(San Francisco) - The leading technology news site, digg.com, will switch to 'version 3.0' sometime Monday. Already ranked 35th most popular site in the US, Digg 3.0 will expand from it's current technology focus to include more mainstream-oriented categories for entertainment, gaming, science, world & business, and online video.
Anonymously launched in December 2004 as a experiment by Tech TV personality Kevin Rose, Digg was a radical departure from an old paradigm: that site owners had to exercise heavy editorial control to achieve good content.
In the Digg system, visitors can quickly register to submit and vote on which links to stories around the net are most interesting to them. Through a semi-secret process, the system automatically graduates the 'best' stories to it's front page where non-registered, casual visitors can browse the best of what's new.
The site quickly gained a reputation among the tech savvy for being the first place to find the biggest tech stories, often days before they appeared on larger tech sites or in the mainstream press.
Digg first gained national attention in February 2005, when it was cited in many national broadcasts as the primary source reporting that the Sidekick Cellphone/Camera of Paris Hilton had been hacked. The original link to the stolen pictures had automatically graduated to the Digg front page within minutes of being submitted by someone close to the hacker.
For the past year, Kevin Rose and friend Alex Albrecht have also co-hosted a weekly, digg-related video podcast at diggnation.org. The podcast features the pair drinking beer and making humorous commentary on their favorite 'Digg' stories of the week.
In October 2005, venture capitalists invested $2.8 million in Digg to support it's continued explosive growth.
The long-promised Digg expansion to more general topics follows mere weeks after the launch of beta.netscape.com, which many have called a digg-clone.
Monday Marks Major Digg.com RevisionSalem-News.com