Digg is described as, “a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users.”
Unfortunately, the company has had to layoff ten percent of it’s workforce to stay competitive and continue operations.
I see this layoff as something like the ‘austerity measures’ that countries like Greece have had to make.
The reason a company like Digg lets people go isn’t because they want to save cash — it’s because the investors who pumped $40,000,000 into the business want to see a return. At the very least, they demand the appearance of cost savings if their plans hit a snag. Kevin Rose, Digg CEO, could give the go ahead to sell his startup via an IPO, but it’s a tough market out there.
Mind The Store
Digg hasn’t failed, but it’s a good example of the points laid out in the book Rework by the software company 37Signals. They took investors money to pay for things like office space, servers, and lots of incidentals. Maybe they needed all that money and maybe not, but the point I’m making is:
How has your stance on social media changed with respect to the way you run your business?
In other words, I think it’s a great idea to use social networks as a way to communicate and grow an audience organically. But if you’re unsure about what it can do for you, don’t have a plan, or find yourself avoiding your primary business to tweet — stop to consider the repercussions.
- Don’t stop making sales and finding new revenue streams
- Do use Twitter to identify people who can teach you guerrilla PR
- Don’t spend money building up your ego
- Do spend resources building a product/service, and on good advice
There’s a lot of great ways to use the social web, but before you get too deep, make sure you’ve identified a goal and know how to track the progress of your efforts. If you know how to help people do this, you can build a business around the solutions (or any other service in demand…be creative).