Earlier this morning I blogged about Kevin Burton’s reported impending Digg acquistion rummored by Yahoo!. I added on my own speculation about the possibility here. As it turns out this is probably not the case and this will go down as another of those rumors that was just that, a rumor.
In addition to Kevin Rose’s comment in a Digg thread that Digg is “focused on features, not selling the company,” per additional insider sources from Digg, Digg has “denied any discussions have taken place of any kind.”
Although I still think that both Digg and Yahoo! could benefit from a marriage of sorts, Digg also has much left on their plate to do in the months ahead. Most noteably, as Kevin Rose has indicated in recent interviews, look for Digg to expand into other non-tech areas of news. It will be exciting to watch this unfold and exciting to see the company continue to grow over the course of the upcoming year. As one user on Digg wrote, “if Kevin was smart he would wait, because I think Digg will be able to buy yahoo if he is patient.”
Update: Kevin chimes in more formally on the situation at hand: “Yesterday, I saw a couple digg stories reporting rumors about Yahoo! acquiring digg – I posted a small comment on digg dispelling the rumors and thought that was the end of it. Then, I woke up this morning to see TechCrunch (great site btw), CNN, CNET, and a few others fueling the rumors. So, just to set things straight – we are not in talks with Yahoo. We are focused on creating new features and expanding digg into new areas beyond tech. The recent reports about digg and Yahoo! are just rumors, nothing more.
Digg on,
Kevin”
I don’t really understand the rationale for this merger. Digg is cool and I can see yahoo integrating the ability into its news feeds, but I don’t see how they can monetize it. I guess it would make my.yahoo stickier.
Let me know what I’m missing.