Social network site Digg sold for just $500,000

Social news networking site Digg, once valued over $150m, has been sold to New York technology development company Betaworks for a mere $500,000...

Social news networking site Digg, once valued over $150m, has been sold to New York technology development company Betaworks for a mere $500,000 (£324,000) in cash plus equity.

Digg is a seven-year-old site and was a beacon in the Web 2.0 era. It still garners over 16 million monthly unique visitors but in the wake of Twitter, Slashdot, Reddit and news aggregation sites, Digg struggled to keep its stamp on driving news trends online. 

The plan is to regress to start-up status and start afresh while tying into Betawork's news briefing service News.me. 

In a statement on its site, Betaworks said: "Digg is one of the great internet brands, and it has meant a great deal to millions of users over the years. It was a pioneer in community-driven news.

"We are turning Digg back into a startup. Low budget, small team, fast cycles. How? We have spent the last 18 months building News.me as a mobile-first social news experience. The News.me team will take Digg back to its essence: the best place to find, read and share the stories the internet is talking about. Right now."

Digg remained independent throughout its years, despite rumours that Google were going to snap it up in 2008. When Twitter began and Facebook dominated, Digg (and MySpace for that matter) was left adrift, signalling a sharp drop in Digg's numbers. 

2010 was the high water mark for Digg with an estimated 37-44 million uniques per month but it's been downhill from there. Now, this move has reflected the company founder Kevin Rose's desire to go at it again albeit from the ground up.