Digg relaunches public beta with Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian

Digg has launched a public beta at Digg.com, with founder Kevin Rose teaming up with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian to relaunch the crowdsourced content platform; interested users can sign up for the beta now. Ohanian left Reddit in 2020.

The new Digg opened with 21 general communities covering topics such as science, funny, tech, gaming and entertainment. Around 67,000 users were invited before the public launch, and anyone can now sign up and create a community; at the moment each community can have only one manager.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Rose said the relaunch aims to build trust with users and guard against AI bots manipulating the platform, suggesting some communities could require proof of ownership for specific hardware. Digg is also debuting an AI-created podcast called Digg Daily that recaps the platform's biggest stories each day, and according to the company it is considering bringing in human hosts after hearing user feedback. Digg CEO Justin Mezzell told TechCrunch the company plans to launch first and then build and ship features weekly.

Digg was an early home of link upvoting before Reddit rose to prominence, and a failed 2010 redesign drove many users to Reddit; the site was later bought and sold until Rose and Ohanian acquired it and announced plans to relaunch last year. The service is currently in beta and will evolve as the team rolls out new features.

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Tech, Digg, Kevin Rose, Alexis Ohanian, Reddit, Digg Daily