Hey all,

Last month, we blogged about how we’re working to improve the delivery of relevant and interesting content on Digg. Hopefully, you noticed we rolled out new features over the past few weeks including finding related stories based on keywords and listing top stories in the topic you’re viewing.

The latest feature is called “People who Dugg this also Dugg”, or PWDTAD (we’ve been pronouncing it kind of like how Tweety Bird says Putty Tat), and we’re pretty excited about it. PWDTAD helps you discover related stories based on what fellow Diggers of that story have recently Dugg. Check it out and tell us what you think.

We’ll keep rolling out these enhancements over the next few months and, as always, let us know what you think. Your feedback drives what we do!

Slainte,
Trammell

Hey all,

Wanted to reach out to folks with an update on Digg and our priorities for 2009 as well as address some of the recent speculation about our business.

As we’ve often stated over the past couple of months, given the current economic climate, we’ve made the decision to take a more conservative approach to our expansion plans and aggressively focus on reaching profitability within the year.

This means we’ll be taking proactive measures to manage our costs including a headcount reduction in certain areas that are less core to this year’s objectives while continuing to hire for roles that will help build on our leadership position and get us to profitability faster. This includes hiring a direct sales team, in addition to other targeted hires in 2009.

As part of our aggressive path to profitability within the year, I also wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the major priorities for the company:

• Rolling out new features to grow and engage our community
• Building on our advertising infrastructure
• Building on our successful partnership with Microsoft
• Ongoing sponsorship opportunities
• Ongoing publisher and trade partnerships

I’m confident that with commitment and focus on these priorities, Digg will be an even stronger company in 2009 and will continue to create innovative features for our more than 35 million community members. I want to thank you all for your continued support and commitment – helping us achieve our vision of the democratization of media, and revolutionizing the way people consume and discover information online.

Thanks,

Jay

Hey Everyone,

Our next Digg Dialogg happens this week following the inauguration of Barack Obama. Join us as the Digg community interviews Republican House Leader John Boehner, on Capitol Hill this Friday January 23rd, live on CNN.com Live.

Following the successful kick off of Digg Dialogg with Nancy Pelosi at the Democratic National Convention and Al Gore immediately after the election, this is a great time to get perspective from the Republican Party as the House begins a new term tackling key issues on the economy, Wall Street and foreign affairs.

For those of you who’ve missed previous interviews, Digg Dialogg gives the community an opportunity to submit and vote up questions posed to influential leaders, change agents and luminaries.

So, be sure to submit and vote for your favorite questions on the Digg Dialogg page; and video questions can be submitted through iReport, CNN’s user-generated community. CNN Political Editor Mark Preston will pose the most popular questions, as submitted and voted on by you, this Friday. We will post the link to the interview, which will be streamed on CNN.com Live Friday around 11:00am EST, and posted shortly afterwards. We will also post regular updates to the Digg Twitter account.

We’ll be announcing more guests soon. As always, let us know who you’d like to talk to by adding suggestions in the comments.

Digg on,
Kevin

Hey everyone,

To kick off the new year we’re partnering with our friends at Revision3 for a Digg Meetup and Live Diggnation at the infamous Knitting Factory Hollywood next Wednesday, January 14th, in Los Angeles, CA. Come raise a pint, tell us what’s on your mind, and check out David Starfire from Six Degrees Records after the live Diggnation taping.

The last San Francisco meetup was our best yet, with guest appearances from Jelly D and Hammer. A video of some highlights:

Try and arrive early – doors open at 7pm and we’re expecting a full house. Details are included on the Meetup Page.

Hope to see some of you there,

Kevin

Hey everyone,

I’m sure you’ll all agree that 2008 was a crazy year, so I thought I would take a moment to recap some Digg highlights. Our traffic has nearly doubled to more than 35 Million visitors per month, and we now receive more than 20,000 story submissions per day. We worked hard to continue to make improvements to the site, many of which were directly based on feedback from you.
Some highlights include:

- Site enhancements and new features, like the improved Comments system and the Recommendation Engine
- Digg Dialogg series, where we posed your questions to notable leaders such as Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore
- New ways to discover Digg content; including the new mobile version of Digg, Twitter feeds, Google gadget, and Firefox toolbar
- Quarterly Townhalls and in-person Meetups; we held events in Austin, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Denver, St. Paul and London
- New ways to track election news and interact with political leaders; including Digg the Candidates, our visit to the conventions, Digg questions to Obama and McCain from Katie Couric, and Election night coverage with Current TV and Twitter

In addition, several big events happened behind the scenes that allow us to continue to make Digg even better in 2009. Over 80% of the Digg code base has been rewritten and modularized to pave the way for agile development and we secured a $29 million Series C round of funding. This paves the way for more great features in the new year.

In addition to all that, the Digg crew hit the road and met many of you at our Meetups and events. We’ve been posting photos and videos along the way, but took the opportunity to compile it all in one place as the year comes to a close:

Thanks for making 2008 so great.
Happy New Year,

Kevin