Valleywag: Digg

Former Digg programmer ready for his book deal ... hello? Hello?

Paul Boutin — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:40:00 PDT

"Anyone out there who would like to talk about a book contract, I think I have some compelling material, given the right deal," trolls Owen Byrne, who left Digg for the presumably more stable workplace at TravelPod, a travel-blogging site launched in 1997 and now part of the Expedia network of sites. Book agents, Byrne's full pitch after the jump. No fighting!

Recent news about digg and my almost completely unplanned but surprisingly snowball-like PR campaign (watch this space for announcements) has given me more motivation to write about my involvement in the origins of digg. The fact that I work at a company vastly larger than digg, even after the latest round of funding, offers me a pulpit of sorts, where I can speak more freely about my experiences from October 2004-January 2006. Anyone out there who would like to talk about a book contract, I think I have some compelling material, given the right deal.

And I'm fat because I sit at a computer 15 hours a day. This picture is a proof for an article ;-)

(Photo by Owen Byrne. Thanks to tipster Sean at 5tags)

Did Kevin Rose cash out?

Owen Thomas — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:00:00 PDT

The whispers have started: How much money did Kevin Rose make personally by selling shares in Digg's latest round of VC funding? The talk that Rose has sold shares is driven by equal parts envy and admiration. To understand the reaction, it helps to realize that the notion of an entrepreneur selling his own shares directly to investors before a public offering — getting out of the company just as other investors were getting in — used to be taboo in Silicon Valley. But that was before Wall Street's IPO machine broke down, and before merger activity dried up. Rose is at the vanguard of a seismic shift in how the Valley pays off its entrepreneurs.

Rose, whose stake in Digg was famously estimated by BusinessWeek as worth $60 million, may be a unique case. More driven entrepreneurs must be frustrated by Rose, the fun-loving rock climber, on-screen beer drinker, and legendary lothario. His company's rise has seemed effortlessly successful, driven more by the former TV host's fan following than Digg's innovations.

But Rose has gotten good business advice, chiefly from Digg CEO Jay Adelson, a longtime friend. Adelson feels he gave up too much control to investors at his previous company, Equinix; he strove to protect Rose from the same fate, an effort which Sarah Lacy chronicles in her recent book, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good. As a result, Rose still holds a substantial stake in Digg.

Rose is already believed to have taken $1 million in a previous financing. It's not clear how much he's taken in this round, if any — but it stretches credulity to think he hasn't cashed out to some extent.

Here's why: Normally, a company raising $28.7 million in a third round of financing, as Digg just did, would be giving up a substantial chunk to outside investors. But when the founder controls as much as Rose does, the math doesn't work. Former Digg engineer Owen Byrne, who complains that he hasn't had access to Digg's financials in some time, speculates that the round involved massive dilution — the reduction in value suffered by existing shareholders when new shares are issued.

But Byrne has this exactly wrong: Allowing the VCs to put in enough money to make the investment worth their time, at a high valuation, would require substantial dilution, which would disadvantage employees and early investors. Much simpler to transfer shares directly from one large shareholder — Rose — to another.

What's the effect? Already, employees at Facebook have been agitating to sell their shares, and the company is creating an internal market to let them do so. Rose, as another high-profile example, will put further pressure on startups' management to let their workers cash out. This seems dangerous: Digg, with its high traffic and Microsoft ad deal, has achieved some success — but it's hard to envision it lasting long as an independent concern. What will the boards of even less developed startups tell their founders, when they want to sell, too — that they're just not as cool as Kevin Rose?

Digg announces major increase in spending

Owen Thomas — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:20:00 PDT

Burn, baby, burn! That's the coded message in Digg CEO Jay Adelson's blog post about a "major expansion effort." The website, whose users rate and discuss news headlines, is hiring for 19 open positions, with more to come, as Digg expands internationally. Only at the end does Adelson mention how he's making this happen: $28.7 million in venture-capital financing. Coming after failed acquisition talks with Google, the financing round makes it clear that Digg is now planning to get bigger rather than sell out. It's a strange thing to celebrate.

The obvious goal of the blog post is to advertise Digg's available jobs to prospective engineers. But in so doing, Adelson's alerting everyone to Digg's ever-expanding payroll expense — without talking up where the money is coming from. Digg has a sweetheart advertising deal with Microsoft, which sells ads for the site — but it hasn't found a revenue model of its own.

And Digg has a management problem which will only get more obvious as the company swells. Adelson, who commutes to Digg's San Francisco headquarters from his home in upstate New York, has admitted that he's not as committed to the company as he could be, having been burnt at a previous startup, Equinix. Founder Kevin Rose, who still commands considerable respect among Digg's contentious users, has made it plain he's not interested in running a big company and taking it public. It's hard to picture Rose and Adelson staying if Digg is sincere about getting big.

5 rules for making a company video worth watching

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:00:00 PDT

Austin-based interactive ad agency Tocquigny embarrassed itself with a video meant to show prospective interns how fun it is to work at the company over the summer. Instead of showing how quirky and Internet-savvy Tocquigny was, it proved to be a turnoff — and a ripoff. Besides not copying someone else's work, what could Tocquigny have done differently? Using five examples the agency should have followed, we'll explain how to do a self-promotional corporate video right:

Rule No. 1: Convince the video's participants that the end product will be less embarrassing if they don't worry about being embarrassed while they make it. Get your people to either commit themselves fully to the project, or stay out of the way. Vimeo's companywide lip synch of Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" wouldn't work nearly so well if the girl listening to her iPod at the beginning didn't keep such a straight face. Know what else doesn't hurt? Actually memorizing the lyrics.

Rule No. 2: Get the heavies involved. Digg's "Groove Is In The Heart" from Mark Trammell wouldn't be nearly so worth watching if CEO Jay Adelson didn't start rapping two minutes in. Tocquigny's video featured only interns, making it seem like the real executives didn't take the PR project seriously. What kind of example does that set for the monkey-see-monkey-do younguns?

Rule No. 3: Plan meticulously and practice. Here's "L'amour a la française" from AOL France. Note how precisely the performers hit their marks. Note how cleverly new singers appear on the screen. That's dedication, people! (It probably didn't hurt that the most of these people knew they were about to be laid off and probably spent most of their remaining time working on this video.)

Rule No. 4: Learn to edit. Facebook code monkeys — here dressed as White Ninjas for the company's annual games day festivities — aren't actually supersneaky ninjas; that they appear as such comes from careful editing. A hint: Editing usually takes longer than filming.

Rule No. 5: Feature the most attractive coworkers prominently. Sure, a companywide video will probably include everyone from the company. But give the longest shots to the most attractive office-workers, like the girl listening to the iPod at the beginning of the Vimeo video or the swirling blonde in the middle of the video below made by Leonardo Dalessandri's production company, "Tambureddu." Also, be a little cynical and use a frame from one of those shots for the clips' still frame, which will appear in searches and embedded placements in blogs.

Google's willing to employ more human meatbags, just not pay them

Jackson West — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:20:00 PDT

If there's a successful business model in the whole "user-generated content" revolution, it's in compnies getting for free services they used to pay for. Google is planning to let users rerank search results for it. Digg's users already do something like this for news headlines — likely why Google was interested in buying the well-trafficked geek-popularity contest. So why pass on it? By applying similar techniques to search results instead of news, Google doesn't have to worry about charges of copying Digg. Rather than beg Digg to sell, better to borrow functionality — and steal free labor from users.

Kudos to Google for recognizing that machine intelligence hasn't quite become our overlord yet, and that there's value in aggregating human effort — and for doing it more elegantly than Amazon.com's overcomplicated Mechanical Turk. Still, at least the Turk offered users a nominal fee. Google only offers the possibility of better search results to appeal to your self-interest.

The plan also offers opportunities for all sorts of bad behaviors, from harassment to mob rule. Just like Wikipedia! If you thought that Googlebombs mocking our current President, George Bush, were bad, wait until the public is allowed to vote bros up and hos down. Best-case scenario? We at least get a switch to toggle between the algorithm's tyranny, the wisdom of the crowd, and the self-affirming homogeneity of our social circle. (Photo by AP/Ric Francis)

At DNC, Google beckons bloggers with happy endings

Melissa Gira Grant — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:00:00 PDT

Have you heard about Google's "Big Tent," the $100 luxury newsroom Google has set up for bloggers at the Democratic National Convention? If not, here's another story on the Internet where reporters go, Oh man, Google is totes on the pulse, giving all the intrepid young blogger kids at the Democratic National Convention this week a safe place to get massaged for free by ladies and plug in their 'iPones" — read the label — while they change the world together!

And hey look, Craig Newmark! And Digg is there, too, suggesting Google might have been serious about buying them when they planned this event. Upload your video to YouTube with this "YouTube Upload Station. The YouTube Upload Station is so much more than a MacBook with a T1 connection because it is a democracy engine.

Go, Google. Go, Barack. Go, getting praise in all the papers for reaching out with social media. But please, massages from a company that misspells iPhone? Save that for the Republicans.

(Photos by Steve Rhodes)

Look, it's Katie Couric in a Digg T-shirt -- what?

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 07:40:00 PDT

CBS hired anchor Katie Couric to turn return its news division to ratings glory. Didn't happen. So like any good media organization in the 21st century, CBS has resorted to good old-fashioned Diggbaiting. Below a video of Couric in her office, sporting a Digg T-shirt and reading a script — "Oh, hi everybody! Nice to see you. Welcome to CBS News. Sorry about my mess." Putting a woman in well-cut Digg clothing is a trick as old as the site of course. Two years ago alt-porn star Posh Suicide did the same thing, drawing 2,828 Diggs. Couric has a ways to go to catch up: Her video is sitting at a meager 40 votes after 18 hours. But then, we'd already discovered that Digg users aren't quite the slobbering teenage boys spammers assume they are.

Kevin Rose shaves his head, and 806 people watch

Owen Thomas — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:20:00 PDT

On Sunday, Digg founder Kevin Rose went online, turned on his webcam, and proceeded to shave his head. A Britney Spears-style breakdown for San Francisco's linkbait lothario? No, it was just some charity bet. But we still wonder if former flame Julia Allison's recent run through town had anything to do with Rose's mental state. The saddest thing of it all: 806 people tuned into Rose's lifecasting session to watch.

Google nixing Digg deal?

Owen Thomas — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:00:00 PDT

A tipster tells us Google has backed out of talks to buy Digg, the popular news-discussion site fronted by Kevin Rose, the Web-video personality and San Francisco Casanova. There have been hints all week that Google has been cooling on Digg. Marissa Mayer, Google's reigning princess of pageviews, had once fancied Digg as a means of improving Google News, one of her Web properties. Last month, at her behest, acquisition talks were getting serious. But then Mayer brashly (and perhaps foolishly) announced Wednesday that Google News generated $100 million a year in revenues for Google. Translation: Who needs Digg?

Shortly thereafter, reearsh firm Hitwise ran numbers which showed that Digg would be inconsequential for Google's traffic, only the 13th largest Web property, well behind Google News. Coincidence? Perhaps, but they can't have been helpful for Digg's negotiations.

One other sign that the deal has been going nowhere: Digg has been interviewing for a head of PR. That's a position they wouldn't fill if they were close to a sale. That said, we hear Digg board member Brett Bullington, who helped sell JotSpot to Google in 2006, has been pushing to keep negotiations alive.

So are things on? Are they off? Never say never in deals. But even Digg CEO Jay Adelson acknowledged this week, at a meetup with Digg users in Chicago, that his company has been too prone to leaks during negotiations. Could he be getting a taste of the same from the Google side? That's a theory I dig.

(Photo of Rose by Brian Solis/Bub.blicio.us)

Jackson West, please come home -- all is forgiven

Owen Thomas — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:00:00 PDT

Why did I let Jackson West take a vacation? While our associate editor was away, we actually wrote something nice about Gavin Newsom — and he only had to save San Francisco from a rogue IT guy to do it! Microsoft's Windows chief, Kevin Johnson, ended up in Sunnyvale, Calif. — but not, as he'd hoped, in the corner office at Yahoo HQ. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg flubbed more media interviews this week, prompting us to suggest he get help. Maybe he could take tips from the Internet-famous Julia Allison, who crashed his developers' conference?

Allison's sort-of ex, Digg cofounder Kevin Rose, said he was buying Google. Surely not for Knol, Google's weak attempt at taking on Wikipedia — at launch, its search engine didn't even work. Jackson, come back and help us make sense of this crazy business! (Photo by Jason Calacanis)

Digg founder Kevin Rose: "We're buying Google"

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:40:00 PDT

At a Chicago meetup yesterday, Digg CEO Jay Adelson would not comment on recent rumors that Google has renewed talks to buy the site. “There is no word,” Adelson said. “We commented on one of these rumors before and it got us in trouble. There is nothing to say.” Digg founder Kevin Rose wasn't so shy, joking with the audience: “We’re buying Google.” Adelson did, however, tell the audience that following smaller social-news rivals Reddit and Mixx, Digg will soon allow users to create their own sites using Digg's technology. Adelson said the new feature would be out in six months. The Windy Citizen reports:

Adelson said the move will open Digg up to new verticals and make it possible for stories that wouldn’t make the cut on the main Digg site to find an audience. Users will be able to control the threshold for submitted articles being promoted to the front page of these.

10 Digg stories not even Kevin Rose could make popular

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:00:00 PDT

Of the 377 stories Digg founder Kevin Rose has submitted to his social news site, 367 went to the site's front page. When I read this, all I could think was: God, those 10 that didn't make it must have really sucked. Maybe he should have pretended to be a hot girl? We thought we'd help the ~~spammers~~ "social media marketers" out by listing Kevin Rose's failed submissions below. If these stories couldn't hit the front page, with Rose's hordes of mancrushing fanboys clicking on them,then they're the exact kind of story our Digg-optimizing friends shouldn't even bother with. We'll tell you why.

You don't ask questions on Digg. You give emotional answers. Next time, Kevin, submit this one as: How Obama already beat Clinton!

A commenter on this submission wrote: "Clinton rules" and got buried 11 times. On Digg, only Obama rules.

Rose submitted this news after someone else already had. Don't do that.

Plastic bags were banned "one year ago this week"? That's too long ago for Digg users to care.

Again with the questions. Next time, write this headline as: "How Diet Coke makes you fat."

Microsoft gets you no where on Digg, unless somebody's throwing eggs at Steve Ballmer. Zune was a sponsor at a Digg's last meetup in New York and they couldn't give away T-shirts.

This Digg headline is far too wordy. Put down the thesaurus and just use the word "stunning."

A common mistake made with Digg submissions is that people think anybody outside of the Bay area knows who people like Mike Arrington, Marc Andreessen, Jeff Bezos and Paul Graham are.

As one commenter notes: "maybe there aren't a lotta diggs cuz this story sucks!"

The top comment; "You really don't care about duping other submissions, do you, Mr. Rose?" You can't submit a story to Digg that's already hit the front page and expect it to hit the front page. Not even if you're Kevin Rose. Only if you're Mr. BabyMan.

(Photo by mariachily)

Report: Google and Digg talks on again

Owen Thomas — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:50:00 PDT

Google cofounder Larry Page and Digg CEO Jay Adelson were all smiles at Allen & Co.'s Sun Valley retreat. Was it because they had just wrapped up a long-rumored deal for Google to buy Digg, with the price in the neighborhood of $200 million? TechCrunch says talks are on again. (Photo by Reuters)

Half of the 50 hottest girls on Digg are fake -- but the site works anyway

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:00:00 PDT

Conventional wisdom has it that males on the Internet gravitate toward pictures of pretty women like hungry honeybees to a sugary tulip, and click, click, click. It's why Tila Tequila has 3,345,634 MySpace friends and Tania Derveaux has 108,907 YouTube subscribers. It's why, on social news site Digg, so many spammers pretend to be attractive women — to attract votes for their stories from Digg users incapable of holding onto their mouse finger when faced with a picture of a pretty woman. But does this method work? We decided to find out.

Hot-girl pics are to Digg users as lists are to editors. Unashamedly, we present the 50 hottest girls on Digg (okay, fine, the first 50 hot girls we found on Digg), and checked their profiles to determine whether they were likely to be real or fake. Then we built a spreadsheet to calculate their "Popular Ratios" — the percentage of their submissions that hit Digg's front page — individually and as a group. The surprising result:

These hot girls only managed to get their submissions to Digg's front page 4.3 percent of the time. What's more, the women we deemed real have an aggregate hit rate of 6 percent, while those with apparently fake profiles only got their stories to Digg's front page 0.15 percent of the time. So much for the conventional wisdom. Maybe the dudes pretending to be girls on Digg aren't trying to get on the homepage — they just like to pretend to be girls. With big boobs. Whatever floats your boat, guys.

The list:

Mariana Peyton: An 18-year-old female from Rio de Janeiro (BR) who joined Digg on June 19, 2008.
Recent digg: WALL-E: A World Without Us
Recent comment: On "Teen pregnancies at 30-year low" — "This is really great for the whole country. Teen pregnancies can ruin lives."
Recent submission: The Global Warming Myth
Presence elsewhere on the Web: An Orkut profile, where she only has male fans.
Real or Fake? Fake! Fewer teen pregnancies are good for Brazil? Caught!

KenSPT: A 25-year-old dude from Stratford, CT (US) who joined Digg on June 27, 2007
Recent digg: McCain and Obama's Plans to Combat Climate Change
Recent comment: On "Well, At Least They Are Being Honest" — "Wow, just wow."
Recent submission: Why White Castle Cheeseburgers Are Full of Awesomeness ...
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A blank profile on GameSpot featuring another woman's face.
Real or Fake? Fake! "A 25-year-old dude." Too easy.

Kelly: A 28-year-old girl from TN (US) who joined Digg on January 21st, 2008
Recent digg: 11 Strange and Wonderful Vending Machines
Recent comment: On "30 Ways to Increase Website Traffic" — "Relly did not understand how it helps my site to drive traffice"
Recent submission: Free online Dating site
Presence elsewhere on the Web: On Digg rival Mixx, where she's submits things like: "Free Software for Removing SPYWARE Virus."
Real or Fake?Fake! Spammer!

Emilia: A 25-year-old female from New York (US) who joined Digg on April 2nd, 2008
Recent digg: "12% of street sex workers raped by cops"
Recent comment: On "The World’s Largest Swimming Pool [PICS]" — awesome pics ;-)
Recent submission: "Why Spain Wins Euro 2008 (NSFW)" — picture of a naked woman with Spain-themed body paint.
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?Fake! Real person, but her latest submission? Boobies.

oyta: A 25-year-old girl from campulung (RO) who joined Digg on April 28, 2008
Recent digg: Summer is the Time to Focus on Building Your Child's Skills
Recent comment: On "BOX / Romania six finalists to tour "Centura gold"" — "Hai Romania,cei mai buni sportivi..."
Recent submission: Cristiano Ronaldo, consolat the beloved (Gallery)
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None to be found.
Real or Fake? Real! Who but a Romanian woman submits scandalous pictures of ripply men with muscles and then comments in Romanian?

Binoy xavier joy (binoyxj) A person from Kochi (IN) who joined Digg on September 9, 2007
Recent digg: Wickedly Evil Social Marketing Tactics
Recent comment: On "7 Quick Tips for Branding Yourself Through Social Networking" — "Good post!!!"
Recent submission: JS-Kit Acquires Commenting Sytem Provider HaloScan
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A profile on Indyarocks, an Indian social network site. There, Binoy xavier joy is a male.
Real or Fake?Fake! The image file name is Shilpa-Shetty, also the name of a famous Indian actress.

espl4:
A 25-year-old female from Paris (FR) who joined Digg on March 27, 2008Recent digg: Not typical underwear for men
Recent comment: On "New Short Spikey Hairstyles for Women Pictures gallery" — "Unfortunally, i love long hair, but this is fun to have short haircut! But short hairstyle is the best condition of the hair in summer time!"
Recent submission: Valentino: legend continues
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A del.icio.us profile chock full of fashion links.
Real or Fake?Real! Her comment claims she has long hair and her picture backs it up. This is a fashion blogger, on Digg to promote herself.

danna 88: A 20-year-old girl from US (US) who joined Digg on June 16, 2008
Recent digg: California to Legalize Weed for Everyone
Recent comment: On "This is how I make my bread" — "i ate a piece after watching this video. I also think i'm pregnant now."
Recent submission: "Thoughts on Sports Sponsorships"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A MySpace profile.
Real or Fake?Real! A reminder: only women get pregnant. Also, the woman on the MySpace profile looks similar enough.

sonia5880: A 27-year-old grrrl from Deerfield beach, FL (US) who joined Digg on December 11, 2007
Recent digg: Lists Are Taking Over America (Not Just Digg)
Recent comment: On "Better Gas Mileage By Tailgaiting Semi-Trucks" — "Nice, but, We need more ways to save then practically killing yourself!"
Recent submission: 17 Home Remedies to Cure & Prevent Yeast Infections
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Freelance Webmarket profile, listing her as a SEO Expert.
Real or Fake?: Fake! She's might be a woman, but that's not her picture. She's a clever SEO marketer working for Nativeremedies.com.

Michelle Cehn (Michiko280) A 21-year-old girl from Oakland, CA (US) who joined Digg on May 6, 2008
Recent digg: Cute alert - baby panda story and video
Recent comment: On "The Auschwitz album (+PICS)" — I fear that one day we will look upon our heartless slaughter of animals and treatment of animals in labratories in much the same way. No living sentient being deserves the horrific suffering that comes with factoy syle killing.
Recent submission: Rallies Intensify as 50,000 Koreans Protest US Beef
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A blog called "A Search For Compassion," which includes a post about animal rights activism on Digg and Facebook.
Real or Fake?: Real! Not to overgeneralize, but dudes don't care that much about cute animals or their "rights."

Jennifer Slayton: A 22-year-old girl from New York (US) who joined Digg on September 25, 2007.
Recent digg: Green Hotels in the UK
Recent comment: On "Do police cameras reduce crime?" — "it's obvious!"
Recent submission: 5 Famous Myths About the Birth fo the United States
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Last seen on Propeller back in Dec, 2007.
Real or Fake?: Fake. Rarely comments and has surprisingly very little Googlejuice.

letsgocrzy: A 19-year-old girl from CA (US) who joined Digg on June 19, 2008.
Recent digg: GameStop's Leaked Xbox 360 Price Drop Info
Recent submission: On "Tila Tequila Update: We Made Someone Mad" — "haha, a little angry are we?"
Recent submission: None
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has her own blog covering games and plays on various Flash game sites.
Real or Fake?: Real. Not really a submitter but an active Digger nonetheless. Her blog backs up her girl-gamer-geek cred.

Michelle Oshen: A girl from New York, NY (US) who joined Digg on October 6, 2007.
Recent digg: The Ultimate Informercial
Recent comment: On "I usualy prefer to stay away from certain topics I feel strongly about" — ":)"
Recent submission: His Name is Loren Feldman
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has her own website and a Flickr.
Real or Fake?: Real. Loren Feldman's beau. More mature than the average kids on Digg, interested in web and tech, most likely rubbed off from Loren Feldman.

Briona: A 23-year-old girl from Yarhsire (GB) who joined Digg on January 4, 2008.
Recent digg: Thank You Adobe Reader 9
Recent comment: On "12 Simple Steps To Overcoming Shyness for all geeks" — "Thanks! :)"
Recent submission: The Media Makes Us Confused Or Ignorant 2
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No where else
Real or Fake?: Fake. Only submits articles from eioba.com, a pseudo-Digg clone that rewrites wire stories. Also, profile picture is a set of boobs. Girls don't do that.

Jess Lesner: A 22-year-old grrrl from Rochester (US) who joined Digg on October 5, 2007.
Recent digg: HSUS Rescures 700 in Worst Puppy Mill Raid in State History
Recent comment: Never commented
Recent submission: The 9 Most Entertaining Little People
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She left her AIM screen name in her profile but no MySpace or Facebook
Real or Fake?: Real. But she might be Chris Hansen.

Allison: A 21-year-old lady from California (US) who joined Digg on April 11, 2008.
Recent digg: What Twitter Would Look Like During a Zombie outbreak [PIC]
Recent comment: On "Final Disaster Movie Poster" — "Carmen Electra's only source of income."
Recent submission: Columbian Hostage Rescue Movie Already in the works
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No where else
Real or Fake?: Real.

Kristen: A 23-year-old lady from The Cuckoo's Nest who joined Digg on December 16, 2007.
Recent digg: Some Clinton staffers going without pay
Recent comment: On "Femme Fatale 4" — "She can't be any older than 8... Do they seriously recruit children that young...?!?!"
Recent submission: Maze Generator lets you watch the birth of a maze 2
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Her own photography site
Real or Fake?: Real but not really active in Digg or the Internets. Apparently moved to SF recently.

PF: A 29-year-old lady from Kathmandu (NP) who joined Digg on April 5, 2008.
Recent digg: Netherlands Italy 3 0 Video
Recent comment: On "Netherlands Italy 3 0 Video" — "hiii thank u"
Recent submission: Agra Flights Book To From Cheap Fight Tickets Agra
Presence elsewhere on the Web: 'His' dating profile
Real or Fake?: Fake. Stock photos for profile page. Foreigner with simple grasp of English. Submits Indian news stories. Found dating profile of a man with similar user name, age, and location.

Tina Su: A female from Seattle, WA (US) who joined Digg on October 22nd, 2007.
Recent digg: 6 Things You didn't Know About Fried Chicken
Recent comment: On "Life as a Kid in North Korea (PICS)" — "This is really sad. I wonder how these photos were smuggled out of the country?"
Recent submission: Five Things You need to know about effective Habit Change
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Her own blog eaches you how to be more effective. Or check her Twitter account.
Real or Fake?: Real. Seems to be working on her lifehacking blog and submitting articles to Digg. Amazon employee in Seattle.

Jen Farland: A 22-year-old female from San Diego, CA (US) who joined Digg on December 26, 2007.
Recent digg: The Incredible Hulk Preview
Recent comment: On "Parents Over Which Gang Toddle Should Join" — "can we go to vegas and put down $100 on this kid getting a life sentence somewhere down the road?"
Recent submission: Soldier's skeletal remains found on Miss base
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No other presence
Real or Fake?: Fake. Comments like a dude and even submitted an article about Hannah Montana's Age Clock. All signs point to being a dude.

iThenticJoce A 21-year-old lady who joined Digg on January 28, 2008
Recent digg: First Shots of Sienna Miller as The Baroness in GI Joe
Recent comment: On "Mop Bucket (a short comedy)" — "I'm just glad I don't have balls."
Recent submission: "A Hitch in the Plan (a short film with a twist)"
Presence elsewhere on the Web:
Real or Fake?: Real! But she's a definitely a professional Digg-submitter for iThentic.com.

Katie Anderson (d4mnit) A 23-year-old girl from Georgia, GA (US) who joined Digg on January 21st, 2008
Recent digg: 8GB Steel MP4 Player Watch
Recent comment: On "Seven Strange and Wonderful Dishes" — "McDonalds Pizza - so healthful O_o."
Recent submission: Almost IPOD Touch but only for $63
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None. D4mnit is forum slang.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Girls who bite their lips like that don't wear steel mp4 players on their wrists.

papayamaya A female from the United States who joined Digg on June 5, 2007
Recent digg: "David vs. Goliath - WooMe" takes on Internet Giants"
Recent comment: On "David vs. Goliath - WooMe" takes on Internet Giants" — "I met a hot dude on it the other day. w00t!"
Recent submission: "Would YOU eat this candy?!"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter account that she rarely updates, but features the same picture.
Real or Fake?: Real! The photo isn't too staged and her comments suggest she's attracted to men. But more telling yet: she doesn't use Digg that much.

Mandy (sparkleprincess) A girl who joined Digg on February 28, 2007
Recent digg: Flying Saucer Power Source Discovered: Ionized Air
Recent comment: On "No Trespassing, My First Short Film" — "Don't be such a tampon head. ;)"
Recent submission: "A Palace of Gold Is Sold Off For Its Melt Value"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Too many sparkleprincesses out there to spot just one.
Real or Fake?: Real. Her recent comment came in reply to a gross-out male reacting to a story about menstruation.

Natalia Svoboda (NatalySvoboda) A 28-year-old female who joined Digg on February 1st, 2008
Recent digg: "30 Surefire Ways To Trim An Inch"
Recent comment: On "" — "did you have candidate with whom?"
Recent submission: "12 Human Odd Jobs"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A StumbleUpon profile featuring the same photo, saying she's from the Ukraine.
Real or Fake?: Real! She looks Ukrainian and so does her English.

sara (userxp101) A person from grand rapids, MI who joined Digg on June 9, 2005
Recent digg: "8 reasons you'll rejoice when we hit $8-a-gallon gas"
Recent comment: On "Kevin Rose has a MySpace" — "damn i wanted to submit this story, but you beat me."
Recent submission: "N.Y. & L.A Airports Using New Revealing Body Scanners"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Xanga blog".
Real or Fake?: Real! Her blog reveals she's getting married.

poshsuicide A person from California who joined Digg on October 13, 2005
Recent digg: "AT&T Announces iPhone 3G pricing plans"
Recent comment: On "Kevin Rose and Posh...Married?" — You guys are retarded.
Recent submission: "SuicideGirls iPhone PinUp Wallpapers"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A SuicideGirl profile. (NSFW)
Real or Fake?: Real! The Diggnation t-shirt gives it away.

Amanda (amandaw33) A 28-year-old grrrl from Philadelphia area (US) who joined Digg on October 27, 2005
Recent digg: "Paper Bags or Plastic Bags? Everything You Need to Know"
Recent comment: On "Fast Food: Smart Picks on the Go" — "I'm into nuggets y'all I'm into nuggets y'all"
Recent submission: "Kevin Smith's flickr photos
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A largely blank "Team Xbox" profile.
Real or Fake?: Real! Finding and submitting Kevin Smith's Flickr photos is a pure Digg-power user move.

houstong74 A 27-year-old girl from the United States who joined Digg on September 6, 2007
Recent digg: "The 5 Worst Computer Virus Attacks of All Time"
Recent comment: On "The 10 Worst PR Blunders in the Blogosphere" — "How about getting my name and my blog name wrong? it is not even about doing any homework at this point. Just copy and paste the dame thing correctly!"
Recent submission: "10 Reasons You Should Not Blog Everyday"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! This person is a blogger who knows that a pretty girl's picture will get more Diggs.

Dana (Dana24) A person from Manheim, PA who joined Digg on February 2nd, 2007
Recent digg: "What the Social Web Looked Like in the 1990s"
Recent comment: On "[Pics] The Hot Girls of Digg: Time to show off" — "http://www.myspace.com/gadgetgirl24 (some of us hotties ARE REAL!) "
Recent submission: "ICO reverses its stand on Bluetooth Spamming in UK - now perfectly legal!"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: The previously mentioned MySpace profile for Gadgetgirl24.
Real or Fake?: Real! Didn't you read her comment?

Bridget Phetasy: A 29-year-old lady from LA, CA (US) who joined Digg on June 24, 2008.
Recent digg: Digg Users Hate Everything; Bury Internet
Recent comment: On "Digg Users Hate Everything; Bury Internet" — "brilliant. hilarious. perfect. now bury it."
Recent submission: Tom Brady Ruined My Budding Relationship
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A MySpace page, because she's a model. Or you can read about her philosophy about stuff.
Real or Fake?: Real. But that doesn't make you any closer in getting a date with her.

Stephanie S.: A person who joined Digg on November 30, 2007.
Recent digg: Adam Carolla is The Hammer
Recent comment: On "What Man's Best Friends Really Thinks of Barack Obama" — "This is horrible, dogs just pee wherever they can get their paws on, I'm sure they love obama...I think?"
Recent submission: Social Networks Protect You From Dementia
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter account lets you keep track of what she's doing.
Real or Fake?: Real. She's actually very insistent on this.

michael s (yeblonski) A 20-year-old guy who joined Digg on February 10, 2008
Recent digg: "10 Free File Shredder Downloads for your PC Security"
Recent comment: On "Amazing Tattoo Breast Implant" — "this is sick!"
Recent submission: "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2008"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Someone calls him a cheater in a GameSpot forum.
Real or Fake?: Fake! A cheater in Call of Duty and Digg.

Denise Capps (DCapps) A grrrl from Hollywood, CA (US) who joined Digg on September 19, 2007
Recent digg: 10 Coolest & Bizarre Batman Mods
Recent comment: On "Sexy Boothbabes E3 Electronic EXPO Girls Models Video Games" — "Nice."
Recent submission: Oompa Loompa Lady
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Flickr profile.
Real or Fake?: Fake. Girls don't think boothbabes are "nice" nor do they pretend to be men on Flickr.

David (bollywoodkibabe) A 24-year-old guy who joined Digg on March 26, 2008
Recent digg: "SEO for Beginners"
Recent comment: On "PR10.in - Check Page Rank,Complete Domain Analysis,Alexa,Bac" — "Great simple resource."
Recent submission: "SEO and Blogging Tips"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Best way to spam Google with SEO: trade links. Best way to spam Digg: pretend to be a "Bollywood Babe."

Jackie Kira: A 27-year-old female from Japan (JP) who joined Digg on January 18, 2008.
Recent digg: New 'super-paper' is stronger than cast iron
Recent comment: On "3 Social Networking Sites With A Twist" — "Nice page"
Recent submission: Free ad serving system promotion
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No where else.
Real or Fake?: Fake. Too good to be true, but this babe is just interested in using Digg to submit scammy and spammy link exchange websites.

Valli Ram: A 48-year-old lady from Chennai (IN) who joined Digg on March 24, 2008.
Recent digg: Skunk forces family out of house for a year
Recent comment: On "Do You Want The Dreams To Come True?" — "Dreams will come true friend provided if you follow certain methods. Here dreams means visualizing your goals and not night dreams which come while you sleep."
Recent submission: Simplest Method of Meditation for Achieving your Goals
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has a blog to help you with your relationships.
Real or Fake?: Might be a real person but her profile pic is most likely fake. She's also using Digg to try to market her relationship blog.

Erica Blonde: A 26-year-old female from Ontario, Canada (CA) who joined Digg on May 3rd, 2007.
Recent digg: So You Think You Can Dance: Top 12 Perform
Recent comment: On "Women Playing Second Fiddle to Male Announcers in Radio" — "Do they contribute less but cause they add nothing of value to the conversation, or are they not given the opportunity to contribute in the first place?"
Recent submission: 7 Ways You Can Sell Your Business Vision
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has her own community blog and she's also apparently an aspiring voice actor.
Real or Fake?: Real.

Natalie Lopez: A 22-year-old grrrl from Vancouver (CA) who joined Digg on March 25, 2008.
Recent digg: The most popular Digg users and domains
Recent comment: On "Medical Marijuana Soon To Be Legal Nationwide" — "Peoples medicine is being taken away from them everyday, and the excuse is.. "its federally ILLEGAL" People in California are getting hassled a lot for this. It will be a big relief..."
Recent submission: Medical Marijuana Soon To Be Legal Nationwide
Presence elsewhere on the Web: No other presence.
Real or Fake?: If you can't tell by the picture, this girl loves pot. Like crave it. On news that the world might criminalize petty drugs laws she proceeded to submit 25 links of this event. If you love it so much, you should marry it.

FlexiChic A 29-year-old female from Florida (US) who joined Digg on December 5, 2007.
Recent digg: Dart in the Head
Recent comment: On "You can't fix stupid...." — "Stupid is as stupid does! Almost hard to believe."
Recent submission: Funny President Facts
Presence elsewhere on the Web: She has a MetaCafe account but she uses it to pimp her videos.
Real or Fake?: Might be real but the profile picture is fake. It's the pixels. I can tell.

Greg Roberts (whiteblue1942) A 21-year-old dude from Raleigh, NC (US) who joined Digg on February 27, 2008
Recent digg: "Hottest Female Celebrity? [ PICS ONLY!!! ]"
Recent comment: On "Two Women Found Guilty for Raping a Dude in New York!!!" — "haha i would be in the same exact place the very next night and be like "mom...r u there? im all alone.... hope nobody rapes me..." :)"
Recent submission: "Herpes Forum"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Greg Roberts: A 21-year-old dude from NC whose image of himself is a woman with huge fake boobs.

Susan matson (rosinka) A 26-year-old girl from NY (US) who joined Digg on March 12, 2008
Recent digg: "A Very interesting place to live, PIC"
Recent comment: Susan matson hasn't posted any comments recently.
Recent submission: " I see myself on pornsite. "
Presence elsewhere on the Web: None.
Real or Fake?: Fake! This is a porn spammer.

Vicki Carr (Vicki86) A 22-year-old girl from Los Angeles, CA (US) who joined Digg on May 16, 2008
Recent digg: "A Look At The Script For Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards"
Recent comment: On "http://www.zlango.com/" — "Every e-mail becomes a visual experience when spiced –up with Zlango icons. Works on Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL mail and Hotmail all support the plug-in."
Recent submission: "Zlango's My Say application just went live on Facebook! "
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter account, where she's following 888 and only 69 are following her.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Zlango Isn't very savvy at spamming Digg.

Marianna (MariTorchi) A 26-year-old girl from Milano (IT) who joined Digg on November 13, 2007
Recent digg: "Special Valentine's Day Card (you can DIY)"
Recent comment: On "this adult spend to much time alone. Digg says:get out!!!" — "this adult spend to much time alone. Digg says:get out!!!"
Recent submission: "The Hard Disk You'Ve Been Waiting For [PIC]"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Metacafe profile with no videos.
Real or Fake?: Fake! The picture keeps changing to different body parts of different women.

Recent digg: "The Five Best Ways To Steal Gas...And One Really Bad Way"
Recent comment: None.
Recent submission: "Tattoo : Art of tattoo for Pregnant Lady"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: Uploaded a bizarre YouTube titled: "Impaled-gross bug removal"
Real or Fake?: Fake! No comments, no favorites, and 372 friends — this is someone's second or third account.

snowhite7185 A girl from San Francisco, CA (US) who joined Digg on March 21st, 2008
Recent digg: "Fighting Crime with Christian Bale and The Dark Knight"
Recent comment: On "Summer Style: Sexy Sustainable Swimwear" — "that handwoven one looks like a spider web...you'd get a mighty funny tan from that one."
Recent submission: "Humor, wit, and sex...all used to champion green"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Reddit profile, promoting many of the same green-friendly stories.
Real or Fake?: Real! A real marketer who uses "Humor, wit, and sex" and Digg to promote eco-friendly stories.

Christina Coleman (C2hristina) A 22-year-old girl from Mississippi (US) who joined Digg on April 26, 2008
Recent digg: "The Bullets Are Real. Your God Is Not"
Recent comment: None.
Recent submission: "Ford Nuclear Reactor - Top 10 Craziest Concept Car"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter profile.
Real or Fake?: Fake! Only submits stories for auto-reviews site loqu.com.

Ayelet Noff (blonde20) A 32-year-old girl who joined Digg on March 28, 2007
Recent digg: "Don't Start With DIGG if you need Social Media Traffic!"
Recent comment: On "How social networking saved New Orleans" — "Great article indeed!"
Recent submission: "Breaking News: Zlango's My Say App Goes Live on Facebook!"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Twitter profile where she's following 583 and followed by 747.
Real or Fake?: Real! She's real, but she's also "a strategist in the world of online marketing, community building, social software, and networking," according to her LinkedIn profile.

Melissa (PantsSupreme) A 23-year-old female who joined Digg on November 12, 2005
Recent digg: "Wall Street Journal on 4chan and Christopher Poole"
Recent comment: On "Barack Obama: My Position On FISA" — "Extremely disappointing :( These companies have been spying on us and will suffer no consequences. Constitution says that retroactive immunity is illegal so why is he supporting this?!"
Recent submission: None.
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A Citysearch profile.
Real or Fake?: Real! Anyone who maintains a Citysearch profile is a real live social media junkie. And probably needs help.

markus 72 (markus72) A 28-year-old guy from US (US) who joined Digg on May 27, 2008
Recent digg: "Meet the Man Who Could Destroy Photogragraphy"
Recent comment: On "CBS News Correspondent: "I'd blow my brains out" — "She's smart. I like her style."
Recent submission: "Walker: I Was Victim of Shotgun Offense"
Presence elsewhere on the Web: A profile on Ubuntu forums.
Real or Fake?: Fake!

The sad thing is, we think Digg CEO Jay Adelson might actually think he's Tom Cruise

Owen Thomas — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PDT

A recent photo of sunglass-sporting Digg CEO Jay Adelson with slightly more nerdy Google cofounder Larry Page sent reader theodp on an '80s nostalgia trip. (Photo by Reuters, photoillustration by theodp)

Digg CEO and Google cofounder smiling so hard, it's like they just wrapped up a deal

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:00:00 PDT

This year's Sun Valley retreat, put on as usual by investment bank Allen & Co, will be Digg CEO Jay Adelson's second. But it marks Adelson's third or fourth trip around the block trying to sell Digg — with Allen & Co's help, naturally. Most of Digg's prior suitors — IAC, News Corp. and Al Gore's Current TV among them — are regulars at the Idaho resort. Glancing at Dealbook's photo of Adelson and Google cofounder Larry Page, we wonder: After months of lobbying from Google VP Marissa Mayer, has Google's top management finally decided to buy Digg and relieve the New York-based Adelson of his wearisome bicoastal commute? Adelson and Page's all-smiles body language in this photo strongly suggest it's so. (Photo by Reuters)

TechCrunch's secret Digg army

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:00:00 PDT

How do TechCrunch stories make it to Digg's front page so often? With a little help from its friends, of course. Former TechCrunch writer Duncan Riley, now a foe of editor Michael Arrington, posted a screenshot from his inbox revealing what Riley calls "The TechCrunch Digg Club." It includes four writers from TechCrunch proper; seven from gadgets blog CrunchGear; two from TechCrunchIT, Arrington's incomprehensible enterprise-tech spinoff; plus two or three interns.

Social news purists will no doubt shrilly protest against TechCrunch's marketing scheme, but the rest of us know this kind of "Digg Army" approach to voting up stories on Digg.com is both inevitable, commonplace, and clever enough — until Digg's moderators or its spam-detection algorithms catch up with you. The question isn't whether TechCrunch should do this — it's why your site hasn't, you lazy punters.

Advertisers' diagnosis: Digg users need antidepressants

Owen Thomas — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:00:00 PDT

While health websites have struggled to attract dollars from Big Pharma, the drugmakers' billion-dollar marketing budgets have found a new outlet: vote-for-your-favorite-headlines site Digg. The site is currently plastered with ads for Lexapro, an SSRI drug used to treat depression and anxiety. This is a triumph of behavioral targeting, one that gives me hope for the future of online advertising.

Digg CEO Jay Adelson a dead ringer for male model

Owen Thomas — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:20:00 PDT

News.com reporter Caroline McCarthy's informants could have sworn they saw Digg CEO Jay Adelson at a party for RealNetworks last night. But Adelson, pictured left, was in San Francisco. So who was it? One possibility: A model who appears in the Clarins Men advertising campaign, right. Jay Adelson, mistaken for a male model? The world is going mad.

The New York Times sells Digg to Google

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:20:00 PDT

We've heard Google's Marissa Mayer is pushing hard for the company to acquire Digg. Without mentioning the social news site once, a Google News takedown in the New York Times neatly makes her case. Noting that it took Google News an hour longer than everyone else to report Tim Russert's death, the Times reports that Google News's traffic growth has been equally as sluggish:

With 11.4 million users in May, Google News ranked No. 8 among news sites, far behind Yahoo News, which was No. 1 with 35.8 million visitors, according to Nielsen Online. Its growth rate of 10 percent over the last two years is far slower than those of most other large news Web sites. In the last two years, second-ranked MSNBC.com grew by 42 percent, adding 10.4 million users. Traffic at CNN.com and nytimes.com grew even faster.

The Times even ropes in a few professorial types to rip on the few changes to Google News. “I’ve actually been surprised at how little it has evolved, at least on the surface,” said one. “I’m guessing that Google isn’t so sure what to do with it.”

Kevin Rose gushes over Digg-shoppers Murdoch, Diller and Gore

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:40:00 PDT

When Diggnation cohost Alex Albrecht said Kevin Rose has "basically plowed through everybody" maybe he wasn't only referring to the Digg cofounder's dating habits. DIgg's gone through quite a few potential buyers over the years, including News Corp., IAC and Al Gore's TV network, Current. Except, as illustrated in this excerpt from Big Think's interview with Rose, there's one big difference between Rose's love life and Digg's many turns on the auction block.

When it comes to selling Digg, it seems Rose is the one who can't seal the deal and is left pining for what might have been. Rose on Diller:

He is so well connected. He basically walked into the room with this amazing, badass suit on and just sat down and was like, 'Oh, Digg. Yeah. Love it.'

Look for Digg's acquisition abstinence to end soon, with Google's Marissa Mayer — infamously known to be looking for "random play" — as the one to pop Digg and Rose's sellout cherry.

Did the New York Times Joker-ize Digg CEO Jay Adelson?

Jackson West — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:00:00 PDT

Saul Hansell quoted Digg CEO Jay Adelson defending the Associated Press (of which Hansell's publication the Times is a member). TechCrunch's Michael Arrington freaked out, natch. Adelson then attempted to further explain his complicated position, trying to be diplomatic. Yawn. As we've said before, and will say again, exercise your fair use rights under the law and shut up, because giving the AP attention just feeds its argument and therefore reinforces its position. Moving on:

What struck me about Hansell's piece was the use of a file photo that features a wildly grinning and unbelievably baby-faced Adelson — with professionally trimmed hair, no less! Looks a little too much like a certain viral movie marketing campaign to be a coincidence. Is the gray lady secretly synergizing with News Corp. on the latest Dark Knight release and subtly Joker-izing Adelson?

Reddit goes open source, makes Digg sale even harder

Jackson West — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:40:00 PDT

Online news aggregation community site Reddit is open-sourcing the company's Web application software, making it even easier to slap together a Digg-like site in whatever content or demographic vertical you think you can sell ads against. So unless I'm looking specifically for a community of gadget-obsessed, horny, almost exclusively male users, why would I want to buy Digg? [VentureBeat]

Wired relaunching HotWired as a social network?

Owen Thomas — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:00:00 PDT

Chris Anderson, Wired's waggle-eared rock-star editor, has been dropping hints left and right about the relaunch of HotWired, a faded Web property Conde Nast picked up along with Webmonkey last month. The rumor we've heard: That Wired is relaunching the site as a news-focused social network like Digg. (Conde Nast already owns Digg competitor Reddit, whose engineers are likely involved in the project.) It's a sensible brand extension for Wired, but a far cry from HotWired's early ambitions, described in a 1994 email as "live, twitching, the real-time nervous system of the planet." Here's the HotWired FAQ, which reads like it was just unearthed from a time capsule:

HotWired FAQ

What Is HotWired?
HotWired is new thinking for a new medium. We call it a cyberstation, a suite of vertical content streams about the Digital Revolution and the Second Renaissance with an integrated community space. While HotWired is currently bound by technological limitations that restrict bandwidth, it represents the genetic blueprint that will evolve into the overarching media environment of the next century.

At the core of HotWired's editorial is point of view. We are not in the content business, we are in the context business. People today don't have the time or inclination to make sense of the data flood. HotWired is Wired's answer to the need for professionalism in a new medium that has been filled until now with something that resembles public access television programming.

HotWired is live, twitching, the real-time nervous system of the planet.

What Does HotWired Look Like?
HotWired is a stunning reinterpretation of the World Wide Web. Developed by Creative Director Barbara Kuhr of the award-winning design firm Plunkett + Kuhr, HotWired's look is clean and bright, filled with playful logos by Dutch designer Max Kisman and bursting with world-beat colors.

HotWired can be accessed on the Internet via the World Wide Web and a client application such as Mosaic or NetScape (though be warned, NCSA Mosaic for Windows has a bug which makes it unusable).

How Is HotWired Different?
HotWired doesn't look like any online service out there - it zigs where all the others zag. (HotWired's unofficial design watchword was "war on bevelled edges.") Its content and perspective are as innovative as those of its mothership, Wired magazine, while at the same time being utterly different. Its community space is technologically unrivalled - the first graphical conferencing system for the World Wide Web.

Isn't Advertising Anathema on the Net? The Net community does indeed react negatively to invasive advertising - the kind of spamming conducted recently by the Arizona lawyers Canter and Siegel, which elicited a massive rejection by the Net's immune system. The advertising on HotWired is the opposite of invasive.

Each advertiser is accessible only through a single discreet banner at the head of a content section. Most advertising is 90 percent persuasion and 10 percent information; advertising on HotWired reverses this ratio. And the privacy of members is guaranteed by HotWired's unqualified commitment to never divulge a member's personal information to advertisers.

Why HotWired, Why Now?
Because while Big Media and the telecom behemoths have been busy forming "strategic alliances" to build the "information superhighway" and sending out press releases about the tests they're launching any day now, thousands of companies and millions of people have quietly built a new interactive medium called the Internet.

This medium is not magazines with buttons, any more than television was radio with pictures. It's a new medium with a new aesthetic, a new commercial dynamic.

Many media companies shovel their leftovers into the online world and call it content. HotWired is not one of them.

Where Wired is a clear signpost to the next level, HotWired is operating from that next level. HotWired is a constantly evolving experiment in virtual community. It's Way New Journalism. It's Rational Geographic.

Today is like 1948; a new medium has reached critical mass. We're trying to help define the future of that medium before it ends up like television.

So if you're looking for the soul of our new medium in wild metamorphosis, our advice is simple. Get HotWired.

What Does HotWired Cost?
HotWired is free to members. HotWired's revenue model is similar to broadcast media - content supported by sponsors. HotWired's sponsors are some of the bluest chip advertisers in America, including IBM, AT&T, Volvo, Sprint, MCI, Zima (Coors), Internet Shopping Network (Home Shopping Network), Club Med, etc.

What Hotwired Is Not HotWired is not Wired magazine with another name (Wired works perfectly well in print, thank you). It's not a so-called online magazine (print content reduced to ASCII and shoveled into another medium, narrowband interactive). It's not video-on-demand (a pie-in-the-sky marketing concept created by out-of-touch old-media executives to justify their headlong rush into a new medium they don't understand, broadband interactive). It's not an online service like Prodigy or AOL (now rendered obsolete by the explosion of interest in the Internet and the development of the Web and graphical browsers).

And like Wired before it, HotWired is not a cold, marketing concept, but the heartfelt expression of the passion of its creators.

Is Google about to swallow up Digg?

Owen Thomas — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:00:00 PDT

Google's cupcake princess, Marissa Mayer, and Kevin Rose, the playboy of the Webhead world, would make an awfully cute couple. Not romantically — the two are dating other people at the moment. But we hear Mayer is pushing hard for an acquisition of Rose's Digg, for a price below $200 million. Kara Swisher hinted a few days ago that the social news site, on which users "digg" or "bury" their favorite news headlines, might be on Google's shopping list. Mayer's goal: to use what Digg has learned to fix Google News which, while popular, doesn't make Google any money. (Digg CEO Jay Adelson would not comment on the sale rumor, but did disclose that he was having a "delicious" In 'N' Out burger for lunch.)

What's interesting is the timing. A source familiar with the talks says Google and Digg reached an agreement last month; it's not clear whether the offer was verbal or a formal termsheet. So why the delay? One possibility: Digg may have been exploring whether it could hire a rock-star CEO and raise more money. Adelson has long been flying cross-country, twice a month, to San Francisco from his upstate New York home, and privately complains about the commute to friends. But so far, I've heard nothing about Digg raising a new venture-capital round, or Adelson making way for a higher-profile hire.

Of Digg's possible acquirers, Google is the company's most natural home — despite Digg having a multiyear advertising contract with Microsoft. Google desperately wants to get a handle on social networking; it has struggled to sell ads profitably on News Corp.'s MySpace. More importantly, Digg could help Google improve the relevancy of its search results, especially with the news articles Digg readers vote on and discuss so vociferously. That might be worth more to Google than any ads it might manage to sell on the site.

The deal may not happen. Insiders are already mystified by its lack of progress since word first started spreading last month. As Sarah Lacy revealed in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Digg has held a series of deal discussions that never came to fruition. That history makes it hard to take any new Digg-sale rumor seriously. But we hear these discussions are close enough to take seriously. Cupcakes, anyone?

(Photo of Rose by Brian Solis/Bub.blicio.us; cupcakes by a_cooper)

Kevin Rose no longer single -- but who's he dating?

Owen Thomas — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:20:00 PDT

San Francisco's Web 2.0 playboy, Kevin Rose, has been laying low since his much-publicized affair with Internet notoriety provider Julia Allison in Miami (shown here, in a previously unpublished photo, with Rose). But on Facebook yesterday, Rose took the word "single" off his profile. A tipster says Rose is dating again, but we haven't heard the lucky lady's name yet. We're guessing she's a newcomer to town, since Rose's Diggnation cohost, Alex Albrecht, once drunkenly noted that Rose has dated quite a few locals. Rose's Facebook update, after the jump:

Digg meetup more like a concert in a land without women

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:00:00 PDT

The line to get into Digg's meetup and live filming of Diggnation last night in Brooklyn went around the block. Inside, the joint was packed with dudes drinking beer, waving around iPhones, and wearing T-shirts. There were maybe like 10 or 15 women. Just as rare: Microsoft Zune users. Despite Microsoft's sponsorship, when Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback tried to give away Zune T-shirts, the crowd only booed. Julia Allison's entourage, Kevin Rose, and more in our photo gallery.

Thrillist beats Digg to win coveted gender ratio title in battle of Internet Week parties

Jackson West — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:20:00 PDT

Caroline McCarthy made it out alive from the Diggnation "sausage fest" in Brooklyn last night, where fanboys expressed their latent homoerotic desires by mobbing Digg founder Kevin Rose. She proceeded to the Thrillist party, where a more heteronormative mix were "Gettin' Jiggy With It" and indulging in founder Ben Lerer's boom nostalgia for when his dad Ken was an executive during AOL's heyday. [News.com]