featured Kevin Rose on 0:28:41.440 --> 0:28:45.280 the cover of its magazine, and Revision III, that podcasting 0:28:45.320 --> 0:28:48.680 company that Rose and as co founders, launched in late 0:28:48.680 --> 0:28:52.200 two thousand and five, helped Dig secure another million dollars 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:57.040 in venture capital funding. At this point, Dig itself was 0:28:57.280 --> 0:29:02.640 estimated to be valued at two hundred fifty million dollars 0:29:02.720 --> 0:29:06.280 according to The New York Post, so less than two 0:29:06.400 --> 0:29:08.960 years after it had launched, and it was worth a 0:29:09.200 --> 0:29:14.120 quarter of a billion dollars two hundred and fifty million dollars. 0:29:14.120 --> 0:29:19.040 That's crazy, but understandable when you realize this was a 0:29:19.120 --> 0:29:22.360 powerful tool for people to share their interests and it 0:29:22.400 --> 0:29:28.000 was driving insane traffic to other websites. Now, in two 0:29:28.000 --> 0:29:30.360 thousand and seven, Kevin Rose said in a few interviews 0:29:30.360 --> 0:29:32.360 that he was initially a little worried about the types 0:29:32.400 --> 0:29:35.520 of content that could end up on dig because he 0:29:35.600 --> 0:29:37.680 was worried that it might require a lot of policing 0:29:37.720 --> 0:29:39.640 to make sure that the worst stuff on the Internet 0:29:39.680 --> 0:29:42.840 didn't really just bully its way onto the main page. 0:29:43.200 --> 0:29:46.520 But he said the community was consistently pretty good at 0:29:46.520 --> 0:29:50.560 finding relevant, interesting stories and sharing them, and so really 0:29:50.600 --> 0:29:56.320 the community in large part was policing itself fairly effectively. Now, 0:29:56.320 --> 0:29:59.440 one time this didn't play out the way he wanted 0:30:00.400 --> 0:30:04.040 was when someone posted a link to an encryption key 0:30:04.240 --> 0:30:08.880 for HDDVD. Do you guys remember hddvds. That was the 0:30:08.920 --> 0:30:13.400 format that was competing with Blu rays for high definition video. 0:30:14.120 --> 0:30:16.479 And eventually, of course Blu ray won out, but for 0:30:16.520 --> 0:30:20.200 a while it was a pretty tough competition, and the 0:30:20.320 --> 0:30:25.120 encryption key would let you crack the protection around HDDVD, 0:30:25.240 --> 0:30:28.360 which meant that you could then copy the content off 0:30:28.400 --> 0:30:32.880 an HDDVD and potentially distribute it. And so a lot 0:30:32.920 --> 0:30:36.040 of big companies were very upset about this, because you know, 0:30:36.120 --> 0:30:40.040 they don't really like piracy for obvious reasons. It at 0:30:40.120 --> 0:30:43.760 least is somewhat linked to a drop in revenue, although 0:30:43.760 --> 0:30:46.800 you can't argue it's a one for one case, because 0:30:46.800 --> 0:30:49.000 if someone steals something, that's not to say that they 0:30:49.000 --> 0:30:52.280 would have bought it otherwise. Sometimes that's just just not true. 0:30:52.920 --> 0:30:55.360 But sometimes if they steal something and share it, it 0:30:55.480 --> 0:30:58.520 might end up costing you in sales. It's just impossible 0:30:58.560 --> 0:31:01.680 to know to what extent right, because you can't guarantee 0:31:01.720 --> 0:31:04.360 that all the people who download something would have otherwise 0:31:04.400 --> 0:31:08.560 bought it. Still, it was a real problem. Now there's 0:31:08.680 --> 0:31:13.320 nothing directly against the law from copying the content on 0:31:13.360 --> 0:31:16.160 a piece of media that you have purchased for the 0:31:16.200 --> 0:31:22.320 purposes of backup. However, having to circumvent encryption gets a 0:31:22.400 --> 0:31:25.040 little more shady in the eyes of the law. So 0:31:25.240 --> 0:31:28.920 while you could make a backup copy, you weren't supposed 0:31:28.960 --> 0:31:32.560 to break encryption preventing you from making a backup copy. 0:31:32.800 --> 0:31:36.080 And this is one of the many reasons why pirates 0:31:36.200 --> 0:31:41.040 versus creators those battles get really ugly on both sides 0:31:42.000 --> 0:31:45.440 because both sides have they do a lot of dancing 0:31:45.520 --> 0:31:50.120 to justify their actions. I'll say that I don't necessarily 0:31:50.160 --> 0:31:54.200 think that studios or creative companies are free of blame 0:31:54.320 --> 0:31:57.160 in these cases. I also don't think that pirates are saints. 0:31:57.760 --> 0:32:01.520 It's a complicated issue, all right. So Dig's owners kept 0:32:01.520 --> 0:32:04.840 pulling down links to the encryption key that had been posted. 0:32:05.160 --> 0:32:07.560 They were trying to head this off. They didn't want 0:32:07.600 --> 0:32:13.880 to court a major lawsuit with a studio. They wanted 0:32:13.880 --> 0:32:16.080 to avoid that. They didn't want anyone to be able 0:32:16.120 --> 0:32:20.400 to say, hey, you're hosting this illegal encryption key that's 0:32:20.440 --> 0:32:24.600 letting people bypass the security we put on hddvds. So 0:32:24.680 --> 0:32:27.160 they were starting to pull down the links, but the 0:32:27.240 --> 0:32:29.720 users wanted the links, and so they kept on posting them, 0:32:29.760 --> 0:32:32.240 and they found tricky ways of posting them. They would 0:32:32.320 --> 0:32:34.400 name them other things in order to try and get 0:32:34.440 --> 0:32:39.520 around any detection. And so eventually Kevin Rose decided he 0:32:39.640 --> 0:32:43.280 was going to side with the community. He said, quote, 0:32:43.360 --> 0:32:47.000 you'd rather see Dig go down fighting than bow down 0:32:47.040 --> 0:32:49.600 to a bigger company. End quote. And he said, if 0:32:49.600 --> 0:32:51.480 that's what you want, that's what we're gonna do. We 0:32:51.560 --> 0:32:54.800 are no longer going to take down those links, and 0:32:54.960 --> 0:32:58.560 so he stopped. He said, We're gonna let them stay 0:32:58.600 --> 0:33:01.239 up on dig because that's what you users want, and 0:33:01.320 --> 0:33:04.080 that's the purpose of dig is to let the users 0:33:04.960 --> 0:33:07.240 generate the stuff that they think is interesting, or at 0:33:07.320 --> 0:33:10.520 least to share the stuff they think is interesting. And 0:33:10.600 --> 0:33:14.080 so he sided with the community on that one. Now, 0:33:14.080 --> 0:33:17.440 as Dig grew, so did its influence. Not only was 0:33:17.480 --> 0:33:20.800 it driving engagement among its users on its own site, 0:33:20.960 --> 0:33:24.880 it also could help drive traffic to other sites. So 0:33:24.960 --> 0:33:27.560 if someone shared, say one of my articles on dig, 0:33:27.600 --> 0:33:30.280 and it made the main page, we would suddenly see 0:33:30.320 --> 0:33:33.640 a huge rush of traffic coming in from dig. And 0:33:33.720 --> 0:33:37.520 that's valuable. You know. You got to remember that most 0:33:37.520 --> 0:33:40.680 of the Internet was generating its revenue through page views 0:33:40.760 --> 0:33:43.720 because the web pages were supported by advertising. So the 0:33:43.760 --> 0:33:46.920 more eyeballs that were on the page, the more money 0:33:46.920 --> 0:33:50.440 you were making. It became a goal for many sites 0:33:50.480 --> 0:33:53.719 to develop content that folks would naturally share on Dig. 0:33:54.240 --> 0:33:56.640 More and more began to incorporate the dig button on 0:33:56.760 --> 0:34:01.400 their pages to encourage this behavior as early as two 0:34:01.440 --> 0:34:06.240 thousand and six. Again, it launched in December two thousand 0:34:06.240 --> 0:34:08.040 and four, but as early as two thousand and six, 0:34:08.080 --> 0:34:12.040 other companies were already showing interest in potentially acquiring Dig. 0:34:12.800 --> 0:34:16.320 Yahoo reportedly wanted to scoop up the company for forty 0:34:16.520 --> 0:34:19.920 million dollars, not bad for a company that started on 0:34:20.040 --> 0:34:23.439 six grand Rose himself was interested in pursuing a deal 0:34:23.440 --> 0:34:27.600 with a totally different company, news Corp. News Corp had 0:34:27.760 --> 0:34:31.120 just purchased MySpace. I did a whole episode about MySpace 0:34:31.200 --> 0:34:33.120 ages ago. If you want to hear about that story, 0:34:33.280 --> 0:34:36.640 it's news Corp's purchase of MySpace is commonly referred to 0:34:36.680 --> 0:34:40.880 as one of the big big mistakes in mergers and 0:34:40.920 --> 0:34:44.919 acquisitions in the tech world. At the time, news Corp 0:34:45.000 --> 0:34:48.640 Was offering sixty million dollars to purchase Dig, and Rose 0:34:48.800 --> 0:34:52.319 wanted to sell. He wanted to take take them up 0:34:52.320 --> 0:34:56.200 on that offer, but he wasn't allowed to because Dig 0:34:56.239 --> 0:34:58.600 had a board of directors and he had to answer 0:34:58.680 --> 0:35:01.440 to this board of directors, and they would not approve 0:35:01.640 --> 0:35:04.759 of a sale to news Corp. They thought that the 0:35:04.800 --> 0:35:07.200 company was worth more than that. They thought Kevin Rose 0:35:07.239 --> 0:35:10.480 was going to drive this company to even greater heights. 0:35:11.239 --> 0:35:14.040 So even though Kevin Rose had created the company, even 0:35:14.040 --> 0:35:16.960 though he had funded the initial company, he didn't have 0:35:17.040 --> 0:35:20.840 the authorization to sell it to another corporation. So he 0:35:20.960 --> 0:35:26.160 was forced to stick with it. He was really upset 0:35:26.160 --> 0:35:29.279 about this, according to several of his friends, and frustrated 0:35:29.280 --> 0:35:31.120 that he couldn't just sell the company that he had 0:35:31.160 --> 0:35:34.040 created and make millions of dollars and then move on 0:35:34.200 --> 0:35:38.320 to do something else. And at this point, Kevin Rose 0:35:38.360 --> 0:35:45.200 owned about sixty percent of dig dot com. The board 0:35:45.280 --> 0:35:47.400 though they wanted to hold out for a bigger fish, 0:35:47.480 --> 0:35:50.160 they wanted to see a better offer, and eventually, a 0:35:50.160 --> 0:35:52.799 couple years later, a bigger fish happened to swim by, 0:35:52.880 --> 0:35:56.600 and that fish's name was Google. In two thousand and eight, 0:35:57.239 --> 0:36:01.000 Google was rumored to consider Dig for a potential acquisition 0:36:01.120 --> 0:36:04.080 for about two hundred million dollars, and this was more 0:36:04.120 --> 0:36:07.640 than just rumor. Kevin Rose talked about it. The deal 0:36:07.880 --> 0:36:10.840 was well on its way, but it fell apart toward 0:36:10.880 --> 0:36:15.120 the end. There were fundamental disagreements that the two sides 0:36:15.120 --> 0:36:18.640 could not see eye to eye on and ultimately Google 0:36:18.719 --> 0:36:22.880 withdrew its intention to acquire Dig. So that was a 0:36:22.920 --> 0:36:26.799 two hundred million dollar deal lost. Kevin Rose was beyond 0:36:27.160 --> 0:36:31.800 frustrated about that. Instead, Dig ended up going up for 0:36:31.840 --> 0:36:35.720 another round of venture capital investment to keep the company afloat, 0:36:35.960 --> 0:36:39.759 because even though it was valuable it wasn't really generating 0:36:39.920 --> 0:36:43.280 that much revenue, so this time they ended up raising 0:36:43.320 --> 0:36:48.520 twenty eight point seven million dollars from Highland Capital Partners. Meanwhile, 0:36:48.960 --> 0:36:51.400 behind the scenes at DIG, Rose was battling against his 0:36:51.520 --> 0:36:55.480 boat board of directors. Rose decided to partner up with 0:36:55.560 --> 0:36:58.759 a designer named Daniel Burka, who was also working for 0:36:59.080 --> 0:37:02.200 DIG at the time, and together they built a file 0:37:02.360 --> 0:37:09.920 sharing application that they called pounce Powncee. That's when the 0:37:09.920 --> 0:37:12.920 board over at DIG said, hey, wait a minute, that 0:37:13.040 --> 0:37:16.880 belongs to us because you work for us and Daniel 0:37:16.920 --> 0:37:21.240 works for us. So you're using DIG assets to build 0:37:21.320 --> 0:37:24.520 a totally different application that should belong to the shareholders 0:37:24.560 --> 0:37:29.080 of DIG. It cannot be its own thing. Meanwhile, morale 0:37:29.120 --> 0:37:32.319 at DIG was on the downslope. People are starting to 0:37:32.320 --> 0:37:35.560 get very discouraged over at DIG. And then the board 0:37:35.680 --> 0:37:37.600 said to Rose, hey, why don't you just knock it 0:37:37.640 --> 0:37:40.200 out with all those other projects you're looking at, pay 0:37:40.200 --> 0:37:43.239 attention to this company that you started. You need to 0:37:43.239 --> 0:37:46.240 make sure you can motivate the people at dig dot com. 0:37:46.280 --> 0:37:50.240 Pour your energy into being innovative in this company. Don't 0:37:50.280 --> 0:37:53.919 just look around for other companies. Now, Kevin Rose didn't 0:37:53.960 --> 0:37:57.480 exactly follow orders. He started working on a Twitter directory 0:37:57.520 --> 0:38:01.479 app called we Follow, which he audationed unveiled it south 0:38:01.520 --> 0:38:04.759 by Southwest. In two thousand and nine, Digg's board went 0:38:04.800 --> 0:38:08.000 to Adelson, who was still CEO at the time, and 0:38:08.040 --> 0:38:11.480 they told Adelson to fire Kevin Rose. So the board 0:38:11.520 --> 0:38:14.840 of directors tells the CEO, you gotta fire this co founder. 0:38:15.680 --> 0:38:19.400 But Rose and Addison had an agreement they could only 0:38:20.120 --> 0:38:23.320 fire each other with the other's consent. In other words, 0:38:24.280 --> 0:38:27.080 they had a veto for any direction that the board 0:38:27.080 --> 0:38:29.440 wanted to take, as long as it was about firing 0:38:29.520 --> 0:38:33.840 one or the other. So instead of firing him, Digg 0:38:33.920 --> 0:38:37.719 decided that, hey, well acquire we Follow. So the Board 0:38:37.800 --> 0:38:42.360 Directors was able to acquire this this venture that Kevin 0:38:42.440 --> 0:38:46.040 Rose had created, and reportedly Kevin Rose earned a few 0:38:46.080 --> 0:38:48.719 million dollars like six million bucks as a result of this. 0:38:49.239 --> 0:38:51.719 But as part of that, in order for him to 0:38:51.760 --> 0:38:54.560 get this money, he had to stick with DIG a 0:38:54.960 --> 0:38:59.360 while longer. Around this time, Kevin Rose started to invest 0:38:59.400 --> 0:39:01.640 in other companies, some of them turned out to be 0:39:01.760 --> 0:39:05.480 huge ones, like Twitter, But as investments were taking his 0:39:05.560 --> 0:39:09.719 attention away from Dig, according to his contemporaries, Kevin Rose 0:39:09.719 --> 0:39:12.200 would sometimes just come in to Dig once a week 0:39:12.800 --> 0:39:16.560 or just disappear for days and days at a time. 0:39:16.960 --> 0:39:19.040 The rest of the time he was working on other projects, 0:39:19.080 --> 0:39:22.080 investing in new companies, and that's really what excited him. 0:39:22.120 --> 0:39:24.640 It turned out that that's what he was interested in, 0:39:24.680 --> 0:39:28.800 the early process, when there's nothing but potential. A company 0:39:28.840 --> 0:39:33.320 hasn't cemented itself, it hasn't turned into its permanent version 0:39:33.480 --> 0:39:36.520 of itself, It could be practically anything. That's when Kevin 0:39:36.600 --> 0:39:40.279 Rose is interested in working with those companies. It gives 0:39:40.320 --> 0:39:42.719 him a lot of energy and creativity. He's not so 0:39:42.800 --> 0:39:46.400 much interested once it establishes itself and managing day to 0:39:46.560 --> 0:39:51.759 day activities is not really his forte. But he did 0:39:51.800 --> 0:39:54.640 help a lot of companies out this way as a 0:39:54.719 --> 0:39:58.040 venture capitalist investor, as an angel investor, if you will. 0:39:58.560 --> 0:40:02.160 But the board of Dig was getting increasingly frustrated with 0:40:02.239 --> 0:40:04.640 Kevin Rose, and meanwhile he was feeling the same way 0:40:04.640 --> 0:40:08.399 about the board of directors. On the site itself, things 0:40:08.400 --> 0:40:11.040 were getting pretty problematic. There were a group of dig 0:40:11.160 --> 0:40:14.440 users who had essentially gained control of what did or 0:40:14.480 --> 0:40:17.600 did not make the main page. In fact, according to 0:40:17.640 --> 0:40:21.560 some sources, the top one hundred users on dig dot 0:40:21.600 --> 0:40:26.040 com were responsible for fifty six percent of the content 0:40:26.320 --> 0:40:28.920 on the front page of Dig. Keep in mind there 0:40:28.920 --> 0:40:32.160 are millions of registered users by this point, and one 0:40:32.280 --> 0:40:35.520 hundred people are in charge of more than half of 0:40:35.560 --> 0:40:39.640 what appears on that main page. Now, they weren't exactly 0:40:39.760 --> 0:40:43.120 gaming the system, but they were definitely using the system 0:40:43.120 --> 0:40:47.879 to their advantage, whether knowingly or not. You see the 0:40:47.920 --> 0:40:50.360 power users the ones who had been using dig the 0:40:50.400 --> 0:40:53.799 most frequently in for the longest. Their votes had a 0:40:53.840 --> 0:40:57.600 heavier weight to them than a new user's vote. So 0:40:57.800 --> 0:41:00.320 if you had been on dig dot com since the 0:41:00.360 --> 0:41:03.239 beginning and you had been using it regularly and you 0:41:03.480 --> 0:41:08.040 voted up on an article, your vote counted way more 0:41:08.080 --> 0:41:10.479 than my vote if I just joined diig dot com 0:41:10.480 --> 0:41:13.520 the other day. And so that's how these top one 0:41:13.560 --> 0:41:18.600 hundred users were essentially dictating what would appear on the 0:41:18.600 --> 0:41:21.400 main page. And again, it wasn't that they were necessarily 0:41:21.400 --> 0:41:23.880 setting out to do that. They were using Dig the 0:41:23.920 --> 0:41:27.160 way they always had. They were up voting stories that 0:41:27.200 --> 0:41:29.440 they thought were interesting, and they were down voting stories 0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:32.120 that they thought were terrible. It just so happened that 0:41:32.160 --> 0:41:35.960 their votes counted more than anybody else's. So sometimes they 0:41:36.040 --> 0:41:42.920 might attempt to boost or drop a story by coordinating 0:41:42.920 --> 0:41:45.839 their efforts, but it was just as possible that they 0:41:45.840 --> 0:41:48.320 were literally using DIG the way it was meant to 0:41:48.360 --> 0:41:50.440 be used. It's just that they had more influence than 0:41:50.480 --> 0:41:54.719 anyone else did. Now Dig's initial solution to this problem 0:41:55.200 --> 0:41:57.960 because the board of directors, the people behind the scenes 0:41:57.960 --> 0:42:00.839 over a DIG, they weren't really keen on the fact 0:42:00.880 --> 0:42:03.400 that a small group of people were having such a 0:42:03.480 --> 0:42:06.040 huge influence on what was actually being shown. It was 0:42:06.160 --> 0:42:08.600 very frustrating for new users. It was making it more 0:42:08.600 --> 0:42:13.080 difficult to attract people to adopt DIG because if you 0:42:13.120 --> 0:42:15.239 come into a system where it feels like it's an 0:42:15.239 --> 0:42:18.080 old boys network and all the old boys are the 0:42:18.080 --> 0:42:22.440 ones who dictate what happens, it feels like nothing you 0:42:22.520 --> 0:42:26.359 do has any consequence. So they wanted to change this up, 0:42:26.840 --> 0:42:29.280 and they decided to try a couple of different methods 0:42:29.360 --> 0:42:31.480 to do it, but it didn't go over so well. 0:42:32.560 --> 0:42:34.719 One of the things they did was installed some controls 0:42:34.760 --> 0:42:38.320 behind the scenes to decrease the group's influence by essentially 0:42:38.440 --> 0:42:44.920 dewaiting their contributions. Part of this meant removing the list 0:42:45.040 --> 0:42:48.200 of top users from the site, which was kind of 0:42:48.280 --> 0:42:51.160 a badge of honor to get your name listed among 0:42:51.200 --> 0:42:53.279 the top users. But then once they got rid of 0:42:53.400 --> 0:42:56.799 top users, these same power users started to feel like 0:42:56.800 --> 0:43:01.840 they were being abandoned or ignored. Many of them felt 0:43:01.880 --> 0:43:07.360 like they were being dismissed. That all the years that 0:43:07.400 --> 0:43:10.000 they had been putting in working with dig, you know, 0:43:10.200 --> 0:43:15.040 using the platform, promoting stories, burying bad stories, that all 0:43:15.080 --> 0:43:17.200 of that was being swept aside, and so they were 0:43:17.200 --> 0:43:21.359 feeling like that they were being punished for this, even 0:43:21.400 --> 0:43:23.840 if they were just using Dig the way they always had. 0:43:24.320 --> 0:43:26.960 And so the company began to alienate some of its 0:43:27.560 --> 0:43:30.520 core user base, and that was a real problem because 0:43:30.560 --> 0:43:34.160 they started to set a new tone. All Right, we're 0:43:34.160 --> 0:43:37.120 getting into the beginning of the end. But before I 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:40.719 go any further, let's take another quick break to think 0:43:40.760 --> 0:43:53.040 our sponsor. All Right, at this point in its history, 0:43:53.160 --> 0:43:58.960 Dig had forty three million registered users, and Dig had 0:43:59.000 --> 0:44:02.120 started to experiment with generating revenue on its own by 0:44:02.320 --> 0:44:07.360 inserting dig ads into its pages. So between various headlines 0:44:07.360 --> 0:44:11.680 of stories, you would get promoted advertisement. It would just 0:44:11.719 --> 0:44:14.600 appear right there. There's sort of like the promoted search 0:44:14.640 --> 0:44:17.040 results that you would find in Google, and like those, 0:44:17.080 --> 0:44:20.400 the ads were clearly marked as ads. It wasn't like 0:44:20.440 --> 0:44:23.080 they were tricking you into thinking you were reading a story. 0:44:23.480 --> 0:44:26.279 They were marked as ads. And not only that, you 0:44:26.320 --> 0:44:29.920 could actually vote on those ads. You could dig or 0:44:30.200 --> 0:44:33.480 bury ads and gave users a lot of power when 0:44:33.520 --> 0:44:36.359 it came to advertising, something that I think was particularly 0:44:37.440 --> 0:44:41.560 interesting to allow your user base the opportunity to vote 0:44:41.600 --> 0:44:47.080 down ads. It seems like that would be potentially dangerous 0:44:47.719 --> 0:44:51.480 from a revenue standpoint, but it would also send a 0:44:51.520 --> 0:44:54.480 real message about whether or not advertising was working or 0:44:54.640 --> 0:44:59.680 very much not working. Around this time, dig also launched 0:44:59.719 --> 0:45:03.840 app for the blossoming smartphone platforms of iOS and Android. 0:45:03.840 --> 0:45:06.480 Now keep in mind, the iPhone came out in two 0:45:06.520 --> 0:45:08.840 thousand and seven. Android came out in late two thousand 0:45:08.840 --> 0:45:11.000 and seven, early two thousand and eight. This is two 0:45:11.040 --> 0:45:13.759 thousand and nine we're talking about, so all of those 0:45:13.800 --> 0:45:16.759 platforms were still very young, especially when you consider the 0:45:16.760 --> 0:45:19.880 fact that when iOS first launched, you could not develop 0:45:20.480 --> 0:45:23.520 an application for Apple. It was just the Apple apps 0:45:23.680 --> 0:45:26.760 on the original iPhone for a while before they launched 0:45:27.239 --> 0:45:30.880 the ability for other people to program apps for it. 0:45:32.239 --> 0:45:35.200 Things were not going smoothly. Behind the scenes, o Red Dig, 0:45:35.440 --> 0:45:38.840 Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson were having some disagreements about 0:45:38.840 --> 0:45:42.799 the direction of the company, and those disagreements continued to 0:45:42.920 --> 0:45:46.080 escalate throughout two thousand and nine and into twenty ten, 0:45:46.239 --> 0:45:51.080 until Adelson was asked to step down as CEO. More 0:45:51.200 --> 0:45:54.719 or less he was fired. Kevin Rose chose not to 0:45:54.880 --> 0:45:58.080 use his veto option. So remember, Adelson and Rose had 0:45:58.080 --> 0:46:04.680 disagreement where it would require their I guess, I guess 0:46:04.760 --> 0:46:08.160 their agreement with the board of directors before either could 0:46:08.160 --> 0:46:12.200 be fired, and Rose decided not to veno the board's 0:46:12.239 --> 0:46:16.120 decision to fire Adelson. So Ailson resigned. Essentially he was 0:46:16.160 --> 0:46:21.640 able to officially, according to the communication he gave, he 0:46:21.760 --> 0:46:25.320 stepped down from the position, but behind the scenes people 0:46:25.400 --> 0:46:28.600 say that he was essentially fired as CEO. But he 0:46:28.600 --> 0:46:30.840 said he wanted to go and work on more startup ideas, 0:46:30.840 --> 0:46:33.280 and that's exactly what he did. I'll talk more about 0:46:33.320 --> 0:46:36.720 that toward the end, Kevin Rose ended up taking over 0:46:37.160 --> 0:46:40.399 control of the company he founded. He became the new 0:46:40.520 --> 0:46:45.439 CEO of DIG on April fifth, twenty ten. In May 0:46:45.520 --> 0:46:49.480 twenty ten, the company laid off about ten percent of 0:46:49.520 --> 0:46:53.200 its work staff, now, Kevin Rose was still listening to 0:46:53.200 --> 0:46:55.640 the community. One of the things that he listened to 0:46:55.880 --> 0:46:59.319 was their reaction to a tool called the Digbar. The 0:46:59.360 --> 0:47:02.759 company had launched the dig bar earlier, and this was 0:47:02.800 --> 0:47:07.319 a toolbar that would appear above websites, so it would 0:47:07.320 --> 0:47:09.919 install itself so in your browser essentially, so you would 0:47:09.960 --> 0:47:12.000 see this toolbar whenever you would go to other websites. 0:47:12.360 --> 0:47:14.560 And it was meant to let people interact with dig 0:47:15.040 --> 0:47:18.480 without leaving the website they were on. So you could 0:47:18.480 --> 0:47:21.640 go read some other website and use this toolbar to 0:47:22.280 --> 0:47:27.400 leave comments about this particular article on dig, but without 0:47:27.640 --> 0:47:31.239 leaving the website to go to dig first. However, a 0:47:31.239 --> 0:47:34.360 lot of people fell It was really intrusive and irritating 0:47:34.360 --> 0:47:38.160 and distracting. So one of his first actions as CEO, 0:47:38.680 --> 0:47:42.840 Kevin Rose decided to ditch the Digbar. He was responding 0:47:42.840 --> 0:47:47.480 to the community reaction and hopes were running high on 0:47:47.560 --> 0:47:50.480 Kevin Rose, both from the Dig community and the board 0:47:50.480 --> 0:47:53.160 of directors. Everyone was hoping that Kevin Rose was getting 0:47:53.239 --> 0:47:57.520 re energized, reinvested in the company that he had created. 0:47:58.600 --> 0:48:01.399 The board had been really critical of Rose's focus on 0:48:01.520 --> 0:48:05.080 other projects, those other things that he was trying to 0:48:05.160 --> 0:48:08.279 launch while still technically working for dig but they were 0:48:08.320 --> 0:48:10.279 hoping that this meant he was back on board to 0:48:10.360 --> 0:48:14.719 lead the company in a new direction with innovation. So 0:48:15.400 --> 0:48:17.399 the big hope here was that Kevin Rose was now 0:48:18.200 --> 0:48:22.400 grown out of a phase according to the Board of directors, 0:48:22.440 --> 0:48:25.319 that he would no longer just focus on stuff as 0:48:25.360 --> 0:48:28.239 it was brand new and when it interests him, but 0:48:28.239 --> 0:48:30.600 that he would be capable of leading the company in 0:48:30.640 --> 0:48:35.440 the day to day operations of dig dot com. Meanwhile, 0:48:35.480 --> 0:48:38.759 the company began to alpha test the next version of 0:48:38.960 --> 0:48:41.680 dig dot com. This would be version four point zero. 0:48:41.920 --> 0:48:44.399 This is the infamous one. This is the one that 0:48:44.680 --> 0:48:48.800 people totally flipped out over for good reason. I don't 0:48:49.040 --> 0:48:57.000 think that it was unmerited. So before Kevin Rose became CEO, 0:48:58.160 --> 0:49:01.360 dig dot com showed off some of it concepts for 0:49:01.480 --> 0:49:05.959 version four point zero at south By Southwest in twenty ten, 0:49:06.840 --> 0:49:09.200 and a lot of people were really excited by what 0:49:09.239 --> 0:49:12.920 they saw. They thought that the innovations were merited, they 0:49:12.920 --> 0:49:15.839 were good. They felt that it was going to add 0:49:15.960 --> 0:49:20.640 value to the dig dot com experience. But once Kevin 0:49:20.760 --> 0:49:24.160 Rose took over as CEO, he essentially threw all of 0:49:24.160 --> 0:49:27.520 that away and decided to start from scratch. He more 0:49:27.640 --> 0:49:30.840 or less discarded all the changes, all the work that 0:49:30.920 --> 0:49:33.080 had been done for version four point zero, and this 0:49:33.160 --> 0:49:35.640 alienated some of the engineers at dig dot com as 0:49:35.680 --> 0:49:39.319 a result, some of whom left the company because of that. 0:49:40.320 --> 0:49:43.600 And instead he said, let's go in this completely different direction. 0:49:43.680 --> 0:49:45.160 And there are a lot of people who argue about 0:49:45.160 --> 0:49:49.040 why he did this. Some people say he genuinely just 0:49:49.080 --> 0:49:52.520 didn't see the value of the revisions. Some say, well, 0:49:52.520 --> 0:49:54.839 this was an effort for him to distance himself from 0:49:54.880 --> 0:49:59.640 the previous CEO. But whatever the purpose, he decided to 0:49:59.680 --> 0:50:02.439 go totally different direction, and it was one that ended 0:50:02.480 --> 0:50:09.759 up being almost universally unpopular among his community. So one 0:50:09.760 --> 0:50:13.880 of the new features of the Kevin Rose led version 0:50:14.200 --> 0:50:18.360 four point zero of dig dot com allowed news sites 0:50:18.440 --> 0:50:24.000 to submit their own content automatically to dig. I cannot 0:50:24.160 --> 0:50:29.840 stress how this alienated the community at dig dot com, 0:50:29.880 --> 0:50:33.400 because keep in mind, up to this point, the whole 0:50:33.480 --> 0:50:37.320 concept was that users were the ones submitting and voting 0:50:37.360 --> 0:50:40.919 on the content that would show up on dig dot com. 0:50:41.320 --> 0:50:43.719 If you thought a story was interesting, you could submit it. 0:50:43.800 --> 0:50:46.040 If other people thought it was interesting, they could vote 0:50:46.040 --> 0:50:48.520 for it. And that's how it could naturally rise to 0:50:48.560 --> 0:50:53.960 the top. Now with version four point zero, a news site, 0:50:54.000 --> 0:50:58.719 a media company could submit its own stuff directly to 0:50:58.840 --> 0:51:04.160 dig dot com, passing that user experience, essentially turning dig 0:51:04.200 --> 0:51:07.480 dot com into more of a normal news aggregator and 0:51:07.560 --> 0:51:11.800 less of a user generated experience. So it seemed completely 0:51:11.800 --> 0:51:17.160 antithetical to the original philosophy behind dig and as a result, 0:51:17.680 --> 0:51:21.480 community members went by nanas. In fact, a lot of 0:51:21.480 --> 0:51:23.040 people said that this was going to be the death 0:51:23.080 --> 0:51:27.200 blow of dig dot com, and arguably that's what did it. 0:51:28.360 --> 0:51:31.040 So a lot of people decided that they would just 0:51:31.280 --> 0:51:35.000 leave and go and use Reddit instead of dig dot com. 0:51:35.040 --> 0:51:38.759 Reddit was much more similar to what dig had been 0:51:38.880 --> 0:51:41.799 in the past. It also didn't help that revision four 0:51:41.840 --> 0:51:45.400 point zero consolidated a lot of those interests that I 0:51:45.440 --> 0:51:48.160 talked about earlier, you know, things like sports and entertainment 0:51:48.160 --> 0:51:51.239 and lifestyle. It consolidated a lot of those and made 0:51:51.239 --> 0:51:55.840 it more difficult to find specific content in those buckets 0:51:56.400 --> 0:51:59.560 because now they were bigger buckets that contained lots of stuff, 0:51:59.600 --> 0:52:08.200 not just these broken out interests. So they also got 0:52:08.280 --> 0:52:11.960 rid of the bury button, so you couldn't bury stories anymore. 0:52:12.000 --> 0:52:16.160 You couldn't vote down a story, and arguably it was 0:52:16.239 --> 0:52:20.520 to make sure that these users couldn't just end up 0:52:20.640 --> 0:52:23.440 taking control of dig and get rid of anything that 0:52:23.880 --> 0:52:27.359 criticized themselves, for example, but it also meant that there 0:52:27.440 --> 0:52:32.320 was if someone if a news outlet published a story 0:52:32.400 --> 0:52:34.480 directly to dig dot com, there was no way for 0:52:34.560 --> 0:52:38.800 you to express your displeasure to vote that story down. 0:52:39.239 --> 0:52:42.640 The only thing you could really do is not voted up. 0:52:43.680 --> 0:52:46.200 So a lot of people felt that this was taking 0:52:46.239 --> 0:52:49.799 the voice of the community away from the community, and 0:52:49.880 --> 0:52:56.640 this was a community based website. Some people decided that 0:52:56.680 --> 0:53:01.080 they would promote stories from Reddit as a way to 0:53:01.400 --> 0:53:05.600 make a dig at dig, so they would submit links 0:53:05.760 --> 0:53:08.680 from Reddit onto dig dot com. It was kind of 0:53:08.719 --> 0:53:12.160 a method of protest, but more people were just leaving 0:53:12.239 --> 0:53:15.440 dig entirely. They were ditching it and going to Reddit. 0:53:15.840 --> 0:53:20.520 In fact, Alexis o'hanian, one of Reddit's co founders, wrote 0:53:20.600 --> 0:53:23.800 an open letter to Kevin Rose, and he was specifically 0:53:23.800 --> 0:53:28.439 criticizing the fact that they had made these changes. Ohanian said, 0:53:29.400 --> 0:53:33.440 the new version of dig reeks of VC medaling and 0:53:33.560 --> 0:53:37.400 VC stands for a venture capitalist or venture capital. So 0:53:37.680 --> 0:53:42.239 o'hanian was essentially calling Dig a sellout, saying, obviously you're 0:53:42.280 --> 0:53:47.040 taking money from these companies in order to have this relationship, 0:53:47.120 --> 0:53:49.879 and it's at the expense of the community that made 0:53:50.160 --> 0:53:55.520 Dig a valuable asset in the first place. He was saying, 0:53:55.640 --> 0:53:59.600 it's not the links that make dig dot com valuable. 0:54:00.040 --> 0:54:02.960 Links already exist out there on the Internet. What makes 0:54:03.040 --> 0:54:09.120 dig valuable is this user engagement, this community that ends 0:54:09.239 --> 0:54:13.719 up supporting various links. That's where the value is. But 0:54:13.760 --> 0:54:19.239 you're completely undermining that by siding with venture capitals investors. 0:54:21.160 --> 0:54:24.600 After just a few short months, it was clear that 0:54:24.719 --> 0:54:27.600 Kevin Rose's heart was not in running this company and 0:54:27.719 --> 0:54:31.120 leading it in day to day operations. It didn't excite him. 0:54:31.600 --> 0:54:35.320 He found it grueling. He's still very much preferred being 0:54:35.360 --> 0:54:38.400 in on the ground floor as a company is just 0:54:38.480 --> 0:54:41.200 starting to find its way. He still thought that was 0:54:41.239 --> 0:54:45.080 the most interesting aspect of business. He was CEO for 0:54:45.200 --> 0:54:50.400 less than six months. Dig then hired on an Amazon 0:54:50.520 --> 0:54:53.760 executive named Matt Williams to take over the role of CEO, 0:54:53.880 --> 0:54:58.680 and Kevin Rose stepped down in August twenty ten. Rose 0:54:58.760 --> 0:55:01.560 himself began to drift away from the company again. He 0:55:01.719 --> 0:55:07.080 was showing more interest in venture capital investments and other ventures, 0:55:07.680 --> 0:55:11.120 and less interest in the company that he founded. By 0:55:11.160 --> 0:55:14.960 March twenty eleven, he officially resigned from dig dot com. 0:55:14.960 --> 0:55:17.240 He remained on as sort of a consultant to the board, 0:55:17.320 --> 0:55:20.600 but he was no longer an official employee. He also 0:55:20.719 --> 0:55:24.520 launched a company called Milk. This was meant to be 0:55:24.560 --> 0:55:28.000 a startup lab for new applications, So if you wanted 0:55:28.000 --> 0:55:31.000 to develop an app, then Milk was supposed to be 0:55:31.000 --> 0:55:35.600 a place where you could incubate these ideas, and Rose 0:55:35.640 --> 0:55:37.640 thought that this would give him the opportunity to work 0:55:37.680 --> 0:55:39.759 on a lot of different projects just as they were 0:55:39.760 --> 0:55:43.320 starting up, which meant that he would constantly be engaged. 0:55:43.640 --> 0:55:45.840 He would never get bored because there'd always be something 0:55:45.840 --> 0:55:48.920 new to work on. Didn't work out that way. The 0:55:49.000 --> 0:55:52.200 first app out of Milk was an application called oinc, 0:55:53.680 --> 0:55:56.360 as in the noise that a pig makes, and it 0:55:56.440 --> 0:55:59.000 was the only app the company ever produced, and rather 0:55:59.040 --> 0:56:02.920 than continue to deve Oink, Rose chose to shut down 0:56:03.000 --> 0:56:07.440 Milk and he joined Google instead. He took over some 0:56:07.600 --> 0:56:10.560 of the people from Milk and they all joined Google Venture, 0:56:10.640 --> 0:56:14.760 which is kind of their startup and spin off lab. 0:56:15.080 --> 0:56:17.640 He also brought the Dignation show to an end in 0:56:17.760 --> 0:56:20.600 late twenty eleven. He said that they had stopped recording 0:56:20.640 --> 0:56:25.040 the show by October twenty eleven, but that the unpublished 0:56:25.080 --> 0:56:30.360 shows would continue to air or to be published until 0:56:30.800 --> 0:56:34.640 sometime in January twenty twelve. And that's when Dignation came 0:56:34.680 --> 0:56:36.560 to an end. It had a two part finale and 0:56:36.600 --> 0:56:40.640 then it was over. Meanwhile, dig dot com was still 0:56:40.680 --> 0:56:46.800 hemorrhaging users. It didn't last much longer after Kevin Rose resigned. Wow, 0:56:46.880 --> 0:56:50.239 this classic episode's a long one, isn't it. So yeah, 0:56:50.280 --> 0:56:53.480 we still have some information about dig to get through, 0:56:53.920 --> 0:56:56.000 believe it or not. So we're going to take one 0:56:56.080 --> 0:57:09.040 last break and then finish out this classic episode. On 0:57:09.160 --> 0:57:14.399 July twelfth, twenty twelve, Dig was essentially split into three 0:57:14.480 --> 0:57:19.360 different components and sold off to different buyers. The intellectual 0:57:19.360 --> 0:57:22.919 property of dig dot com itself, the website dig dot 0:57:22.960 --> 0:57:27.480 com it went to a company called Beta Works. They 0:57:27.520 --> 0:57:32.640 bought this once incredibly valuable asset for five hundred thousand dollars. 0:57:33.040 --> 0:57:35.040 Keep in mind, this is a company that just a 0:57:35.080 --> 0:57:38.240 few years previous had been valued at two hundred and 0:57:38.280 --> 0:57:42.080 fifty million dollars. And then the site is sold for 0:57:42.120 --> 0:57:45.439 five hundred thousand As for the other assets, they brought 0:57:45.440 --> 0:57:48.080 in more cash, actually than the intellectual property of dig 0:57:48.120 --> 0:57:52.120 dot com itself. Linked In bought several patents that dig 0:57:52.160 --> 0:57:56.720 dot com owned for four million dollars, so the patents 0:57:56.720 --> 0:57:59.720 were worth more than the website was, and The Washington 0:57:59.760 --> 0:58:03.680 Post spent about twelve million dollars bringing on several members 0:58:03.760 --> 0:58:09.680 of Digg's staff to work on its social code project. Now, 0:58:09.760 --> 0:58:13.200 dig dot com still exists today. If you try to 0:58:13.280 --> 0:58:16.160 navigate to dig dot com, you will see a website. 0:58:16.200 --> 0:58:18.720 It is a news aggregator website. It looks very different 0:58:18.720 --> 0:58:21.320 from what it used to be. Now it looks kind 0:58:21.360 --> 0:58:25.040 of more like a standard news aggregate website with images 0:58:25.080 --> 0:58:28.520 and links to various stories across the web. Users can 0:58:28.560 --> 0:58:32.880 still give stories a thumbs up that can promote some 0:58:32.920 --> 0:58:35.520 stories into a more visible position on the web page, 0:58:35.640 --> 0:58:38.440 but there are human editors who moderate what shows up 0:58:38.800 --> 0:58:42.160 on the page itself, and you can't comment on stories anymore, 0:58:42.200 --> 0:58:45.400 at least not right now. According to Beta Works. The 0:58:45.440 --> 0:58:49.480 reason for this is that comments are hard. That's totally true. 0:58:49.680 --> 0:58:51.960 I am not making fun of Beta Works for saying this, 0:58:52.080 --> 0:58:55.720 because it is really a challenge to implement comments in 0:58:55.880 --> 0:58:59.960 a constructive way on your website, particularly in today's world, 0:59:00.840 --> 0:59:05.200 because it can easily be abused, very very easily. Too 0:59:05.280 --> 0:59:08.360 many people take the opportunity to use a comments section 0:59:08.960 --> 0:59:12.600 to cause mischief. And there's not really a big surprise here. 0:59:12.640 --> 0:59:16.040 It takes very little effort to cause a whole lot 0:59:16.080 --> 0:59:22.040 of commotion using comments, So it takes little work to 0:59:22.120 --> 0:59:24.520 make a big impact. If you're someone who likes to 0:59:24.560 --> 0:59:27.840 cause trouble, that is an open door invitation to do so. 0:59:28.400 --> 0:59:31.480 And obviously we've seen this across other places on the web. 0:59:31.760 --> 0:59:34.520 YouTube's a great example. It's not as bad as four chan, 0:59:34.880 --> 0:59:39.280 but it's a great example. So dig still exists, though 0:59:39.320 --> 0:59:42.120 you don't hear as many folks talk about these days. 0:59:42.160 --> 0:59:45.600 But it does get several million visitors each month. According 0:59:45.640 --> 0:59:48.000 to one source, I saw that it got twelve million 0:59:48.120 --> 0:59:51.600 monthly visitors as of January twenty fifteen, so one would 0:59:51.600 --> 0:59:56.080 presume it's probably around that level or higher now. And 0:59:56.200 --> 0:59:59.600 twelve million monthly visitors isn't anything to sneeze at. It's 0:59:59.600 --> 1:00:03.120 a pretty healthy amount of traffic. As for the founders, 1:00:03.160 --> 1:00:05.959 what are they up to now? Well, Jay Adelson worked 1:00:06.000 --> 1:00:08.960 on several different ventures. After he stepped down as CEO. 1:00:09.080 --> 1:00:12.920 He ultimately co founded a company called Center Electric. It's 1:00:12.960 --> 1:00:16.120 a venture capital firm, and so Adelson is still using 1:00:16.120 --> 1:00:20.439 his experience and money to help launch new companies. Ron 1:00:20.480 --> 1:00:24.400 Gordetski stayed with DIG until July twenty ten, which means 1:00:24.440 --> 1:00:28.840 he left during Kevin Rose's tenure as CEO. He went 1:00:28.880 --> 1:00:32.160 on to co found Flick, the review app that I 1:00:32.240 --> 1:00:34.800 mentioned earlier in this episode, and then he transitioned over 1:00:34.840 --> 1:00:38.040 to YouTube. He worked there till February twenty sixteen. He 1:00:38.120 --> 1:00:41.560 then became a digital service expert in the United States 1:00:41.720 --> 1:00:44.760 Digital Service This is a startup company at the White 1:00:44.760 --> 1:00:48.080 House dedicated to using technology to create better tools and 1:00:48.120 --> 1:00:52.200 services for American citizens. No word on how that's going 1:00:52.280 --> 1:00:57.000 right now. Owen Byrne left DIG in two thousand and seven, 1:00:57.840 --> 1:01:00.640 and he worked for several different companies over the following years, 1:01:00.680 --> 1:01:04.560 including Expedia and trip Advisor. And he was mostly building 1:01:04.560 --> 1:01:07.280 out systems for these companies, so he was working on 1:01:07.320 --> 1:01:09.560 the back end. And you know, once you finish that 1:01:10.080 --> 1:01:12.160 then often you might go on to do it at 1:01:12.200 --> 1:01:15.040 a different company. So that's largely what he did. As 1:01:15.120 --> 1:01:18.320 of January twenty seventeen, he started working for Zipcar in 1:01:18.360 --> 1:01:22.600 San Francisco as a software engineer, and Kevin Rose Well. 1:01:22.640 --> 1:01:26.080 He's still an advisor to Google Ventures, which is again 1:01:26.160 --> 1:01:29.360 that division of Google that is all about creating startups 1:01:29.360 --> 1:01:32.440 and spin off companies. He sits on the board of 1:01:32.480 --> 1:01:36.280 a company called hodin Key, which is a wristwatch enthusiast 1:01:36.320 --> 1:01:40.880 website related I assume to the wristwatch manufacturer out in Europe. 1:01:41.440 --> 1:01:44.280 And he's still involved in venture capital. He invests in 1:01:44.360 --> 1:01:49.440 companies early on while they're still malleable. Dig is an 1:01:49.440 --> 1:01:52.800 interesting story, and many of the elements that were pioneered 1:01:52.800 --> 1:01:56.800 at dig found their way into other platforms like Reddit 1:01:57.600 --> 1:02:01.560 or Twitter or Facebook. All of these ways of sharing content, 1:02:02.200 --> 1:02:05.840 many of them originated over at Dig. So we have 1:02:05.960 --> 1:02:08.160 Dig to thank for a lot of the way our 1:02:08.200 --> 1:02:12.640 social networking sites work today. And also it's easy for 1:02:12.720 --> 1:02:15.520 us to see in retrospect how the decisions that were 1:02:15.520 --> 1:02:18.640 made over at dig dot com ultimately were it's undoing, 1:02:19.280 --> 1:02:23.440 particularly and how it seemingly turned its back on the 1:02:23.480 --> 1:02:26.200 community of users that made it so valuable in the 1:02:26.240 --> 1:02:28.880 first place. But at the time it was probably much 1:02:28.920 --> 1:02:30.960 harder to see that that's what was going to happen. 1:02:31.000 --> 1:02:33.160 I mean, obviously you wouldn't make those decisions if you 1:02:33.200 --> 1:02:36.240 knew it was going to lead to the collapse or 1:02:36.240 --> 1:02:40.520 implosion of a company. Democratization on the Internet is a 1:02:40.520 --> 1:02:43.880 tricky thing. So if I ever do an episode about Reddit, 1:02:44.240 --> 1:02:47.040 I'll get into more about the democratization of the Internet. 1:02:47.200 --> 1:02:51.280 Reddit is not a stranger to controversy. It is structured 1:02:51.400 --> 1:02:53.400 very much in a way that similar to the early 1:02:53.480 --> 1:02:56.080 days of dig dot com. But they have been no 1:02:57.120 --> 1:03:02.400 stranger to behind the scenes drama. There have been plenty 1:03:02.560 --> 1:03:05.760 of stories about that over for Reddit, so it's not 1:03:05.880 --> 1:03:09.640 like dig dot com was an example of just bad management. 1:03:10.480 --> 1:03:13.040 It's a very tricky thing to do when you're letting 1:03:13.080 --> 1:03:17.120 your users define the experience. Sometimes that does not turn 1:03:17.160 --> 1:03:21.480 out in a way that's particularly nice. That's it for 1:03:21.760 --> 1:03:24.560 the Dig story, at least as far as it went 1:03:24.640 --> 1:03:30.280 in twenty seventeen. Since then, other stuff has happened to Dig. 1:03:30.360 --> 1:03:35.920 For example, a company called buy sell Ads purchased Dig 1:03:36.080 --> 1:03:41.920 in twenty eighteen. Don't know how much it paid for that. 1:03:42.800 --> 1:03:46.840 It has gone through a couple of different iterations since then. 1:03:47.560 --> 1:03:54.480 Michael O'Connor took over as CEO. In twenty seventeen, it 1:03:54.640 --> 1:03:58.960 is you know, shut down its dig reader RSS service. 1:03:59.240 --> 1:04:03.280 So yeah, a lot of stuff has changed set over 1:04:03.320 --> 1:04:05.920 the years with dig Maybe I do need to do 1:04:06.160 --> 1:04:09.880 perhaps a short update at some point to talk about 1:04:09.920 --> 1:04:14.080 how things have changed in more recent years. But I 1:04:14.120 --> 1:04:18.560 think it's it's pretty safe to say that Digg's influence 1:04:19.440 --> 1:04:24.440 has been diminished over the last several years. It's not 1:04:24.840 --> 1:04:30.800 frequently in the conversation the way say Reddit is, but 1:04:31.520 --> 1:04:35.200 it played a very important role, particularly for things like 1:04:35.320 --> 1:04:39.160 Discovery back in the earlier days of the web. So 1:04:39.240 --> 1:04:42.560 it is an important part of the story of the 1:04:42.600 --> 1:04:46.400 web overall. So I hope you enjoyed this classic episode 1:04:46.760 --> 1:04:56.000 and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff 1:04:56.080 --> 1:05:00.600 is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit 1:05:00.640 --> 1:05:04.200 the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 1:05:04.240 --> 1:05:05.200 your favorite shows.