digg

Digg hires sales chief from Yahoo

Digg has hired one of Yahoo's top salesmen as its new head of sales, the social-media site said Tuesday.

Tom Shin, who had been at the Internet pioneer for seven years, will be responsible for developing Digg's advertising sales strategy and managing strategic relationships, including with Microsoft, the company said. At Yahoo, Shin oversaw product marketing for My Yahoo and Messenger, and was credited with helping Yahoo Mail's annual revenue grow from $20 million to more than $300 million.

Digg CEO Jay Adelson announced last week that the company would be hiring a new direct sales force and head of sales … Read more

6 ways to be a better commenter on YouTube (and elsewhere)

Now that YouTube is giving users the option of deleting their comments, I thought it would be a good time to discuss the ways in which all of us can become better commenters on YouTube, Digg, blogs, and just about everywhere else a site gives us an arena to spout our own opinions.

As someone who writes somewhat controversial articles on the world of technology, I've seen every kind of comment known to the world: friendly, angry, thoughtful, agreeable, disagreeable, ridiculous, rude, meandering, outrageous. Suffice it to say that the number of comments I see each day that really … Read more

Sprint Nextel to cut 8,000 jobs

Sprint Nextel on Monday announced plans to cut approximately 8,000 jobs through the first quarter, as the economic meltdown cuts into the telecommunications carrier's business.

In addition, Sprint plans to suspend its 401k match in 2009, as well as continue with its salary freeze for a second year. The telecommunications carrier's tuition reimbursement program will also be suspended this year.

The workforce reduction is expected to result in a $300 million charge in the first quarter for severance payouts, but also is anticipated to save the company $1.2 billion in annualized labor costs.

Sprint said the … Read more

Digg to cut workforce 10%, hire new sales team

Digg CEO Jay Adelson on Thursday morning is announcing that the social media site is laying off a "very small" portion of its workforce, but will also be hiring a new direct sales force and head of sales to drive the company to profitability this year.

The overall job cuts at the 75-person company will be "microscopic in size," Adelson said to me, later confirming a figure of "about 10 percent." He reiterated that Digg this year is focusing on profitability and growth, and for the first time is building out its own advertising support structure, "which we've never really focused on before." Adelson posted a brief item about the news on the Digg blog.

The partnership Digg has with Microsoft to sell standard advertising units will continue. But Digg will be rolling out higher-profile advertising programs, and features on the site to support them, that his internal sales force will be pitching. He pointed to Digg Dialogg as an example of a vehicle that could be sponsored by a higher-profile advertising program.

It's a difficult time for all media companies, of course, but Adelson says that Digg has not seen any CPM erosion--the price they get for the ads on the site--and that the Microsoft is doing well for the company.

Even though Digg has "multiple years" of cash on hand for operating expenses at the current burn rate, Adelson said, it's a brutal economy today. "It's true we have cash in the bank, but getting to profitability makes more sense to us." Sounding like almost every other Web start-up CEO on the state of his business today, he continued, "If things don't get worse this year, if we get to the second or third quarter and things look good, I can bring some of that talent back in. But if we go in the other direction, that's not a burn rate we can maintain. I'd rather be in front."

The company raised new capital and doubled in size in 2008.

Adelson says Digg's engineering and core development group won't be hit by the layoffs. The cuts will come in areas "not core to our function. We'll be shifting some of that cost to a sales force." … Read more

Daily Tidbits: Zoho imports Google Notebooks

Zoho announced on Wednesday that in light of Google suspending Google Notebook, it has enhanced its own service, Zoho Notebook.

According to the company, it has added a Google Notebook import function, which allows users to import all their Google Notebooks into Zoho's software. The company also added the ability to link between notebooks, record audio and video, and chat with other Zoho users through a new instant-messaging application built into the software. The updated Zoho Notebook is available now.

Mixx, a Digg-like social site that caters to a more "mainstream" audience, has inked a deal with … Read more

Hitwise: Twitter surpasses Digg's market share

Could the odd confluence of a US Airways jet crash-landing in the Hudson River and Barack Obama's presidential inauguration finally push Twitter over the top and into the broad mainstream consciousness?

That could be the case, according to statistics released Tuesday by Hitwise, an Internet analysis firm.

Hitwise reported that as of Tuesday, Twitter, the popular microblogging service, had for the first time surpassed the market share of visits of the hit content aggregation site, Digg.

According to Hitwise, Twitter now stands at number 84 in its Computers and Internet category, one space up the chart from Digg.

A … Read more

Rose and Kutcher make a Web show

What a pairing: Hollywood slacker-hottie icon Ashton Kutcher and Silicon Valley slacker-hottie icon Kevin Rose have teamed up to create 24 Hours at Sundance, a Web-based reality show set at the eponymous film festival in Park City, Utah, later this week.

Backed by mobile live-streaming start-up Qik, the competition-focused show will pit four "social media mavens" against one another for 24 straight hours as they complete a set of challenges surrounding the annual film festival and broadcast them via Qik software on Nokia handsets. Rose (best known for founding Digg) and Kutcher, the Dude, Where's My Car … Read more

'Free-mium,' self-funded models set to gain traction

Sooner or later, I will put all my 2009 predictions together, but in the meantime, I've come up with two business trends that I think we'll see next year:

Web start-ups will move to premium services and subscriptions Self-funding will rule for "ecosystem" plays

Ad-supported sites will move to a "free-mium" approach or die by the end of the year. Free-mium and paid services will become the norm next year, as advertising wanes and companies realize that ad-supported business models were not that great to begin with. Even Digg, with all its traffic, has little to show for the advertising model. … Read more

Report: Digg still mining for profits

This post initially misstated Digg's 2007 loss as reported by 'BusinessWeek.' The company reported lost $2.8 million in 2007.

There are some stunning numbers in BusinessWeek about social news site Digg: In 2007, the company reportedly pulled in only $4.8 million in revenue and lost $2.8 million. In the first three quarters of 2008, it lost $4 million on $6.4 million in revenue.

Digg declined to comment on the numbers.

This is a little bit disconcerting, if true. Digg has been one of the hottest start-ups in Silicon Valley's hype machine for the past … Read more