This article was originally published on techcrunch and is being re-published here with permission.
Google’s on and off negotiations with Digg
have been back on in a big way for the last six weeks, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside of Google, and the two companies are close to a deal that will bring Digg under the Google News property. The acquisition price is in the $200 million range, says one source.
We first wrote about the Google-Digg negotiations in March. Despite a vigorous denial by Digg CEO Jay Adelson the negotiations continued, although Google’s Marissa Mayer reportedly cooled on the company for a period of time.
The companies are now in final negotiations according to our sources, although it could be a couple of weeks before it closes. And while the major deal points have been agreed on, the acquisition could still fall apart. Microsoft, which was previously interested in the company, may be willing to step back in at a much lower price.
Most of Digg’s revenue comes from a three year ad deal with Microsoft, which will be terminated on a sale to Google. Digg has raised $11.3 million in venture capital.
Meanwhile, Google’s fascination with the Digg voting concept continues.
- Comment Likes 
- Comment Dislikes
July 27, 2008 at 4:48 am
Duplication of content is no good
July 26, 2008 at 7:53 am
And why not? You can buy everything in our world. The question is cost.
July 26, 2008 at 7:33 am
When Google decides to buy Yahoo? This is a joke, of course. -)))
July 26, 2008 at 4:25 am
if it’s true, a step closer for google to become the king of worldwideweb
July 25, 2008 at 10:06 pm
This would be interesting to see how google uses Digg and how Digg utilizes google.
July 25, 2008 at 3:06 am
So do you think Digg will be changed now.
July 24, 2008 at 11:15 pm
It just depends really. I believe Shoe when he says that those articles get more hits than regular posts. Some people dont check TC everyday and vice-versa. Just depends.
July 24, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Aside from that, they start off with a highly popular site with an enormous user base.
July 24, 2008 at 8:29 am
Most digg users dont click on ads , and digg is only a redirection to other sites that contains Google ads (mostly)
July 24, 2008 at 7:55 am
This is some nice news. thanks for posting it. This is the type of reason why a lot people say Google = God online.
July 24, 2008 at 6:00 am
I think $ 200 million is not a very huge price for such service. Digg is a huge popular resource.
July 24, 2008 at 2:01 am
Hahahahah! You’re a funny guy! Point well taken though. The scenario is quite plausible. What does google want with digg though? It is a fading star, maybe they think it is revivable?
July 23, 2008 at 10:03 pm
So did it happen or not finally?
July 23, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I completely agree with you Paul, Digg is useless for many IM’ers as their categories are so narrow, Stumble provides for a much wider range of submissions and is a much better site.
July 23, 2008 at 6:48 pm
You think stumble is worth more than Digg? I am not sure but I do think that because of Google’s social search engine the purchase of Digg is apart of that. So now instead of having to pay an SEO guy you will have to pay one of those 10 Digg guys if you want rankings.
July 23, 2008 at 6:02 pm
So long as you realise that every article you reprint from TechCrunch essentialy means you didn’t post an article for Shoemoney at all, seriously. Search engines will ignore the page as duplicate and many readers who have already read the article will leave. Dangerous waters.
July 23, 2008 at 5:59 pm
And I think 200 million is cheap for a class A social network too… which Digg was years ago. I bet StumbleUpon would fetch 10x that.
July 23, 2008 at 5:58 pm
BIG mistake for Google, cash money for Digg imo.
Digg has control issues, a very small number of people have far too much power over the front page. It’s possible to BUY your way to front page digg and isn;’t a good thing for Digg… or Google.
July 23, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Yea I love reading the highlights. Thanks Shoe.
July 23, 2008 at 4:02 pm
What do you mean by “cooled on the company”?
July 23, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I was wondering when Digg owners were going to cash in. That’s a nice chunk of change for the site. I wonder what other site/s are in Google’s sights?
July 23, 2008 at 3:08 pm
noooooo! Google is going to buy everything
July 23, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Microsoft is too slow to move and react to buy companies with potential…
July 23, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Something is wrong with this picture….Microsoft tries to buy Yahoo for a ridiculous sum of $46 Billion, and gets TURNED DOWN. Yahoo is basically circling the drain and hasn’t made a useful product in years. If I were them I’d be laughing all the way to the bank for $46B.
Then Google snaps up Digg, an actually useful site, for a mere $200 mil? I’m just, saying…something is weird with these numbers. That and Yahoo/Microsoft both look like complete idiots.
July 23, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Digg just feeds what shows up on Google News’s pages.
July 23, 2008 at 2:15 pm
pretty weird !!
July 23, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Sure Google will stop the spam but they will show whatever they want, Google will dominate the Internet too!
July 23, 2008 at 2:11 pm
haha, yeah that’s true! Google will dominate socialbookmark too!
July 23, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Simple, sell ads!
July 23, 2008 at 2:09 pm
hmm pretty interesting offer, 200 million bucks, Digg deserve the money.
July 23, 2008 at 12:52 pm
That would be sick if Google buys Digg, great for us stock holders.
July 23, 2008 at 12:51 pm
What does this truly mean for us real digg users. Better service, or google pawning it off as just another web property?
July 23, 2008 at 12:45 pm
What would google do with DIGG ?
July 23, 2008 at 12:39 pm
$200 million is a huge price to pay for a social service that has lost a lot of its credibility due to spammers gaming it. Maybe the motivation is to figure out all the loopholes? I dunno, but this purchase doesn’t make sense to me at all.
July 23, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Or at least more carefully vetted. Expect the system to get much more difficult to game.
July 23, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Absolutely! Go take a look at http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/07/17/new-google-search-preview/
July 23, 2008 at 12:32 pm
The stats don’t lie. How much fresh traffic is it bringing in?
July 23, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Yup, it definitely ties in with their social search concept. Maybe they primarily want Digg to figure out how to control the spammers.
July 23, 2008 at 12:28 pm
TechCrunch is a hard act to follow. You’ll have to come up with some pretty compelling content if you wish to be featured on Shoemoney! Dunno how many people like hip-hop on this blog….
July 23, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Wow. Wonder what they are buying next. I think that they are trying to improve things and that is why the acquire these smaller companies. They get the one piece of the puzzle that they have had problems with and also get another money maker.
July 23, 2008 at 11:11 am
from an innovative company, Google appears to be a company that does nothing but acquire smaller companies. Its time they focus on what they have, improve those stuff they’ve bought over, just look at blogger.com, picasa, helo, sketchup, and many more…
July 23, 2008 at 10:39 am
Google is going to suck the fun out of the internet.
July 23, 2008 at 10:31 am
You know that sooner or later, Google will buy Digg, and any other web site that “dares” to rise too high.
July 23, 2008 at 9:58 am
kevin rose you mean
and the guy wasnt indian that wrote the code
before posting be sure to check your facts at wikipedia or elsewhere
July 23, 2008 at 9:52 am
yep me too
google needs diggs algorithm lol
but this is a big move by google a nice company
July 23, 2008 at 9:13 am
here comes google again!!!
July 23, 2008 at 8:48 am
easier to get a new site indexed? – it’s never been hard! Agree with you that the Google monopoly is growing, even though they ‘do no evil’, it can’t ever be good for one company to become too dominent.
July 23, 2008 at 8:41 am
I don`t now what want google but bought only good sites with huge traffic!
July 23, 2008 at 8:27 am
agreed, especially since it seems digg is on the down and outs…
July 23, 2008 at 8:27 am
google already spreading it’s powers, heheeh,
July 23, 2008 at 8:12 am
diddo for me
July 23, 2008 at 8:08 am
im pretty sure google can build their own digg algorithm
July 23, 2008 at 8:07 am
Great Deals Time. Can we see a new web application called goodigg in coming days.
July 23, 2008 at 8:01 am
i think this is great, google are overpaying though i think
maybe google can stop the SEOs gaming the system, i think its a smart move for google and hopefully google will help more relevant stories reach front page
July 23, 2008 at 7:36 am
Google tries to own whole internet .
July 23, 2008 at 7:31 am
Cool. I think that the transaction did take place.
July 23, 2008 at 7:11 am
About time. Hopefully Google will clean out the Spam and stop banning accounts.
July 23, 2008 at 7:10 am
Yes. I’m enjoying them a lot actually!
July 23, 2008 at 6:56 am
I like the reprints, maybe add your own perspective/opinion afterwards?
July 23, 2008 at 6:18 am
I know you “don’t care about SEO” but do you think too much syndication could give you duplicate content issues?
I think the purchase of “alternatives” to algorithm based search by Google is a two pronged tactic for them. They see that there is merit there and need/want to implement ….and they want to get the big players in that arena “out of the way”.
The “know a better webpage for -key phrase-? suggest one” at the bottom of search results also indicates Google moving towards user ‘voted’ search. I could see them easily adding a users favorites box with listings.
July 23, 2008 at 4:37 am
OMG they will buy all for god sake!
July 23, 2008 at 2:33 am
maybe google will eat us in the future! thats real scary
July 23, 2008 at 2:32 am
problem is maybe the links their would go nofollowed….
just jokinh..
July 23, 2008 at 2:27 am
if google can be able to buy digg then those who are on the top page would get penalized..
July 23, 2008 at 2:24 am
What a waste of money. Stopped using digg a long time ago when digg started favoring certain power users. Long gone are the times when digg was a user generated news site.
Too much gaming goes on now.
July 23, 2008 at 1:49 am
I think republishing big news items like this is a good idea. I’m not a regular over at TC so I would have missed out on this news. It’s also nice that it’s the original article and not paraphrased. I think it adds value to the site.
July 23, 2008 at 1:46 am
Google are always looking for ways to expand, it’s interesting that they are looking to buy Digg, a social voting site. I wonder if they will use the data collected to incorporate into their search algo?
July 23, 2008 at 1:27 am
” mcQ Says:
Digg was a $1000 investment and jay aldelson did not even know how to program. Using one of the script free lance websites, he asked some guy based in India to write the program for him and within 18 months, his website was worth millions…”
What about that Indian guy?
July 23, 2008 at 12:57 am
Digg was a $1000 investment and jay aldelson did not even know how to program. Using one of the script free lance websites, he asked some guy based in India to write the program for him and within 18 months, his website was worth millions…
you gotta digg dat kindda sh!t….lol
July 23, 2008 at 12:03 am
I guess another step towards a Google monopoly. By the way, if Google does buy Digg, any of you think that it might be a tad bit easier to get a new site indexed?
July 22, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Ugh…that really sucks. I think this could be the beginning of the end for Google…
July 22, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Oh gosh, here goes another good site to google…. I’m not sure what will happen next after digg then facebook…
July 22, 2008 at 10:21 pm
lol
And from my site too
Google buying digg – No… No monopoly plz.
July 22, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Prepare to be assimilated, resistance is futile.
July 22, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Nice. I didn’t really see this one coming, if it’s true of course
July 22, 2008 at 9:02 pm
awesome
July 22, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Hey you can republish articles from my sites anyday
July 22, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Wow. I’m actually surprised.
Lots of techcrunch posts lately.
July 22, 2008 at 8:16 pm
you would think but the stats say different. The tc articles I have chosen to syndicate get more clicks on average then my normal posts.
July 22, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Not at all. TC gets a lot of exclusive news about the industry… rather then paraphrasing their articles Mike Arrington has granted me permission to republish. Seems lot of people are enjoying them looking at the numbers (clicks from feed readers).
As you probably know I recently had another baby so my “hobby time” or time to blog is pretty limited so this is a nice test for now.
I also have deals to syndicate some other interesting news sources but am waiting for the right articles.
July 22, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Google wants to domainate the internet. I remember seeing on wiki more than 50 companies Google owns and i know Google will still want to own more. Google is getting scary !!!.
July 22, 2008 at 7:40 pm
F it
July 22, 2008 at 7:10 pm
It’s interesting with the economy in the crapper, that Google would still be throwing money around like this. But whatever, it’s their cash and they can spend it however they want.
July 22, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I think you bring up a good point. eBay needs to dump Skype (what… 2.6B to acquire a VOIP player and mash it up with an auction service … euh… not!) and take some of the funds raised to put in an offer for Digg…
July 22, 2008 at 6:43 pm
That’s pretty awesome, I love when google buys sites, all the ads go away, everything becomes free and runs much faster. (usually)
October 14, 2008 at 8:28 am
With chrome now I think that google is going to change how we view searching online. They have a lot of money and no debt so they have the capital to do things that most companies wish they could. What a good business plan. Create a product that is going to be ubiquitous, have no debt, and wait for people to create products that you can use but don’t have enough capital or mind space to use it to its full potential and then buy them. Awesome.
July 22, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Very interesting. Would that create a wacky google/digg mahalo of some sort?
July 22, 2008 at 6:34 pm
AOL paid less than $40 for every Bebo user.
Digg are selling at the TOP!
July 22, 2008 at 6:34 pm
As Burgo i would like to know why you are reprinting Techcrunch articles. Does not make much sense to me, as I would assume that many of your readers are reading Techcrunch anyway?
July 22, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Is this good news? I’m not too sure…
but 200million… wow! Around $66 for every registered user (working on 3,000,000 digg users). Is that right?
When eBay purchased StumbleUpon, they paid around $20 per registered user… $66 seems high!
October 14, 2008 at 8:25 am
it might just be. I’m on digg but not active which means they are paying for me not being there. What a deal.
July 22, 2008 at 6:28 pm
It can be a good thing. I suppose google only want the algorithm and such to start doing the google search thing posted here a few days ago.
July 22, 2008 at 6:27 pm
That’s big. I guess G couldn’t start their own site and come anywhere close — so they just bought the biggest one out there.
July 22, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Shoe, do you mind me asking what’s up with these reprints of TC articles lately?
July 22, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I can just see it now.
Front page Digg story: “We’ve been sold to Google”
And then it gets buried by all the anti-Google-ites.