1 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:07,160 Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 2 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:13,760 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 3 00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:17,560 Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer with how stuff 4 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:20,520 Speaker 1: works dot com. And today's topic comes from a Twitter 5 00:00:20,560 --> 00:00:24,279 Speaker 1: message I received from long time listener and Tricks, and 6 00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:27,360 Speaker 1: I apologize and Tricks if I'm completely mispronouncing your name. 7 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:29,200 Speaker 1: I'm sure it's not the first time, because you've written 8 00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:32,199 Speaker 1: before and we've chatted about your stuff before. But he 9 00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:35,080 Speaker 1: specifically had this to say, have you done an episode 10 00:00:35,159 --> 00:00:38,879 Speaker 1: on the story of dig d I g G. I 11 00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:41,599 Speaker 1: am quite. I'm actually quite unfamiliar with it, but I 12 00:00:41,640 --> 00:00:44,720 Speaker 1: know it's interesting. And here's the thing. I had not 13 00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:48,760 Speaker 1: yet done a story of dig episode, and it is 14 00:00:48,760 --> 00:00:53,000 Speaker 1: pretty interesting and it's a weird tale in many ways. 15 00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:57,160 Speaker 1: It had a meteoric rise once it debuted, and then 16 00:00:57,200 --> 00:01:00,800 Speaker 1: a very well publicized fall from grace and then a 17 00:01:00,880 --> 00:01:03,880 Speaker 1: more quiet attempt at recovery. So today we're going to 18 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:07,640 Speaker 1: explore the story of dig dot com, what it was, 19 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:10,759 Speaker 1: how it came about, and exactly why some people say 20 00:01:10,880 --> 00:01:17,600 Speaker 1: it serves as a lesson in community mismanagement. It's very interesting. First, 21 00:01:18,080 --> 00:01:20,120 Speaker 1: let me give you a quick overview of what DIG 22 00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:23,920 Speaker 1: was all about, and to some extent is still about, 23 00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:28,800 Speaker 1: though the current incarnation of dig is very different from 24 00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:32,320 Speaker 1: what was thought of as DIG back in the day. 25 00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:35,560 Speaker 1: So do you know Reddit? Okay, that's kind of what 26 00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:39,360 Speaker 1: Dig was. Dig was essentially a lot like what Reddit 27 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:43,000 Speaker 1: is now, and a lot of people who used Dig 28 00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:46,600 Speaker 1: abandoned it for Reddit, and we'll talk about why in 29 00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:50,760 Speaker 1: this episode. But more specifically, Dig was a site where 30 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:55,040 Speaker 1: users could share links to web pages, and it was 31 00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:59,960 Speaker 1: part social network, part news aggregator, and it said it's 32 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,560 Speaker 1: all apart from other services with similar functions, Like there 33 00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:07,680 Speaker 1: was dell Ish Suss. You might remember that you old 34 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:11,160 Speaker 1: timers of the Internet. That was sort of a bookmarking 35 00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:14,840 Speaker 1: app where you could link to a page that you 36 00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:16,799 Speaker 1: intend to go back to over and over and you 37 00:02:16,840 --> 00:02:19,720 Speaker 1: could easily share those bookmarks with other people. But the 38 00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:22,280 Speaker 1: whole purpose was this was a reference you intended to 39 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:27,040 Speaker 1: return to repeatedly. That's not really what Dig was interested in. 40 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:31,040 Speaker 1: They were more about sharing links to timely pieces of 41 00:02:31,160 --> 00:02:36,080 Speaker 1: content like news articles, for example, and then users on 42 00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:40,480 Speaker 1: Dig's site could vote, they could boost a topic further 43 00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:44,440 Speaker 1: up the main page, or they could end up knocking 44 00:02:44,480 --> 00:02:49,400 Speaker 1: it down. The main page boosting was called digging. You 45 00:02:49,440 --> 00:02:53,840 Speaker 1: would dig an article or a link and say that's awesome. 46 00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:56,639 Speaker 1: I want that promoted because I think it's really interesting. 47 00:02:57,280 --> 00:02:59,440 Speaker 1: If you wanted to vote it down, you buried it. 48 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:02,280 Speaker 1: So there were digging and burying, which is odd because 49 00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:05,880 Speaker 1: if we're talking about the physical act, that's very similar. 50 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:09,919 Speaker 1: But in this case, digging means I dig it. Berry 51 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:12,600 Speaker 1: means let's bury that story. It's not interesting, it doesn't 52 00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:16,960 Speaker 1: belong here. Ah. It was also meant to allow users 53 00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:20,160 Speaker 1: to determine which stories were the most relevant and interesting, 54 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:23,919 Speaker 1: and they were to have control. Really, the idea was 55 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:27,760 Speaker 1: that the users of the site determined what went on 56 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:31,040 Speaker 1: the site and how that content was arranged based upon 57 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:34,400 Speaker 1: their actions. So it gave a lot of control to 58 00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:38,560 Speaker 1: its user base, and that had a real appeal to it. Right, 59 00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:43,000 Speaker 1: And we'll dive more into dig in just a little bit. Also, 60 00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:46,080 Speaker 1: just in the interest of full disclosure, I should point 61 00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:50,600 Speaker 1: out that while I don't personally know the founders of dig, 62 00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:53,720 Speaker 1: we have never really officially met. I think I met 63 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:57,480 Speaker 1: Kevin Rose once, but I know a lot of folks 64 00:03:57,480 --> 00:04:00,960 Speaker 1: who are friends with them, so we have a lot 65 00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:05,600 Speaker 1: of friends in common and uh. Over the years, some 66 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:08,320 Speaker 1: of the stuff that was going on over at DIG 67 00:04:08,760 --> 00:04:10,920 Speaker 1: kind of made its way to my ears through the 68 00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:15,040 Speaker 1: grape vine, you know, just basic gossip type stuff. Now, fortunately, 69 00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:19,920 Speaker 1: because I'm me, I've forgotten almost all of that. I 70 00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:22,800 Speaker 1: have no I remember hearing a lot about DIG back 71 00:04:22,839 --> 00:04:25,200 Speaker 1: in the day, but I didn't retain any of that information. 72 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:28,960 Speaker 1: I never really used DIG that much myself, so it 73 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:33,040 Speaker 1: never took hold in my brain. However, I thought it 74 00:04:33,080 --> 00:04:35,240 Speaker 1: was important for me to disclose the fact that at 75 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:38,560 Speaker 1: least I know some of the same people that the 76 00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:41,640 Speaker 1: founders knew, that we ran in the same circles, just 77 00:04:41,720 --> 00:04:44,760 Speaker 1: to disclose that. But I don't think any biases have 78 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:49,120 Speaker 1: crept through in my reporting of this because my memory 79 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:52,240 Speaker 1: is so bad. It's not that I am so ethical, 80 00:04:52,680 --> 00:04:55,240 Speaker 1: It's that my brain just didn't hold onto the information. 81 00:04:55,600 --> 00:04:57,359 Speaker 1: I'd like to think I would be ethical if my 82 00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:00,320 Speaker 1: brain did hold onto it. But we'll never know, now, 83 00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:06,840 Speaker 1: will we. Anyway. The founders of DIG included j Addlson, 84 00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:13,200 Speaker 1: Ron Gorea, Getsky, Owen Byrne, and Kevin Rose. They started 85 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:16,279 Speaker 1: development on the site back in October two thousand four, 86 00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:21,240 Speaker 1: and they launched Dig on December fourth or fifth, two 87 00:05:21,279 --> 00:05:24,520 Speaker 1: thousand four. So let's talk a bit about each of 88 00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:27,720 Speaker 1: those guys and what they brought to DIG. First, we're 89 00:05:28,120 --> 00:05:31,440 Speaker 1: mentioned j Addleson. He came from Detroit and he grew 90 00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:34,960 Speaker 1: up in as cecil of Welcome to Nightville would say, 91 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:38,479 Speaker 1: he grew up in Michigan. He got a degree in 92 00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:42,280 Speaker 1: film and broadcasting with a concentration in computer science from 93 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:47,440 Speaker 1: Boston University in nine. After he graduated, he worked for 94 00:05:47,480 --> 00:05:50,520 Speaker 1: companies like the I s P, the Internet service provider 95 00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:55,040 Speaker 1: net Com. He helped design the Palo Alto Internet Exchange, 96 00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:58,600 Speaker 1: and he later founded a company called Equa Nicks, which 97 00:05:58,680 --> 00:06:03,280 Speaker 1: was another Internet ada center and infrastructure company. So his 98 00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:06,640 Speaker 1: work was primarily on the inner workings of the systems 99 00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:10,880 Speaker 1: that the Internet itself depends upon, you know, not websites 100 00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:15,039 Speaker 1: or but rather the actual infrastructure that allows computers to 101 00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:17,480 Speaker 1: communicate with each other. He worked a lot on those 102 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:21,760 Speaker 1: those sort of systems, uh. And it was actually in 103 00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:25,760 Speaker 1: his job at Equinox, where the company he had co founded, 104 00:06:26,120 --> 00:06:29,320 Speaker 1: where he would first meet Kevin Rose, you know, one 105 00:06:29,320 --> 00:06:31,800 Speaker 1: of the other co founders of DIG, probably the most 106 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:35,520 Speaker 1: famous of the founders of DIG. Kevin Rose at the 107 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:37,560 Speaker 1: time was doing a segment for a show called The 108 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:40,640 Speaker 1: Screen Savers, and I'll mention that show again when I 109 00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:44,040 Speaker 1: get to Kevin Addison would then become the business manager 110 00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:47,600 Speaker 1: for dig once it became an official thing. He used 111 00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:51,400 Speaker 1: his experience to hire the initial management team for the company, 112 00:06:51,520 --> 00:06:53,599 Speaker 1: and it was Addilson who led the charge in raising 113 00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:57,800 Speaker 1: venture capital shortly after dig launched. He would also become 114 00:06:57,839 --> 00:07:01,279 Speaker 1: the company's CEO in two thouse and five, and he 115 00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:05,320 Speaker 1: would co found Revision three along with Kevin Rose also 116 00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:11,800 Speaker 1: in two thousand five. Ron Gordetski is a software engineer. 117 00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:14,800 Speaker 1: He studied at the University of California, San Diego, and 118 00:07:14,880 --> 00:07:17,280 Speaker 1: his role on the team was to be the system's 119 00:07:17,320 --> 00:07:21,480 Speaker 1: engineering manager. Gory Getsky would also co found Revision three 120 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:24,640 Speaker 1: later on, so he was one of those members. Revision 121 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:28,520 Speaker 1: three initially was kind of a podcasting and video arm 122 00:07:28,840 --> 00:07:32,320 Speaker 1: of dig uh It's sort of existed It's as its 123 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:34,840 Speaker 1: own thing, and It's sort of existed as an extension 124 00:07:34,880 --> 00:07:39,600 Speaker 1: of dig itself. Godetski also co founded a company later 125 00:07:39,680 --> 00:07:44,240 Speaker 1: on on called Flick had two f's in the beginning 126 00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:47,760 Speaker 1: is F F L I c K, so flick it 127 00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:50,840 Speaker 1: was a film news and reviews site that based its 128 00:07:50,840 --> 00:07:55,600 Speaker 1: information off of Twitter posts. Google eventually would acquire Flick 129 00:07:55,960 --> 00:07:58,400 Speaker 1: in two thousand and eleven, and Gordetski went on to 130 00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:04,520 Speaker 1: work for YouTube until Owen burn the third co founder, 131 00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:07,640 Speaker 1: built the PHP code for the original Dig site. And 132 00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:10,960 Speaker 1: you might be saying, well, what is PHP? Php is 133 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:14,840 Speaker 1: an irritating acronym because it's a recursive acronym, which means 134 00:08:14,880 --> 00:08:17,960 Speaker 1: that it has its own acronym in its full name. 135 00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:23,040 Speaker 1: The full name is PHP Hypertext Processor, which isn't a 136 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:26,000 Speaker 1: very satisfying answer if I ask you what is PHP? 137 00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:31,000 Speaker 1: It's a general purpose scripting language, and it's open source 138 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:34,400 Speaker 1: and it can be embedded into HTML. So essentially what 139 00:08:34,559 --> 00:08:37,679 Speaker 1: Burns job was was building out the framework for the 140 00:08:37,679 --> 00:08:41,280 Speaker 1: original dig site and to add in the functionality of 141 00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:44,720 Speaker 1: the basic purposes for DIG. So he was responsible for 142 00:08:44,760 --> 00:08:48,680 Speaker 1: making sure that he could actually develop the the the 143 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:54,160 Speaker 1: basic functions that DIG had when it launched. In return, 144 00:08:54,920 --> 00:08:58,319 Speaker 1: he was rewarded with equity in the company itself, so 145 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:01,760 Speaker 1: he had some owners ship of DIG when it first launched, 146 00:09:02,040 --> 00:09:05,840 Speaker 1: and his title was senior software engineer and co founder. 147 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:08,800 Speaker 1: He would stay on with Dig until two thousand seven. 148 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:13,000 Speaker 1: Then we get to Kevin Rose, who is too freaking 149 00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:18,320 Speaker 1: years younger than I am. Multimillionaire Kevin Rose two years 150 00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:21,520 Speaker 1: younger than I am. I gotta be fair. The dude's brilliant. 151 00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:26,040 Speaker 1: He's a very intelligent guy, so I can't really fault him. 152 00:09:26,080 --> 00:09:29,240 Speaker 1: It's just a case of sour grapes with me. He 153 00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:33,480 Speaker 1: has founded numerous startups, including not only dig but also 154 00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:37,000 Speaker 1: Revision three, a company called Pounce, and another one called 155 00:09:37,040 --> 00:09:41,720 Speaker 1: milk Now. He got his start on the tech TV 156 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:44,960 Speaker 1: series The Screen Savers. He originally came on to tech 157 00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:48,800 Speaker 1: TV as an I T kind of guy, but eventually 158 00:09:48,800 --> 00:09:51,920 Speaker 1: he started to work behind the scenes as a production 159 00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:56,360 Speaker 1: assistant for The Screen Savers, and gradually he transitioned to 160 00:09:56,440 --> 00:09:59,880 Speaker 1: appearing on camera and eventually became a co host of 161 00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:04,480 Speaker 1: The Screensavers itself. When Leo Laporte left the show, Kevin 162 00:10:04,559 --> 00:10:07,120 Speaker 1: Rose kind of stepped into Leo Report's role on The 163 00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:12,200 Speaker 1: Screen Savers. Later on, Comcast would acquire tech TV and 164 00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:16,600 Speaker 1: merge it with another channel called G four, and Kevin 165 00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:20,800 Speaker 1: Rose initially would transition over with the G four team, 166 00:10:20,840 --> 00:10:24,080 Speaker 1: but by two thousand five, he negotiated his release from 167 00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:26,960 Speaker 1: his contract with G four, and of course by that 168 00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:30,280 Speaker 1: time Dig had already become a thing and had launched 169 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:33,920 Speaker 1: in late two thousand four. It was Rose and Allison 170 00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:36,200 Speaker 1: who first came up with the idea for a social 171 00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:40,480 Speaker 1: news aggregation service, and Kevin Rose decided he would pay 172 00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:43,280 Speaker 1: for this initial development out of his own pocket. He 173 00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:47,480 Speaker 1: took six thousand dollars of his own savings to fund 174 00:10:47,520 --> 00:10:52,960 Speaker 1: the building of the Dig initial build, so it really 175 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:55,160 Speaker 1: was his money. I mean, he he believed in this 176 00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:57,480 Speaker 1: enough to put his own cash down. It wasn't a 177 00:10:57,520 --> 00:11:00,320 Speaker 1: case of him asking for loans from other people. He 178 00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:04,080 Speaker 1: was twenty seven years old at the time. The co 179 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:08,000 Speaker 1: founders settled on the name Dig because they originally wanted 180 00:11:08,400 --> 00:11:11,960 Speaker 1: d I G with one G. But they had a problem. 181 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:16,720 Speaker 1: Disney had already registered the U r L www dot 182 00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:19,240 Speaker 1: d I G dot com and I don't know if 183 00:11:19,280 --> 00:11:21,480 Speaker 1: you know this, but Disney is not in the habit 184 00:11:21,520 --> 00:11:25,679 Speaker 1: of giving up property that it owns typically, so they 185 00:11:25,720 --> 00:11:28,559 Speaker 1: decided instead to go with two g's and get around 186 00:11:28,640 --> 00:11:30,839 Speaker 1: that problem. They launched the site on December five, two 187 00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:35,520 Speaker 1: thousand four, and on December two thousand four, Kevin Rose 188 00:11:35,559 --> 00:11:39,880 Speaker 1: would mention dig dot com on an episode of the 189 00:11:39,920 --> 00:11:42,920 Speaker 1: Screen Savers, so he essentially got to use the screen 190 00:11:42,960 --> 00:11:47,199 Speaker 1: Savers to promote this other project he had done. Um 191 00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:49,840 Speaker 1: he was co hosting the Screensavers at the time, so 192 00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:51,680 Speaker 1: he took the time to say, Hey, we've got this 193 00:11:51,760 --> 00:11:56,079 Speaker 1: new project called dig dot com. It's a user generated 194 00:11:56,280 --> 00:11:59,360 Speaker 1: news aggregator site and it's a way for us to 195 00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:03,680 Speaker 1: really concentrate on the coolest stories out there on the Internet. 196 00:12:03,760 --> 00:12:07,400 Speaker 1: And so the site began to gather users pretty slowly 197 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:10,800 Speaker 1: but steadily at first, and back then the site was 198 00:12:10,880 --> 00:12:15,520 Speaker 1: really simple. It listed stories by brief headlines, which were 199 00:12:15,559 --> 00:12:18,080 Speaker 1: also links, so you could click on the little headline, 200 00:12:18,080 --> 00:12:21,560 Speaker 1: which was user generated. People would type out what they 201 00:12:21,559 --> 00:12:25,040 Speaker 1: thought the story essentially was. That would be your hypertext 202 00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:27,400 Speaker 1: link to take you to the story. They would also 203 00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:30,480 Speaker 1: include a brief summary of what the story was about. 204 00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:34,640 Speaker 1: And the more users clicked dig as in I like 205 00:12:34,800 --> 00:12:38,160 Speaker 1: this on a story, the higher it would appear on 206 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:41,800 Speaker 1: the main page. And as some stories would climb up 207 00:12:41,800 --> 00:12:44,559 Speaker 1: obviously other stories had to drop down lower, and if 208 00:12:44,559 --> 00:12:47,400 Speaker 1: a story dropped down low enough, it would eventually roll 209 00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:50,280 Speaker 1: over to the second page of dig. And this is 210 00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:53,840 Speaker 1: very much like search engines a lot of people will 211 00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:56,400 Speaker 1: only pay attention to that first page. They don't want 212 00:12:56,440 --> 00:13:01,520 Speaker 1: to dig further down into the pages. So once you 213 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:05,000 Speaker 1: end up on page two, it gets really you see 214 00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:08,679 Speaker 1: a massive drop off on traffic to that link. This 215 00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:11,840 Speaker 1: is true for Reddit, it's true for dig Or, it 216 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:14,400 Speaker 1: was true for dig, and it's true for search engines 217 00:13:14,440 --> 00:13:19,800 Speaker 1: as well. Being on that main page is prime real estate. Uh. 218 00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:23,319 Speaker 1: And if you were burying a story enough, if enough 219 00:13:23,440 --> 00:13:26,760 Speaker 1: users buried a story, it would drop off entirely. And 220 00:13:26,800 --> 00:13:29,240 Speaker 1: the only way you could see it from that point 221 00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:32,880 Speaker 1: forward is if you enabled an option in your user 222 00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:37,080 Speaker 1: profile to view things that had been buried off the 223 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:40,480 Speaker 1: page in search results. So you could search for something 224 00:13:40,520 --> 00:13:43,960 Speaker 1: that had been buried off the page and you could 225 00:13:43,960 --> 00:13:45,840 Speaker 1: find it that way, but only if you enabled that 226 00:13:45,920 --> 00:13:50,920 Speaker 1: option in your profile. It was really all about driving 227 00:13:50,960 --> 00:13:55,720 Speaker 1: engagement and community activity. And you might want to know 228 00:13:55,760 --> 00:13:59,040 Speaker 1: what the first few dig stories were, like what appeared 229 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:02,280 Speaker 1: on Dig's site when it launched. What were the top 230 00:14:02,360 --> 00:14:06,640 Speaker 1: ten stories of dig dot com when it went live? 231 00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:11,080 Speaker 1: I got a list for you. Story number one was 232 00:14:11,520 --> 00:14:15,800 Speaker 1: Cherry o s delayed till Q one of two thousand five, 233 00:14:15,880 --> 00:14:18,520 Speaker 1: and that raises the question, what the heck was Cherry 234 00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:22,440 Speaker 1: O s Well, that was a power PC G four 235 00:14:22,640 --> 00:14:26,120 Speaker 1: emulator for Windows, which is a fancy way of saying 236 00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:29,680 Speaker 1: it was a program meant to simulate an Apple operating 237 00:14:29,720 --> 00:14:33,520 Speaker 1: system so that Windows PC users could actually run Apple 238 00:14:33,560 --> 00:14:38,040 Speaker 1: programs on Windows XP. It was an emulator. It emulated 239 00:14:38,080 --> 00:14:43,800 Speaker 1: the Apple operating system, or rather the Apple processor, not 240 00:14:43,880 --> 00:14:47,360 Speaker 1: really the operating system anyway. Back in late two thousand four, 241 00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:50,600 Speaker 1: it was apparently big news that the program was experiencing delays. 242 00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:53,720 Speaker 1: It would eventually come out on March eighth, two thousand five, 243 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:57,840 Speaker 1: in case you're curious. Not that it's relevant anymore, but 244 00:14:58,360 --> 00:15:02,320 Speaker 1: there you go. It's story number two said that Creative 245 00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:07,239 Speaker 1: declares war against the iPod. Actually it said de Layer's 246 00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:11,720 Speaker 1: war against the iPod. It left in a typo, but 247 00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:15,360 Speaker 1: we know they meant declare. And this ties into that 248 00:15:15,440 --> 00:15:18,800 Speaker 1: topic I covered not too long ago about the history 249 00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:22,240 Speaker 1: of MP three players. You might remember that Creative was 250 00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:25,240 Speaker 1: one of the companies designing MP three players back in 251 00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:28,280 Speaker 1: the day, and then Apple's iPod rose up to challenge 252 00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:32,400 Speaker 1: Creative and other companies. So this was a story that 253 00:15:32,520 --> 00:15:35,800 Speaker 1: tied into that. The idea that these two companies were 254 00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:39,200 Speaker 1: at war with each other. Both of those first two links, 255 00:15:39,280 --> 00:15:44,440 Speaker 1: cherry os and Creative, were submitted by anonymous users, but 256 00:15:44,520 --> 00:15:49,720 Speaker 1: the third story wasn't. That story was rumors next iPod 257 00:15:49,800 --> 00:15:52,880 Speaker 1: to have downloadable games, and this was a story that 258 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:56,320 Speaker 1: Kevin Rose himself submitted to DIG back in the early 259 00:15:56,400 --> 00:15:59,600 Speaker 1: development days for the website, when they were still building 260 00:15:59,640 --> 00:16:02,920 Speaker 1: out the site. He submitted this. It managed to become 261 00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:07,040 Speaker 1: popular seventy three days before it was even submitted to 262 00:16:07,080 --> 00:16:11,720 Speaker 1: the website, according to the statistics on the page itself, 263 00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:15,280 Speaker 1: which is kind of funny because you could argue this 264 00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:19,000 Speaker 1: is a bit of foreshadowing for some of Dig's later problems. 265 00:16:19,040 --> 00:16:21,480 Speaker 1: But honestly, this was probably just to test out the 266 00:16:21,520 --> 00:16:23,880 Speaker 1: features before they launched it. I don't think there was 267 00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:26,680 Speaker 1: any real attempt to game the system this early on. 268 00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:30,160 Speaker 1: It was more about making sure the website did what 269 00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:32,480 Speaker 1: they wanted it to do before they launched the site. 270 00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:37,080 Speaker 1: Story number four was one about a torrent search engine. 271 00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:39,680 Speaker 1: I've done episodes about torrents in the past if you 272 00:16:39,680 --> 00:16:42,680 Speaker 1: want to hear more about that. That was another submission 273 00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:45,160 Speaker 1: from Kevin Rose, and some people argue it was Rose 274 00:16:45,280 --> 00:16:49,600 Speaker 1: attempting to get a leg up by dominating Google search 275 00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:53,720 Speaker 1: for torrents search because it was a very popular topic 276 00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:56,920 Speaker 1: back in the day still is to some extent. Story 277 00:16:56,960 --> 00:17:01,080 Speaker 1: five was about the Logitech Z fifty point one surround 278 00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:06,520 Speaker 1: speaker system, probably obsolete at this point. Keep in mind 279 00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:08,879 Speaker 1: that Rose was coming from a tech review and talk 280 00:17:08,960 --> 00:17:12,960 Speaker 1: show background, so it's not a huge shock that almost 281 00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:16,719 Speaker 1: all of the stories on dig back in the day 282 00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:22,800 Speaker 1: where technology related. But then comes story number six. This 283 00:17:22,840 --> 00:17:25,479 Speaker 1: was a major story one I think we all agree, 284 00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:29,480 Speaker 1: burst free from the tech centric nature of the other stories. 285 00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:36,240 Speaker 1: This was by one get one free Jomba Juice. Sadly, 286 00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:41,240 Speaker 1: thirteen years later, this offer no longer applies. They laughed 287 00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:46,879 Speaker 1: me out of the store. Story seven was called Ben's Bargains, 288 00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:52,320 Speaker 1: though there was no possessive apostrophe after the end for Ben. 289 00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:56,320 Speaker 1: The name Ben b e n so Ben's bargains. I 290 00:17:56,320 --> 00:18:00,360 Speaker 1: assumed they mean bargains that belonged to Ben. I wish 291 00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:02,240 Speaker 1: I could tell you what the story was about, but 292 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:07,399 Speaker 1: later on it got deleted or merged into another story, 293 00:18:07,480 --> 00:18:10,840 Speaker 1: so it's all lost on me. I suppose Ben had 294 00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:16,359 Speaker 1: a bargain and I missed it. Bummer. Story eight was 295 00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:20,159 Speaker 1: a headline called cast skating Style cheat Sheet. So this 296 00:18:20,280 --> 00:18:25,960 Speaker 1: goes back to talking about development creating cast scading styles. Uh. 297 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:31,000 Speaker 1: Story nine was blog box applications, and story ten was 298 00:18:33,040 --> 00:18:37,800 Speaker 1: I don't know because it disappeared. It was deleted and 299 00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:41,639 Speaker 1: not archived in times, So I guess story ten is 300 00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:48,000 Speaker 1: story not appearing in this podcast anyway. Those were the ten, 301 00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:53,040 Speaker 1: well nine stories that first appeared on Dig when it premiered. 302 00:18:54,640 --> 00:18:56,600 Speaker 1: Now I've got a lot more to say about Dig, 303 00:18:56,960 --> 00:19:02,160 Speaker 1: how it developed and how it eventually imploded. But before 304 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:04,679 Speaker 1: I get into that, let's take a quick break to 305 00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:16,680 Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. Alright. So, one of the early features 306 00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:21,360 Speaker 1: that Dig built into its system was comments. Users could 307 00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:24,080 Speaker 1: leave comments about links. They could actually start up an 308 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:27,239 Speaker 1: entire comment thread. So it turned Dig into kind of 309 00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:29,800 Speaker 1: a forum about news items. It wasn't just a place 310 00:19:29,880 --> 00:19:33,640 Speaker 1: to share or promote or barry news. It was also 311 00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:37,520 Speaker 1: a place to discuss it. And uh. Of course, users 312 00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:39,960 Speaker 1: could end up bearing a news item and make it 313 00:19:40,080 --> 00:19:42,399 Speaker 1: drop off the list entirely if they felt that it 314 00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:47,640 Speaker 1: was merited. Sometimes people would try to spam Dig, especially 315 00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:49,560 Speaker 1: in those early days. I mean really, it was true 316 00:19:50,040 --> 00:19:52,600 Speaker 1: for the entire history of Dig. Because you've got people 317 00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:55,840 Speaker 1: who just like to cause mischief. So there were people 318 00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:59,240 Speaker 1: who are trying to spam the page, and luckily the 319 00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:03,200 Speaker 1: berry function allowed the community to respond and to get 320 00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:05,760 Speaker 1: rid of stuff that was just cluttering things up. The 321 00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:08,080 Speaker 1: same was true for anyone who was seen to be 322 00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:12,720 Speaker 1: promoting something that was self serving. So, for example, if 323 00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:16,159 Speaker 1: I were to try and share a an article that 324 00:20:16,320 --> 00:20:19,560 Speaker 1: I had written on how stuff works to dig directly, 325 00:20:20,320 --> 00:20:22,920 Speaker 1: that would not look so great, right. It was meant 326 00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:26,679 Speaker 1: to be a place where people discovered stuff and shared 327 00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:29,800 Speaker 1: it with others, as opposed to promoting their own work. 328 00:20:30,520 --> 00:20:32,760 Speaker 1: That was the other purpose for the berry button was 329 00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:37,040 Speaker 1: to make sure that this was truly a democratized, user 330 00:20:37,119 --> 00:20:41,040 Speaker 1: generated experience and not something that was dictated to them. 331 00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:45,200 Speaker 1: More on that as we progress now. The engineers that 332 00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:48,440 Speaker 1: did created an algorithm to determine if a story merited 333 00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:51,840 Speaker 1: inclusion on the main site or, in a later revision 334 00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:56,520 Speaker 1: of dig, on one of its major subsections. So, like Reddit, 335 00:20:56,880 --> 00:21:05,840 Speaker 1: dig would eventually become divided into depart ments like gaming, Lifestyle, Entertainment, sports, science, technology, World, 336 00:21:05,880 --> 00:21:10,600 Speaker 1: and Business, and also the offbeat category. And of course 337 00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:12,440 Speaker 1: there was the main site, the main page that you 338 00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:15,000 Speaker 1: would go to if you went to Dig dot com. 339 00:21:15,119 --> 00:21:18,359 Speaker 1: That was the primo real estate on Dig. That's where 340 00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:20,960 Speaker 1: if you wrote a story, that's the page you wanted 341 00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:22,840 Speaker 1: it to show up on, sort of like the main 342 00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:26,959 Speaker 1: page on Reddit. Very much the same. Dig also created 343 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:30,040 Speaker 1: a button that other sites could host on their own pages. 344 00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:32,680 Speaker 1: So you could include this bit of code in your 345 00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:37,040 Speaker 1: web page's htm mal file and a little button that 346 00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:39,480 Speaker 1: would would pop up on your page that would allow 347 00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:42,880 Speaker 1: you to have users click on it and submit content 348 00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:46,919 Speaker 1: directly from your page to Dig. That would let people 349 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:51,240 Speaker 1: either submit a story entirely or to vote up or 350 00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:53,600 Speaker 1: vote up a story. Really you had to go to 351 00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:57,160 Speaker 1: dig if you wanted to bury it. But once upon 352 00:21:57,160 --> 00:21:59,560 Speaker 1: a time you could dig stories on how stuff works 353 00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:01,720 Speaker 1: dot com. Um, I think we even we had a 354 00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:04,399 Speaker 1: Dig button that was active for quite some time before 355 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:08,159 Speaker 1: we did a site revision. But yeah, it was one 356 00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:11,600 Speaker 1: of those where if you wanted to share what you saw, 357 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:13,840 Speaker 1: then you could click on the Dig button. It's very 358 00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:18,200 Speaker 1: similar to the way a lot of sites use Facebook 359 00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:21,520 Speaker 1: and Twitter buttons today. In fact, you could argue that 360 00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:24,720 Speaker 1: Dig sort of paved the way for those other sites 361 00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:27,480 Speaker 1: to use that same kind of functionality. Further down the road, 362 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:33,199 Speaker 1: Kevin Rose would also launch a video podcast with Alex 363 00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:37,480 Speaker 1: Albrecht called dig Nation that was one of the cornerstones 364 00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:41,399 Speaker 1: of Revision three. That that video and podcast arm that 365 00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:44,560 Speaker 1: I talked about, that they launched in late two thousand five. 366 00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,240 Speaker 1: They used Dignation to talk about some of the top 367 00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:52,520 Speaker 1: stories featured on Dig, and the first episode published in 368 00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:57,080 Speaker 1: two thousand five, several months after Dig had already launched UM. 369 00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:00,680 Speaker 1: Depending upon what source you look at, some people say 370 00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,840 Speaker 1: it Dig started or Dignation started in May one, two 371 00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:07,760 Speaker 1: thousand five. Others say July first, two thousand five, which 372 00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:10,959 Speaker 1: seems like a pretty big discrepancy. Uh. I was not 373 00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:13,159 Speaker 1: listening to dick Nation at the time, so I cannot 374 00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:20,080 Speaker 1: independently verify that either way. But anyway, Dig launched in 375 00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:22,320 Speaker 1: December two thousand four, so a few months later you 376 00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:26,919 Speaker 1: get Dignation, and one of the one of the purposes 377 00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,320 Speaker 1: for Dignation was to talk about stories that had made 378 00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:32,439 Speaker 1: their way onto Dig and just to be kind of 379 00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:36,000 Speaker 1: a discussion forum for it um. And so in a 380 00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:39,600 Speaker 1: way it became a promotion for the dig dot com website, 381 00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:44,200 Speaker 1: and the two hosts were really personable and funny and informed, 382 00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:50,919 Speaker 1: and so it started getting popular pretty quickly. One of 383 00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:54,240 Speaker 1: the top stories that very first episode was to talk 384 00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:57,359 Speaker 1: about a major revision to Dig, which was even it 385 00:23:57,480 --> 00:23:59,840 Speaker 1: was not even a year old yet and DIG version too, 386 00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:04,000 Speaker 1: I know, was coming out. And uh Also it didn't 387 00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:07,160 Speaker 1: hurt that Kevin Rose and and Alex Albrecht would drink 388 00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:10,639 Speaker 1: a few beers on camera because it made them more personable. 389 00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:14,520 Speaker 1: They didn't get tore up on camera, not typically anyway. 390 00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:16,640 Speaker 1: Their shows could get a little rowdy when they would 391 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,440 Speaker 1: do live shows at say south By Southwest, but generally speaking, 392 00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:24,040 Speaker 1: it just made them seem like approachable human beings who 393 00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:27,160 Speaker 1: were talking about cool stories. So it was a really 394 00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:32,440 Speaker 1: appealing pair that had a very approachable style, and it 395 00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:35,919 Speaker 1: led to great success for Dignation at least for several years. 396 00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:40,760 Speaker 1: Uh I only ever saw them once at a south 397 00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,520 Speaker 1: By Southwest. It was just before they concluded the show 398 00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:48,560 Speaker 1: in October two thousand five. Dig reached out to venture 399 00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:51,960 Speaker 1: capitalists to get some funding. Remember, Kevin Rose funded the 400 00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:54,720 Speaker 1: initial launch of Dig with six thousand dollars of his 401 00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:57,560 Speaker 1: own money. The company managed to raise a cool two 402 00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,640 Speaker 1: and a half million dollars from various source is, including 403 00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:06,879 Speaker 1: the founder of Mosaic and Netscape, Mark Andresen. The user 404 00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,480 Speaker 1: base for Dig started to grow. It grew pretty steadily. 405 00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:15,119 Speaker 1: It hit eight hundred thousand users within eighteen months of launching, 406 00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:20,360 Speaker 1: which is pretty impressive, and heard thousand registered users. It's 407 00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,640 Speaker 1: not bad. And the development team was busy adding more 408 00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,480 Speaker 1: functionality during that whole time. Not only did they create 409 00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:30,440 Speaker 1: that tag system that allowed Dig to divide up stories 410 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:34,760 Speaker 1: into different divisions like whether it was technology or science 411 00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:39,840 Speaker 1: or whatever, but they also UH started looking into other 412 00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:43,679 Speaker 1: features as well, like a friends system where you could 413 00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:47,439 Speaker 1: befriend other users and follow the kind of stuff that 414 00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,600 Speaker 1: they liked. Maybe you might share a common interest with someone, 415 00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:52,840 Speaker 1: and that way it gave you even more opportunities to 416 00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:56,800 Speaker 1: discover cool stories that maybe weren't on the main page 417 00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:58,879 Speaker 1: when you log in, but because your friend liked it, 418 00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:01,399 Speaker 1: you would be able to see more about it. So 419 00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,600 Speaker 1: that was what really made Dig turn more into kind 420 00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:10,479 Speaker 1: of a social network than just a news aggregator. Really 421 00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:18,240 Speaker 1: the name of the game was diversification. UH they really 422 00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:22,520 Speaker 1: helped Dig a lot because when it first started it 423 00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:26,800 Speaker 1: was almost exclusively focused on technology. You remember when I 424 00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:29,720 Speaker 1: was listing out those first ten stories. But the first 425 00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:33,120 Speaker 1: nine stories, eight of them were about tech. Only one 426 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:37,320 Speaker 1: was not directly about technology. So it had a limited 427 00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,640 Speaker 1: appeal for a very particular audience. Let's call them nerds, 428 00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:43,200 Speaker 1: because I am a nerd. I have a nerd podcast. 429 00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,240 Speaker 1: I'm doing it right now. I'm not calling you guys nerds, 430 00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:50,119 Speaker 1: but I'm a nerd. So dig really had an appeal 431 00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:54,320 Speaker 1: to nerds when it first started, and again no disrespect, 432 00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:58,240 Speaker 1: I consider myself one. But by two thousand six, the 433 00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,879 Speaker 1: side had really branched out with these their categories like 434 00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:03,919 Speaker 1: sports and entertainment and lifestyle, and so it had a 435 00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:08,360 Speaker 1: broader appeal. It was no longer just for technology enthusiasts. 436 00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,679 Speaker 1: It was for anybody who wanted to learn about the 437 00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,240 Speaker 1: coolest stories that were breaking in their particular area of interest. 438 00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:20,520 Speaker 1: Another adjustment helped add some credibility to Dig. They decided 439 00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:23,840 Speaker 1: to add in the capability for users to report stories 440 00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:28,400 Speaker 1: as being inaccurate. So there's a lot of talk today 441 00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:34,400 Speaker 1: about fake news, about sites that generate articles that are 442 00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:39,840 Speaker 1: not really reflective of reality that end up being misleading 443 00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:44,760 Speaker 1: or complete fabrications or lies, or they are trying to 444 00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:49,240 Speaker 1: be satire, but they never really succeed in being satire well. 445 00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:52,080 Speaker 1: Dig built in this tool so that users could point 446 00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:55,680 Speaker 1: that out and those links could then be pulled from 447 00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,000 Speaker 1: the various pages on Dig so that they weren't cluttering 448 00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:04,159 Speaker 1: things up. They also had filters to help catch profanity 449 00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,840 Speaker 1: to help cut down on some flame wars that could 450 00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:08,800 Speaker 1: go on in comments. As it turns out, when you 451 00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,439 Speaker 1: let people comment, some people take advantage of that and 452 00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:16,399 Speaker 1: abuse the system, so they tried to deal with that 453 00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:18,280 Speaker 1: as best they could. They also wanted to make sure 454 00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,639 Speaker 1: that they could filter out profanity in the headlines and 455 00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,719 Speaker 1: stories themselves. Uh. It was a case of trying to 456 00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,480 Speaker 1: make sure that people were using Dig for the way 457 00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,240 Speaker 1: they had intended it to be used, and not for 458 00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:34,080 Speaker 1: it to turn into just the wild West. And it 459 00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:37,000 Speaker 1: also showed that they still cared about how Dig operated. 460 00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,960 Speaker 1: In August two thousand six, Business Week featured Kevin Rose 461 00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:46,479 Speaker 1: on the cover of its magazine, and Revision three, that 462 00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:50,440 Speaker 1: podcasting company that Rose and his co founders launched in 463 00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,160 Speaker 1: late two thousand five, helped Dig secure another million dollars 464 00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:58,959 Speaker 1: in venture capital funding. At this point, Dig itself was 465 00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:05,120 Speaker 1: estimated to valued at two hundred fifty million dollars according 466 00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:08,719 Speaker 1: to The New York Post, so less than two years 467 00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:11,560 Speaker 1: after it had launched, and it was worth a quarter 468 00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:17,400 Speaker 1: of a billion dollars two fifty million dollars. That's crazy, 469 00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,840 Speaker 1: but understandable when you realize this was a powerful tool 470 00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:25,160 Speaker 1: for people to share their interests and it was driving 471 00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:30,720 Speaker 1: insane traffic to other websites. Now. In two thousand seven, 472 00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:32,600 Speaker 1: Kevin Rose said in a few interviews that he was 473 00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:35,080 Speaker 1: initially a little worried about the types of content that 474 00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,000 Speaker 1: could end up on dig because he was worried that 475 00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,240 Speaker 1: it might require a lot of policing to make sure 476 00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,280 Speaker 1: that the worst stuff on the Internet didn't really just 477 00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,640 Speaker 1: bully its way onto the main page. But he said 478 00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:50,000 Speaker 1: the community was consistently pretty good at finding relevant, interesting 479 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:53,240 Speaker 1: stories and sharing them, and so really the community in 480 00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:58,840 Speaker 1: large part, was policing itself fairly effectively. Now, one time 481 00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,760 Speaker 1: this didn't play out the way he wanted was when 482 00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:07,880 Speaker 1: someone posted a link to an encryption key for HD DVD. 483 00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:10,880 Speaker 1: Do you guys remember h D DVDs. That was the 484 00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,640 Speaker 1: format that was competing with blue rays for high definition 485 00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:18,160 Speaker 1: video uh and eventually, of course Blu ray one out, 486 00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,240 Speaker 1: but for a while it was a pretty tough competition, 487 00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:25,560 Speaker 1: and the encryption key would let you crack the protection 488 00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,600 Speaker 1: around h D DVD, which meant that you could then 489 00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:33,479 Speaker 1: copy the content off an HD DVD and potentially distribute it. 490 00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,640 Speaker 1: And so a lot of big companies were very upset 491 00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,960 Speaker 1: about this because you know, they don't really like piracy 492 00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,880 Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. It at least is somewhat linked to 493 00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,800 Speaker 1: a drop in revenue, although you can't argue it's a 494 00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:50,200 Speaker 1: one for one case, because if someone steals something, that's 495 00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:52,360 Speaker 1: not to say that they would have bought it otherwise. 496 00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,719 Speaker 1: Sometimes it's just just not true. But sometimes if they 497 00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:58,840 Speaker 1: steal something and share it, it might end up costing 498 00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:02,520 Speaker 1: you in sales. It's just possible to know to what extent, right, 499 00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:04,920 Speaker 1: because you can't guarantee that all the people who download 500 00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,800 Speaker 1: something would have otherwise bought it. Still, it was a 501 00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:13,040 Speaker 1: real problem. Now there's nothing directly against the law from 502 00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,480 Speaker 1: copying the content on a piece of media that you 503 00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:20,920 Speaker 1: have purchased for the purposes of backup. However, having to 504 00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:26,160 Speaker 1: circumvent encryption gets a little more shady in the eyes 505 00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,920 Speaker 1: of the law. So while you could make a backup 506 00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:33,160 Speaker 1: copy you weren't supposed to break encryption preventing you from 507 00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,560 Speaker 1: making a backup copy. And this is one of the 508 00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:41,480 Speaker 1: many reasons why pirates versus creators those battles get really 509 00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:46,520 Speaker 1: ugly on both sides, because both sides have they do 510 00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:50,360 Speaker 1: a lot of dancing to justify their actions. I'll say 511 00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,560 Speaker 1: that I don't necessarily think that studios or creative companies 512 00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,920 Speaker 1: are free of blame in these cases. I also don't 513 00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:02,280 Speaker 1: think that pirates are saints. It's uh complicated issue, al right. 514 00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:05,440 Speaker 1: So Dig's owners kept pulling down links to the encryption 515 00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,360 Speaker 1: key that had been posted. They were trying to head 516 00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:13,160 Speaker 1: this off. They didn't want to court a major lawsuit 517 00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:17,040 Speaker 1: with a studio. They wanted to avoid that. They didn't 518 00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:19,520 Speaker 1: want anyone to be able to say, hey, you're hosting 519 00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:24,320 Speaker 1: this illegal encryption key that's letting people bypass the security 520 00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,280 Speaker 1: we put on HD DVDs. So they were starting to 521 00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:30,320 Speaker 1: pull down the links, but the users wanted the links, 522 00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:32,240 Speaker 1: and so they kept on posting them, and they found 523 00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:34,920 Speaker 1: tricky ways of posting them. They would name them other 524 00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:37,560 Speaker 1: things in order to try and get around any detection. 525 00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,840 Speaker 1: And so eventually Kevin Rose decided he was going to 526 00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,680 Speaker 1: side with the community. He said, he said, quote, you'd 527 00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,080 Speaker 1: rather see Dig go down fighting than bow down to 528 00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,760 Speaker 1: a bigger company. End quote. And he said, if that's 529 00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:53,680 Speaker 1: what you want, that's what we're gonna do. We are 530 00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:57,200 Speaker 1: no longer going to take down those links. And so 531 00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:00,719 Speaker 1: he stopped. He said, we're gonna let them stay up 532 00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:03,520 Speaker 1: on dig because that's what you users want, and that's 533 00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:07,400 Speaker 1: the purpose of dig is to let the users generate 534 00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:09,520 Speaker 1: the stuff that they think is interesting, or at least 535 00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:12,840 Speaker 1: to share the stuff they think is interesting. And so 536 00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:16,240 Speaker 1: he sided with the community on that one. Now, as 537 00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:19,520 Speaker 1: Dig grew, so did its influence. Not only was it 538 00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,000 Speaker 1: driving engagement among its users on its own site, it 539 00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:27,080 Speaker 1: also could help drive traffic to other sites. So if 540 00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,680 Speaker 1: someone shared, say one of my articles on dig, and 541 00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,400 Speaker 1: it made the main page, we would suddenly see a 542 00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:36,520 Speaker 1: huge rush of traffic coming in from Dig. And that's valuable. 543 00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:40,160 Speaker 1: You know. You gotta remember that most of the Internet 544 00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:43,600 Speaker 1: was generating its revenue through page views because the web 545 00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,560 Speaker 1: pages were supported by advertising. So the more eyeballs that 546 00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:49,520 Speaker 1: were on the page, the more money you were making. 547 00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,360 Speaker 1: It became a goal for many sites to develop content 548 00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:56,720 Speaker 1: that folks would naturally share on Dig. More and more 549 00:33:56,760 --> 00:33:59,720 Speaker 1: began to incorporate the dig button on their pages too, 550 00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:05,360 Speaker 1: and courage this behavior as early as two thousand six. Again, 551 00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:09,200 Speaker 1: it launched in December two thousand four, but as early 552 00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:11,520 Speaker 1: as two thousand and six, other companies were already showing 553 00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:16,760 Speaker 1: interest in potentially acquiring Dig. Yahoo reportedly wanted to scoop 554 00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,440 Speaker 1: up the company for forty million dollars, not bad for 555 00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:24,200 Speaker 1: a company that started on six grand Rose himself was 556 00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,560 Speaker 1: interested in pursuing a deal with a totally different company, 557 00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:31,480 Speaker 1: news Corp. News Score had just purchased my Space. I 558 00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:33,880 Speaker 1: did a whole episode about my Space ages ago. If 559 00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,520 Speaker 1: you want to hear about that story, it's news cores. 560 00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,080 Speaker 1: Purchase of MySpace is commonly referred to as one of 561 00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:43,759 Speaker 1: the big big mistakes in mergers and acquisitions in the 562 00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:47,960 Speaker 1: tech world. At the time, news Core was offering sixty 563 00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,520 Speaker 1: million dollars to purchase Dig, and Rose wanted to sell. 564 00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:54,920 Speaker 1: He wanted to take take them up on that offer, 565 00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,879 Speaker 1: but he wasn't allowed to because Dig had a board 566 00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:01,240 Speaker 1: of directors, and he had to answer to this board 567 00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,280 Speaker 1: of directors, and they would not approve of a sale 568 00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:07,520 Speaker 1: to News Corps. They thought that the company was worth 569 00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,480 Speaker 1: more than that. They thought Kevin Rose was going to 570 00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:13,920 Speaker 1: drive this company to even greater heights. So even though 571 00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,520 Speaker 1: Kevin Rose had created the company, even though he had 572 00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:20,000 Speaker 1: funded the initial company, he didn't have the authorization to 573 00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:23,920 Speaker 1: sell it to another corporation, so he was forced to 574 00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:28,560 Speaker 1: stick with it. UM. He was really upset about this, 575 00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,400 Speaker 1: according to several of his friends, and frustrated that he 576 00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,000 Speaker 1: couldn't just sell the company that he had created and 577 00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,440 Speaker 1: make millions of dollars and then move on to do 578 00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:40,640 Speaker 1: something else. Uh And at this point, Kevin Rose owned 579 00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:46,799 Speaker 1: about sixty per cent of dig dot com. They the 580 00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,360 Speaker 1: board though they wanted to hold out for a bigger fish. 581 00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:52,080 Speaker 1: They wanted to see a better offer, and eventually, a 582 00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,759 Speaker 1: couple of years later, a bigger fish happened to swim by, 583 00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:58,680 Speaker 1: and that fish's name was Google. In two thousand and eight, 584 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:03,000 Speaker 1: Google was rumored to consider Dig for a potential acquisition 585 00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,080 Speaker 1: for about two hundred million dollars. And this was more 586 00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:09,560 Speaker 1: than just rumor. Kevin Rose talked about it. The deal 587 00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:12,840 Speaker 1: was well on its way, but it fell apart towards 588 00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:16,719 Speaker 1: the end. UH. There were fundamental disagreements that the two 589 00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:20,200 Speaker 1: sides could not see eye to eye on and ultimately 590 00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:24,719 Speaker 1: Google withdrew its intention to acquire Dig, So that was 591 00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:27,799 Speaker 1: a two hundred million dollar deal lost. Kevin Rose was 592 00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:33,680 Speaker 1: beyond frustrated about that. Instead, Dig ended up going up 593 00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:36,719 Speaker 1: for another round of venture capital investment to keep the 594 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,919 Speaker 1: company afloat, because even though it was valuable, it wasn't 595 00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,719 Speaker 1: really generating that much revenue. So this time they ended 596 00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:48,000 Speaker 1: up raising twenty eight point seven million dollars from Highland 597 00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:52,520 Speaker 1: Capital Partners. Meanwhile, behind the scenes that Dig Rose was 598 00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:56,759 Speaker 1: battling against his boat board of directors, Rose decided to 599 00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:59,719 Speaker 1: partner up with a designer named Daniel Burke who was 600 00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:03,400 Speaker 1: also working for DIG at the time, and together they 601 00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,440 Speaker 1: built a file sharing application that they called pounce po 602 00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:13,959 Speaker 1: w n CE. That's when the board over at DIG said, hey, 603 00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,200 Speaker 1: wait a minute, that belongs to us because you work 604 00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:21,400 Speaker 1: for us and Daniel works for us. So you're using 605 00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:25,320 Speaker 1: DIG assets to build a totally different application that should 606 00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,920 Speaker 1: belong to the shareholders of Dig. It cannot be its 607 00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:33,200 Speaker 1: own thing. Meanwhile, morale it DIG was on the down slope. 608 00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,520 Speaker 1: People are starting to get very discouraged over at Dig, 609 00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:38,879 Speaker 1: and then the board said to Rose, hey, why don't 610 00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,200 Speaker 1: you just knock it out with all those other projects 611 00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:44,280 Speaker 1: you're looking at, pay attention to this company that you started. 612 00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,200 Speaker 1: You need to make sure you can motivate the people 613 00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:50,279 Speaker 1: at dig dot com. Pour your energy into being innovative 614 00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:55,080 Speaker 1: in this company. Don't just look around for other companies. Now, 615 00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,319 Speaker 1: Kevin Rose didn't exactly follow orders. He started working on 616 00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:02,280 Speaker 1: a Twitter directory app called we Follow, which he audaciously 617 00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:06,080 Speaker 1: unveiled it south by Southwest in two thousand nine. Dig's 618 00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:09,799 Speaker 1: board went to Addleston, who was still CEO at the time, 619 00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:13,239 Speaker 1: and they told Addson to fire Kevin Rose. So the 620 00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:16,040 Speaker 1: board of directors tells the CEO, you gotta fire this 621 00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:20,719 Speaker 1: co founder. But Rose and Addison had an agreement they 622 00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:24,719 Speaker 1: could only fire each other with the other's consent. In 623 00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:28,680 Speaker 1: other words, they had a veto for any direction that 624 00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:30,600 Speaker 1: the board wanted to take, as long as it was 625 00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:35,320 Speaker 1: about firing one or the other. So instead of firing him, uh, 626 00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:39,440 Speaker 1: DIG decided that, hey, well acquire we Follow. So the 627 00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:43,400 Speaker 1: board of directors was able to acquire this this venture 628 00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:47,759 Speaker 1: that Kevin Rose had created, and reportedly Kevin Rose earned 629 00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,120 Speaker 1: a few million dollars like six million bucks as a 630 00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:53,399 Speaker 1: result of this, but as part of that, in order 631 00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:55,160 Speaker 1: for him to get this money, he had to stick 632 00:38:55,200 --> 00:39:00,000 Speaker 1: with DIG a lot a while longer. Around this time, 633 00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,880 Speaker 1: Evan Rose started to invest in other companies. Some of 634 00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,799 Speaker 1: them turned out to be huge ones, like Twitter, But 635 00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:09,360 Speaker 1: as investments were taking his attention away from DIG, according 636 00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,840 Speaker 1: to his contemporaries, Kevin Rose would sometimes just come in 637 00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:17,480 Speaker 1: to DIG once a week or just disappear for days 638 00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:19,600 Speaker 1: and days at a time. The rest of the time 639 00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:22,360 Speaker 1: he was working on other projects, investing in new companies, 640 00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:25,120 Speaker 1: and that's really what excited him. It turned out that 641 00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:28,840 Speaker 1: that's what he was interested in. The early process, when 642 00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,400 Speaker 1: there's nothing but potential, a company hasn't cemented itself and 643 00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:36,399 Speaker 1: hasn't turned into its permanent version of itself, he could 644 00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:39,799 Speaker 1: be practically anything. That's when Kevin Rose is interested in 645 00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:42,600 Speaker 1: working with those companies. Uh. It gives them a lot 646 00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:45,680 Speaker 1: of energy and creativity. He's not so much interested once 647 00:39:45,719 --> 00:39:50,279 Speaker 1: it establishes itself and managing day to day activities is 648 00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:54,279 Speaker 1: not really his forte. But he did help a lot 649 00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:58,240 Speaker 1: of companies out this way as a venture capitalist investor, 650 00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,040 Speaker 1: as an angel investor, if you will. But the board 651 00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:04,920 Speaker 1: of Dig was getting increasingly frustrated with Kevin Rose, and 652 00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,120 Speaker 1: meanwhile he was feeling the same way about the board 653 00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:11,719 Speaker 1: of directors. On the site itself, things were getting pretty problematic. 654 00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,320 Speaker 1: There were a group of dig users who had essentially 655 00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,440 Speaker 1: gained control of what did or did not make the 656 00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:21,360 Speaker 1: main page. In fact, according to some sources, the top 657 00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:26,040 Speaker 1: one users on dig dot com were responsible for fifty 658 00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:29,640 Speaker 1: six percent of the content on the front page of Dig. 659 00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:33,080 Speaker 1: Keep in mind, there are millions of registered users by 660 00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:36,799 Speaker 1: this point, and on people are in charge of more 661 00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:39,920 Speaker 1: than half of what appears on that main page. Now, 662 00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:44,320 Speaker 1: they weren't exactly gaming the system, but they were definitely 663 00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,560 Speaker 1: using the system to their advantage, whether knowingly or not. 664 00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:51,520 Speaker 1: You see, the power users the ones who had been 665 00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:54,919 Speaker 1: using dig the most frequently and for the longest. Their 666 00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,239 Speaker 1: votes had a heavier weight to them than a new 667 00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,479 Speaker 1: user's vote. So if you had been on dig dot 668 00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:03,560 Speaker 1: com since the beginning, and you had been using it 669 00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:09,120 Speaker 1: regularly and you voted up on an article, your vote 670 00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,720 Speaker 1: counted way more than my vote if I just joined 671 00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,919 Speaker 1: dig dot com the other day. And so that's how 672 00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:20,360 Speaker 1: these top one users we're essentially dictating what would appear 673 00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:22,560 Speaker 1: on the main page. And again, it wasn't that they 674 00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,160 Speaker 1: were necessarily setting out to do that. They were using 675 00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:28,640 Speaker 1: dig the way they always had. They were up voting 676 00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:30,640 Speaker 1: stories that they thought were interesting, and they were down 677 00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:34,040 Speaker 1: voting stories that they thought were terrible. Just so happened 678 00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,840 Speaker 1: that their votes counted more than anybody else's. So sometimes 679 00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:44,040 Speaker 1: they might attempt to boost or drop a story by 680 00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,640 Speaker 1: coordinating their efforts, but it was just as possible that 681 00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:50,239 Speaker 1: they were literally using Dig the way it was meant 682 00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:52,320 Speaker 1: to be used. It's just that they had more influence 683 00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:56,120 Speaker 1: than anyone else did. Now Dig's initial solution to this 684 00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,520 Speaker 1: problem because the board of directors, the people behind the 685 00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:02,520 Speaker 1: scenes over a DIG, they weren't really keen on the 686 00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,279 Speaker 1: fact that a small group of people were having such 687 00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:07,920 Speaker 1: a huge influence on what was actually being shown. It 688 00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:10,319 Speaker 1: was very frustrating for new users. It was making it 689 00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:14,960 Speaker 1: more difficult to attract people to adopt DIG because if 690 00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,120 Speaker 1: you come into a system where it feels like it's 691 00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:19,960 Speaker 1: an old boys network and all the old boys are 692 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:24,320 Speaker 1: the ones who dictate what happens, it feels like nothing 693 00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,840 Speaker 1: you do has any consequence. So they wanted to change 694 00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,600 Speaker 1: this up, and they decided to try a couple of 695 00:42:30,640 --> 00:42:32,879 Speaker 1: different methods to do it, but it didn't go over 696 00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:35,600 Speaker 1: so well. Uh. One of the things they did was 697 00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:39,120 Speaker 1: installed some controls behind the scenes to decrease the group's 698 00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:44,520 Speaker 1: influence by essentially de waiting there contributions. Part of this 699 00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,600 Speaker 1: meant removing the list of top users from the site, 700 00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:51,680 Speaker 1: which was kind of a a badge of honor to 701 00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,359 Speaker 1: get your name listed among the top users. But then 702 00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:57,800 Speaker 1: once they got rid of top users, these same power 703 00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,400 Speaker 1: users started to feel like they were being a ended 704 00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:05,240 Speaker 1: or ignored. Many of them felt like they were being 705 00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:09,839 Speaker 1: uh dismissed that all the years that they had been 706 00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:13,520 Speaker 1: putting in working with dig, you know, using the platform, 707 00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,440 Speaker 1: promoting stories, burying bad stories, that all of that was 708 00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:20,719 Speaker 1: being swept aside, and so they were feeling like that 709 00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:23,879 Speaker 1: they were being punished for this, even if they were 710 00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,640 Speaker 1: just using dig the way they always had. And so 711 00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:30,600 Speaker 1: the company began to alienate some of its core user base, 712 00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:33,239 Speaker 1: and that was a real problem because they started to 713 00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,799 Speaker 1: set a new tone. All Right, we're getting into the 714 00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,240 Speaker 1: beginning of the end, but before I go any further, 715 00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:51,120 Speaker 1: let's take another quick break to think our sponsor all right. 716 00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:55,240 Speaker 1: At this point in its history, Dig had forty three 717 00:43:55,520 --> 00:44:00,680 Speaker 1: million registered users, and dig had started to experiment with 718 00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:05,120 Speaker 1: generating revenue on its own by inserting dig ads into 719 00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:08,879 Speaker 1: its pages. So between various headlines of stories you would 720 00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:13,879 Speaker 1: get promoted advertisement. It would just appear right there. There's 721 00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,000 Speaker 1: sort of like the promoted search results that you would 722 00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:18,680 Speaker 1: find in Google. And like those, the ads were clearly 723 00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,920 Speaker 1: marked as ads. It wasn't like they were tricking you 724 00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:24,760 Speaker 1: into thinking you were reading a story. They were marked 725 00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:28,840 Speaker 1: as ads, and only that you could actually vote on 726 00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:32,760 Speaker 1: those ads. You could dig or bury. Ads gave users 727 00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,640 Speaker 1: a lot of power when it came to advertising, something 728 00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:40,000 Speaker 1: that I think was particularly interesting to allow your user 729 00:44:40,080 --> 00:44:44,640 Speaker 1: base the opportunity to vote down ads. Uh. It seems 730 00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:49,880 Speaker 1: like that would be potentially dangerous from a revenue standpoint, 731 00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,279 Speaker 1: but it would also send a real message about whether 732 00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:56,640 Speaker 1: or not advertising was working or very much not working. 733 00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:01,600 Speaker 1: Around this time, Dig also launched apps for the blossoming 734 00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:05,240 Speaker 1: smartphone platforms of iOS and Android. Now, keep in mind, 735 00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:08,440 Speaker 1: the iPhone came out in two thousand seven. Android came 736 00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:10,839 Speaker 1: out in late two thousand seven early two thousand eight. 737 00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,080 Speaker 1: This is two thousand nine we're talking about, so all 738 00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:16,799 Speaker 1: of those platforms were still very young, especially when you 739 00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:19,839 Speaker 1: consider the fact that when iOS first launched, you could 740 00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:23,279 Speaker 1: not develop an application for Apple. It was just the 741 00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:26,720 Speaker 1: Apple apps on the original iPhone for a while before 742 00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:30,880 Speaker 1: they launched the the ability for other people to program 743 00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:34,880 Speaker 1: apps for it. Things were not going smoothly. Behind the 744 00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:37,640 Speaker 1: scenes over a dig Kevin Rose and j Adelson were 745 00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:41,680 Speaker 1: having some disagreements about the direction of the company, and 746 00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:45,640 Speaker 1: those disagreements continued to escalate throughout two thousand nine and 747 00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,760 Speaker 1: into two thousand ten until Adelson was asked to step 748 00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:54,080 Speaker 1: down as CEO. More or less, he was fired. Kevin 749 00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:57,320 Speaker 1: Rose chose not to use his veto options. So remember 750 00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:01,200 Speaker 1: Adelson and Rose had this agreement where it would require 751 00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:06,520 Speaker 1: their their uh I guess, I guess their agreement with 752 00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,359 Speaker 1: the Board of directors before either could be fired, and 753 00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:14,000 Speaker 1: Rose decided not to veto the board's decision to fire Adelson, 754 00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:19,800 Speaker 1: so Eielsen resigned. Essentially he was able to officially, according 755 00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,239 Speaker 1: to the the communication he gave, he stepped down from 756 00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:26,520 Speaker 1: the position, but behind the scenes people say that he 757 00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:29,759 Speaker 1: was essentially fired as CEO, but he said he wanted 758 00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:31,719 Speaker 1: to go and work on more startup ideas, and that's 759 00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:34,440 Speaker 1: exactly what he did. I'll talk more about that towards 760 00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:38,799 Speaker 1: the end. Kevin Rose ended up taking over control of 761 00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,840 Speaker 1: the company he founded. He became the new CEO of 762 00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:48,759 Speaker 1: Dig on April five. In May, the company laid off 763 00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:53,000 Speaker 1: about ten percent of its work staff. Now, Kevin Rose 764 00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:55,400 Speaker 1: was still listening to the community. One of the things 765 00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:58,320 Speaker 1: that he listened to was their reaction to a tool 766 00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:01,600 Speaker 1: called the dig Bar. The company had launched the dig 767 00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:04,680 Speaker 1: bar earlier, and this was a toolbar that would appear 768 00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:09,200 Speaker 1: above websites, so it would install itself so in your 769 00:47:09,239 --> 00:47:11,479 Speaker 1: browser essentially, so you would see this tool bar whenever 770 00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:13,640 Speaker 1: you go to other websites, and it was meant to 771 00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:18,000 Speaker 1: let people interact with dig without leaving the website they 772 00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,520 Speaker 1: were on, So you can go read some other website 773 00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:24,919 Speaker 1: and use this toolbar to leave comments about this particular 774 00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:29,839 Speaker 1: article on dig, but without leaving the website to go 775 00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:32,480 Speaker 1: to dig first. However, a lot of people felt it 776 00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:37,200 Speaker 1: was really intrusive and irritating and distracting. So one of 777 00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:41,040 Speaker 1: his first actions as CEO, Kevin Rose decided to ditch 778 00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,680 Speaker 1: the dig bar. He was responding to the community reaction, 779 00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:49,200 Speaker 1: and hopes were running high on Kevin Rose, both from 780 00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:52,279 Speaker 1: the Dig community and the Board of directors. Everyone was 781 00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:56,040 Speaker 1: hoping that Kevin Rose was getting re energized, reinvested in 782 00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:59,839 Speaker 1: the company that he had created. The board had been 783 00:47:59,840 --> 00:48:03,480 Speaker 1: really critical of Rosa's focus on other projects, those other 784 00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:07,280 Speaker 1: things that he was trying to launch while still technically 785 00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:09,759 Speaker 1: working for Dig, but they were hoping that this meant 786 00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,040 Speaker 1: he was back on board to lead the company in 787 00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:16,719 Speaker 1: a new direction with innovation. So the big hope here 788 00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:20,440 Speaker 1: was that Kevin Rose was now grown out of a phase, 789 00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:24,000 Speaker 1: according to like the Board of directors, that he would 790 00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:26,600 Speaker 1: no longer just focus on stuff as it was brand 791 00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:29,279 Speaker 1: new and when it interests him, but that he would 792 00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:31,520 Speaker 1: be capable of leading the company in the day to 793 00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:36,840 Speaker 1: day operations of dig dot com. Meanwhile, the company began 794 00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:40,399 Speaker 1: to alpha test the next version of dig dot com. 795 00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:43,040 Speaker 1: This would be version four point. Oh, this is the 796 00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:46,760 Speaker 1: infamous one. This is the one that people totally flipped 797 00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:50,359 Speaker 1: out over for good reason. I don't think that it 798 00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:59,200 Speaker 1: was unmerited. So before Kevin Rose became CEO, dig dot 799 00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,640 Speaker 1: com showed off some of its concepts for version four 800 00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:07,960 Speaker 1: point oh at south By Southwest, and a lot of 801 00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:10,719 Speaker 1: people were really excited by what they saw. They thought 802 00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:15,480 Speaker 1: that the innovations were merited, they were good. They felt 803 00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:17,600 Speaker 1: that it was going to add value to the dig 804 00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:22,680 Speaker 1: dot com experience. But once Kevin Rose took over as CEO, 805 00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:26,400 Speaker 1: he essentially threw all of that away and decided to 806 00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:30,520 Speaker 1: start from scratch. He more or less discarded all the changes, 807 00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:32,960 Speaker 1: all the work that had been done for version four 808 00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:35,400 Speaker 1: point oh, and this alienated some of the engineers at 809 00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:37,960 Speaker 1: dig dot com as a result, some of whom left 810 00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:42,080 Speaker 1: the company because of that. And instead he said, let's 811 00:49:42,120 --> 00:49:44,520 Speaker 1: do go in this completely different direction. And there are 812 00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:46,520 Speaker 1: a lot of people who argue about why he did this. 813 00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:50,640 Speaker 1: Some people say he genuinely just didn't see the value 814 00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:53,880 Speaker 1: of the revisions. Some say, well, this was an effort 815 00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:57,560 Speaker 1: for him to distance himself from the previous CEO. But 816 00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:00,640 Speaker 1: whatever the purpose, he decided it to go in a 817 00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:03,160 Speaker 1: totally different direction, and it was one that ended up 818 00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:10,400 Speaker 1: being almost universally unpopular among his community. So one of 819 00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:15,000 Speaker 1: the new features of the Kevin Rose led version four 820 00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:19,040 Speaker 1: point oh of dig dot com allowed news sites to 821 00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:25,200 Speaker 1: submit their own content automatically to dig. I cannot stress 822 00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:30,880 Speaker 1: how this alienated the community at dig dot com, because 823 00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,520 Speaker 1: keep in mind, up to this point, the whole concept 824 00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:38,120 Speaker 1: was that users were the ones submitting and voting on 825 00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:41,840 Speaker 1: the content that would show up on dig dot com. 826 00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:44,319 Speaker 1: If you thought a story was interesting, you could submit it. 827 00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:46,600 Speaker 1: If other people thought it was interesting, they could vote 828 00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:49,080 Speaker 1: for it, and that's how it could naturally rise to 829 00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:54,120 Speaker 1: the top. Now, with version four point oh, a news 830 00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:59,160 Speaker 1: site a media company could submit its own stuff directly 831 00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:04,480 Speaker 1: to dig dot com bypassing that user experience, essentially turning 832 00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:07,839 Speaker 1: dig dot com into more of a normal news aggregator 833 00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:11,880 Speaker 1: and less of a user generated experience. So it seemed 834 00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:17,160 Speaker 1: completely antithetical to the original philosophy behind dig and as 835 00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:21,960 Speaker 1: a result, community members went bananas. In fact, a lot 836 00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:23,400 Speaker 1: of people said that this was going to be the 837 00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:27,360 Speaker 1: death blow of dig dot com, and arguably that's what 838 00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:31,080 Speaker 1: did it. Uh So a lot of people decided that 839 00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:34,760 Speaker 1: they would just leave and go and use Reddit instead 840 00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,120 Speaker 1: of dig dot com. Reddit was much more similar to 841 00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,080 Speaker 1: what dig had been in the past. It also didn't 842 00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:44,080 Speaker 1: help that revision four point oh consolidated a lot of 843 00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:47,399 Speaker 1: those interests that I talked about earlier. You know, things 844 00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:50,680 Speaker 1: like sports and entertainment and lifestyle. It consolidated a lot 845 00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:54,440 Speaker 1: of those and made it more difficult to find specific 846 00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:58,720 Speaker 1: content in those buckets because now they were bigger buckets 847 00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:01,879 Speaker 1: that contained lots of stuff, not just these broken out 848 00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:09,920 Speaker 1: uh interests. So they also got rid of the berry button, 849 00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:13,680 Speaker 1: so you couldn't bury stories anymore. You couldn't vote down 850 00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:18,080 Speaker 1: a story, and arguably it was to make sure that 851 00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:22,720 Speaker 1: these users couldn't just end up taking control of dig 852 00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:26,240 Speaker 1: and get rid of anything that that criticized themselves, for example, 853 00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:29,399 Speaker 1: but it also meant that there was if someone if 854 00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:34,200 Speaker 1: a news outlet published a story directly to dig dot com, 855 00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:37,080 Speaker 1: there was no way for you to express your displeasure 856 00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:40,640 Speaker 1: to vote that story down. The only thing you could 857 00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:44,920 Speaker 1: really do is not voted up. So a lot of 858 00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:47,839 Speaker 1: people felt that this was taking the voice of the 859 00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:51,480 Speaker 1: community away from the community, and this was a community 860 00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:58,560 Speaker 1: based website. Some people decided that they would promote stories 861 00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:02,279 Speaker 1: from Reddit, kind of as a way to make a 862 00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:07,000 Speaker 1: dig at dig, So they would submit links from Reddit 863 00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:09,760 Speaker 1: onto dig dot com. It was kind of a method 864 00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:13,960 Speaker 1: of protest, but more people were just leaving Dig entirely. 865 00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:16,840 Speaker 1: They were ditching it and going to Reddit. In fact, 866 00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:21,720 Speaker 1: Alexis Ohanian, one of Reddit's co founders, wrote an open 867 00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:25,920 Speaker 1: letter to Kevin Rose, and he was specifically criticizing the 868 00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:30,040 Speaker 1: fact that they had made these changes. Ohanian said, the 869 00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:34,400 Speaker 1: new version of dig reeks of VC meddling, and VC 870 00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:38,920 Speaker 1: stands for venture capitalist or venture capital, So Ohnian was 871 00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:43,520 Speaker 1: essentially calling Dig a sellout, saying, obviously, you're taking money 872 00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:47,799 Speaker 1: from these companies in order to have this relationship, and 873 00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:51,120 Speaker 1: it's at the expense of the community that made dig 874 00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:56,120 Speaker 1: a valuable asset in the first place. He was saying, 875 00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,960 Speaker 1: it's not the links that make dig dot com value. 876 00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:03,200 Speaker 1: The links already exist out there on the Internet. What 877 00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:08,480 Speaker 1: makes dig valuable is this user engagement, this community that 878 00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:13,840 Speaker 1: ends up supporting various links. That's where the value is. 879 00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:18,400 Speaker 1: But you're completely undermining that by siding with venture capitals 880 00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:23,920 Speaker 1: UH investors. After just a few short months, it was 881 00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:27,560 Speaker 1: clear that Kevin Rose's heart was not in running this 882 00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:30,680 Speaker 1: company and leading it in day to day operations. It 883 00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:34,359 Speaker 1: didn't excite him. He found it grueling. He's still very 884 00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:37,960 Speaker 1: much preferred being in on the ground floor as a 885 00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:40,879 Speaker 1: company is just starting to find its way he still 886 00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,560 Speaker 1: thought that was the most interesting aspect of business. He 887 00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:49,720 Speaker 1: was CEO for less than six months. Dig then hired 888 00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:53,279 Speaker 1: on an Amazon executive named Matt Williams to take over 889 00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:56,719 Speaker 1: the role of CEO, and Kevin Rose stepped down In August, 890 00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:01,800 Speaker 1: Rose himself began and to drift away from the company again. 891 00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:05,319 Speaker 1: He was showing more interest in venture capital investments and 892 00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:10,120 Speaker 1: other other ventures and less interest in the company that 893 00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:14,239 Speaker 1: he founded. By March two thousand eleven, he officially resigned 894 00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:16,640 Speaker 1: from dig dot com. He remained on as sort of 895 00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:18,800 Speaker 1: a consultant to the board, but he was no longer 896 00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:23,160 Speaker 1: an official employee. He also launched a company called Milk. 897 00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,680 Speaker 1: This was meant to be a startup lab for new applications. 898 00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,759 Speaker 1: So if you wanted to develop an app, then Milk 899 00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:33,880 Speaker 1: was supposed to be a place where you could incubate 900 00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:37,200 Speaker 1: these ideas. And Rose thought that this would give him 901 00:55:37,239 --> 00:55:39,680 Speaker 1: the opportunity to work on a lot of different projects 902 00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:42,319 Speaker 1: just as they were starting up, which meant that he 903 00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:45,439 Speaker 1: would constantly be engaged. He would never get bored because 904 00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:48,320 Speaker 1: there would always be something new to work on. Didn't 905 00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:51,080 Speaker 1: work out that way. The first app out of Milk 906 00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:55,560 Speaker 1: was an application called oink as in the noise that 907 00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:57,960 Speaker 1: a pig makes, and it was the only app the 908 00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:01,160 Speaker 1: company ever produced, and rather than cont new to develop oint, 909 00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:06,640 Speaker 1: Rose chose to shut down Milk and he joined Google instead. 910 00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:09,360 Speaker 1: He took over some of the people from Milk and 911 00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:12,080 Speaker 1: they all joined Google Venture, which is kind of their 912 00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:18,000 Speaker 1: start up and spin off lab. He also brought the 913 00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:21,120 Speaker 1: dig Nation show to an end in late twenty eleven. 914 00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:23,399 Speaker 1: He said that they had stopped recording the show by 915 00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:27,680 Speaker 1: October two thousand eleven, but that the unpublished shows would 916 00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:32,799 Speaker 1: continue to air or two to be published until uh 917 00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:36,880 Speaker 1: sometime in January, and that's when dig Nation came to 918 00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:38,879 Speaker 1: an end. It had a two part finale and then 919 00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:44,040 Speaker 1: it was over. Meanwhile, dig dot com was still hemorrhaging users. 920 00:56:44,200 --> 00:56:48,160 Speaker 1: It didn't last much longer. After Kevin Rose resigned on 921 00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:52,880 Speaker 1: July twelve, two thousand and twelve, dig was essentially split 922 00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:56,880 Speaker 1: into three different components and sold off to different buyers. 923 00:56:57,680 --> 00:57:00,400 Speaker 1: The intellectual property of dig dot com it's off the 924 00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:04,480 Speaker 1: website dig dot com. It went to a company called 925 00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:10,040 Speaker 1: Beta Works. They bought this once incredibly valuable asset for 926 00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:13,200 Speaker 1: five hundred thousand dollars. Keep in mind This is a 927 00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:16,600 Speaker 1: company that just a few years previous had been valued 928 00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:20,760 Speaker 1: at two hundred fifty million dollars, and then the site 929 00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,160 Speaker 1: is sold for five hundred thousand. As for the other assets, 930 00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:26,920 Speaker 1: they brought in more cash actually than the intellectual property 931 00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:30,760 Speaker 1: of dig dot com itself. Linked In bought several patents 932 00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:35,320 Speaker 1: that dig dot com owned for four million dollars, so 933 00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:38,200 Speaker 1: the patents were worth more than the website was, and 934 00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:41,800 Speaker 1: The Washington Post spent about twelve million dollars bringing on 935 00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:46,280 Speaker 1: several members of Dig's staff to work on its social 936 00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:51,280 Speaker 1: code project. Now, dig dot com still exists today. If 937 00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:54,480 Speaker 1: you try to navigate to dig dot com, you will 938 00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:57,120 Speaker 1: see a website. It is a news aggregator website. It 939 00:57:57,120 --> 00:57:59,960 Speaker 1: looks very different from what it used to be. Now 940 00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,280 Speaker 1: it looks kind of more like a standard news aggregate 941 00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:06,640 Speaker 1: website with images and links to various stories across the web. 942 00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:11,880 Speaker 1: Users can still give stories thumbs up, it can promote 943 00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:14,560 Speaker 1: some stories into a more visible position on the web page, 944 00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:17,560 Speaker 1: but there are human editors who moderate what shows up 945 00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:21,320 Speaker 1: on the page itself, and you can't comment on stories anymore, 946 00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:24,560 Speaker 1: at least not right now. According to Beta Works, the 947 00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:28,480 Speaker 1: reason for this is that comments are hard. That's totally true. 948 00:58:28,800 --> 00:58:31,080 Speaker 1: I am not making fun of Beta Works for saying this, 949 00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:34,680 Speaker 1: because it is really a challenge to implement comments in 950 00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:39,120 Speaker 1: a constructive way on your website, particularly in today's world, 951 00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:44,360 Speaker 1: because it can easily be abused, very very easily. Too 952 00:58:44,400 --> 00:58:47,600 Speaker 1: many people take the opportunity to use a comments section 953 00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:51,720 Speaker 1: to cause mischief. And there's not really a big surprise here. 954 00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:55,120 Speaker 1: It takes very little effort to cause a whole lot 955 00:58:55,200 --> 00:59:01,160 Speaker 1: of commotion using comments, So it takes little work to 956 00:59:01,240 --> 00:59:03,640 Speaker 1: make a big impact. If you're someone who likes to 957 00:59:03,680 --> 00:59:07,080 Speaker 1: cause trouble, that is an open door invitation to do so. 958 00:59:07,560 --> 00:59:10,600 Speaker 1: And obviously we've seen this across other places on the web. 959 00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:13,160 Speaker 1: YouTube is a great example. It's not as bad as 960 00:59:13,240 --> 00:59:18,120 Speaker 1: four chan, but it's a great example. So dig still exists, 961 00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:21,280 Speaker 1: though you don't hear as many folks talk about these days, 962 00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:24,760 Speaker 1: but it does get several million visitors each month. According 963 00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:27,160 Speaker 1: to one source, I saw that it got twelve million 964 00:59:27,240 --> 00:59:31,320 Speaker 1: monthly visitors as of January, So when we presume it's 965 00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:35,960 Speaker 1: probably around that level or higher now, and twelve million 966 00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:39,160 Speaker 1: monthly visitors isn't anything to sneeze at. It's a pretty 967 00:59:39,160 --> 00:59:42,560 Speaker 1: healthy amount of traffic. As for the founders, what are 968 00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:45,640 Speaker 1: they up to now? Well, j Addelson worked on several 969 00:59:45,680 --> 00:59:48,880 Speaker 1: different ventures after he stepped down as CEO. He ultimately 970 00:59:48,920 --> 00:59:52,480 Speaker 1: co founded a company called Center Electric. It's a venture 971 00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:56,000 Speaker 1: capital firm, and so Adelson is still using his experience 972 00:59:56,040 --> 01:00:00,360 Speaker 1: and money to help launch new companies. Ron gore Sky 973 01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:04,600 Speaker 1: stayed with DIG until July, which means he left during 974 01:00:04,760 --> 01:00:08,400 Speaker 1: Kevin Rose's tenure as CEO. He went on to co 975 01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:12,200 Speaker 1: found Flick, the review app that I mentioned earlier in 976 01:00:12,200 --> 01:00:14,640 Speaker 1: this episode, and then he transitioned over to YouTube. He 977 01:00:14,680 --> 01:00:18,880 Speaker 1: worked there until February. He then became a Digital service 978 01:00:19,000 --> 01:00:22,480 Speaker 1: expert in the United States. Digital Service This is a 979 01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:26,080 Speaker 1: startup company at the White House dedicated to using technology 980 01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:30,240 Speaker 1: to create better tools and services for American citizens. No 981 01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:34,480 Speaker 1: word on how that's going right now. Owen Byrne left 982 01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:37,920 Speaker 1: DIG in two thousand seven, and he worked for several 983 01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,880 Speaker 1: different companies over the following years, including Expedia and trip Advisor. 984 01:00:42,520 --> 01:00:45,360 Speaker 1: And he was mostly building out systems for these companies, 985 01:00:45,400 --> 01:00:47,320 Speaker 1: so he was working on the back end. And you know, 986 01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:50,440 Speaker 1: once you finish that then often you might go on 987 01:00:50,600 --> 01:00:53,120 Speaker 1: to do it at a different company. So that's largely 988 01:00:53,160 --> 01:00:55,800 Speaker 1: what he did. As of January two thousand seventeen, he 989 01:00:55,840 --> 01:00:58,680 Speaker 1: started working for zip car in San Francisco as a 990 01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:02,960 Speaker 1: software engineer, and Kevin Rose Well he's still an advisor 991 01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:06,280 Speaker 1: to Google Ventures, which is again that division of Google 992 01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:09,560 Speaker 1: that is all about creating startups and spin off companies. 993 01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:13,120 Speaker 1: He sits on the board of a company called hoden Key, 994 01:01:13,160 --> 01:01:18,040 Speaker 1: which is a wristwatch enthusiast website related I assumed to 995 01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:21,640 Speaker 1: the wristwatch manufacturer out in Europe. And he's still involved 996 01:01:21,680 --> 01:01:24,880 Speaker 1: in venture capital. He invests in companies early on while 997 01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:29,760 Speaker 1: they're still malleable. Dig is an interesting story, and many 998 01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:32,920 Speaker 1: of the elements that were pioneered at dig found their 999 01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:38,360 Speaker 1: way into other platforms like Reddit or Twitter or Facebook. 1000 01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:42,040 Speaker 1: All of these ways of sharing content, many of them 1001 01:01:42,080 --> 01:01:45,720 Speaker 1: originated over at dig. So we have Dig to thank 1002 01:01:45,800 --> 01:01:48,680 Speaker 1: for a lot of the way our social networking sites 1003 01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:52,280 Speaker 1: work today. And also it's easy for us to see 1004 01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:55,200 Speaker 1: in retrospect how the decisions that were made over at 1005 01:01:55,280 --> 01:01:59,680 Speaker 1: dig dot com ultimately where it's undoing, particularly and how 1006 01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:03,760 Speaker 1: it's seemingly turned its back on the community of users 1007 01:02:03,760 --> 01:02:06,480 Speaker 1: that made it so valuable in the first place. But 1008 01:02:06,520 --> 01:02:08,800 Speaker 1: at the time, it was probably much harder to see 1009 01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:10,760 Speaker 1: that that's what was going to happen. I mean, obviously 1010 01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:12,720 Speaker 1: you wouldn't make those decisions if you knew it was 1011 01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:16,600 Speaker 1: going to lead to the collapse or implosion of a company. 1012 01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:21,640 Speaker 1: Democratization on the Internet is a tricky thing. So if 1013 01:02:21,640 --> 01:02:24,000 Speaker 1: I ever do an episode about Reddit, I'll get into 1014 01:02:24,000 --> 01:02:27,560 Speaker 1: more about the democratization of the Internet. Reddit is not 1015 01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:31,000 Speaker 1: a stranger to controversy. It is structured very much in 1016 01:02:31,040 --> 01:02:32,880 Speaker 1: a way that is similar to the early days of 1017 01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:36,920 Speaker 1: dig dot com. But they have been no stranger to 1018 01:02:38,640 --> 01:02:42,400 Speaker 1: behind the scenes drama. There have been plenty of stories 1019 01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:45,520 Speaker 1: about that over for Reddit, so it's not like dig 1020 01:02:45,560 --> 01:02:49,800 Speaker 1: dot com was an example of just bad management. It's 1021 01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:52,360 Speaker 1: a very tricky thing to do when you're letting your 1022 01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:56,440 Speaker 1: users define the experience. Sometimes that does not turn out 1023 01:02:56,440 --> 01:03:01,160 Speaker 1: in a way that's particularly nice, But that all belongs 1024 01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:04,240 Speaker 1: in another episode. For now, it's time to sign off. 1025 01:03:04,280 --> 01:03:07,280 Speaker 1: Remember if you have suggestions for future episodes, you can 1026 01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:10,959 Speaker 1: drop me a line by emailing me that addresses tech 1027 01:03:11,040 --> 01:03:13,960 Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com. You can also 1028 01:03:14,080 --> 01:03:16,440 Speaker 1: drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle 1029 01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:18,880 Speaker 1: at both of those is tech stuff h s W. 1030 01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:22,960 Speaker 1: Or you can watch me live stream live on Wednesdays 1031 01:03:22,960 --> 01:03:26,440 Speaker 1: and Fridays over at twitch dot tv slash tech stuff. 1032 01:03:26,480 --> 01:03:28,880 Speaker 1: If you want to see me in action, you'll also 1033 01:03:28,920 --> 01:03:31,760 Speaker 1: hear episodes about a month before they published that way, 1034 01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:35,800 Speaker 1: Take care and I'll talk to you again really soon. 1035 01:03:41,400 --> 01:03:43,840 Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is 1036 01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:54,920 Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com