Digg lays off 10pc of staff


7 May 2010

Social news discovery site Digg.com yesterday broke the news that it decided to let 10pc of its staff go, as announced on the official Digg blog by newly appointed CEO Kevin Rose.

Co-founder Rose took on the role of chairman and CEO on 4 April 2010 following Jay Adelson’s decision to step down and pursue entrepreneurial opportunities: “I am ready to incubate some new business ideas over the next 12 months.”

Rose published the email sent to remaining Digg staff, which stated that “(we) strongly believe that it is the right decision for the long-term health of the company. In order to achieve our goals, we are putting more emphasis on the engineering and development efforts.”

Despite laying off 10pc of its staff, Rose said that Digg is continuing to hire people for its engineering and development teams.

Launched in 2004, Digg remains a popular site, according to Alexa.com, but has come into criticism in the recent past with the Digg bar, which framed the page it was directing the user to from a top story on the site. On taking the role of chairman and CEO Rose promised to have this feature removed.

By Marie Boran

Photo: Kevin Rose, co-founder, chairperson and CEO of Digg.com. Courtesy of Thomas Hawk via Flickr