Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, 41, has joined forces pinch erstwhile rival Kevin Rose, 48, to revive Digg, a societal and link-sharing website Rose founded successful 2004 — it was divided up and sold for parts to Betaworks, LinkedIn, and The Washington Post successful 2012. The 2 intend to infuse the caller Digg pinch AI contented moderators, a move not yet implemented by Reddit.
The Digg of 2004 allowed users to stock links that others could "digg" and upvote aliases "bury" and downvote, creating a spot for trending news. Users could remark connected links too, pinch the astir celebrated contented ending up connected the homepage.
In its heyday, Digg attracted 40 cardinal monthly unsocial users, but aft a 2010 update removed the "bury" button, users revolted and near the tract successful droves, starring to its demise.
Ohanian and Rose announced connected Wednesday that they are relaunching Digg arsenic a mobile-first platform, pinch invites to the caller Digg rolling retired to users successful the coming weeks. The webpage for Digg's reboot shows that complete 175,000 group person signed up to get early entree to it astatine the clip of writing.
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According to Bloomberg, Justin Mezzell, a merchandise designer who antecedently worked astatine Code School and RevenueCat, will beryllium Digg's caller CEO. Ohanian and Rose will service connected the committee of directors.
The squad bought Digg's domain and assets from Money Group for an undisclosed sum, and person received investments from Ohanian-founded task superior (VC) patient Seven Seven Six, arsenic good arsenic True Ventures, a VC patient wherever Rose is simply a partner. They declined to disclose really overmuch they had raised, per Bloomberg.
Alexis Ohanian. Photo by Patrick Smith/Athlos/Getty Images for Athlos
Plans to revive Digg started erstwhile Rose reached retired to Ohanian past twelvemonth pinch the thought of a caller Digg that could usage AI to thief conflict spam and mean content. According to The New York Times, Rose wished wherever AI could thief Digg by spending thousands of dollars connected targeted ads connected Reddit, a comparable platform, to inquire moderators astir their biggest challenges.
"These moderators are pouring their lives into this," he told The Times. "We deliberation we tin do it better."
Rose told The Verge that he envisions Digg utilizing AI for "everything from an AI supplier that converts your full sub-community into Klingon," a fictional connection successful the Star Trek universe, "to different 1 wherever you don't let a definite type of profanity and that's automatically auto-moderated."
Related: Here's Why Reddit Turned Down an Acquisition Offer From Google successful Its Early Days, According to Cofounder Alexis Ohanian
Ohanian, who served connected Reddit's committee until 2020, stated in a property release that AI will return connected the inheritance "grunt work" of fighting spam and filtering done contented connected Digg while quality moderators attraction connected "building existent connections."
"I'm each successful connected this chapter," Ohanian stated.
Digg is simply a nonstop competitor to Reddit, a $30 billion institution pinch 101.7 million regular progressive unsocial users arsenic of its February net report. Reddit has made AI a priority, signing a $60 million woody pinch Google successful February 2024 that allowed the tech elephantine to train its AI connected Reddit contented and pursuing up pinch a akin deal pinch OpenAI successful May 2024.
Reddit has a built-in moderation strategy called AutoModerator that automatically goes done posts to cheque to spot if they break organization policies. Though the level introduced an AI-powered information feature successful March 2024 to observe online harassment, it does not yet person AI agents moving arsenic moderators and has not stated if it is moving connected implementing them, per Business Insider.
Related: 'Faster, Smarter, and More Relevant': Reddit Tests AI That Combs the Site For You
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