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The New Brat Pack of Silicon Valley 146

Posted by Zonk from the val-u-pac dept.
bart_scriv writes "BusinessWeek looks at the current entrepreneurs of Web 2.0 via the lens of Kevin Rose and Digg. Although the article focuses on the rise and success of Digg, it also looks at the ethos of Web 2.0 and its successful companies, including YouTube, Del.icio.us, Facebook and Xfire. From the article: 'Clearly much has changed since 1999, and Rose and his fellow wealth punks have little in common with the sharp-talking MBAs in crisp khakis and blue button-downs who rushed the Valley as the NASDAQ climbed. In the late 1990s, entrepreneurs were the supplicants, and Sand Hill Road, dotted with venture-capital firms, was the mecca. Dot-commers relied on VCs for the millions needed to buy hardware, rent servers, hire designers, and advertise like crazy to bring in the eyeballs. For their big stakes of, say, $15 million for 20% of a company, venture capitalists received board seats, control of the management levers, and most of the equity. Now, it's more like: Maybe we'll let you throw a few bucks our way -- if you get it. Otherwise, get lost.'"
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The New Brat Pack of Silicon Valley

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  • So are any of the Brat Pack profitable? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Friday August 04, 2006 @09:40AM (#15845990) Homepage Journal
    Meet the new web, same as the old web.

    • Re:So are any of the Brat Pack profitable? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by HugePedlar ( 900427 ) on Friday August 04, 2006 @09:43AM (#15846008) Homepage
      Indeed. Digg has had several millions invested, but Rose claims to still drive around a VW Golf and share an apartment with several people. Clearly he's having fun with his 'work', but it appears not to be earning him the same outrageous fortunes that the previous dot-commers expected.

      • Re:So are any of the Brat Pack profitable? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mikael_j ( 106439 ) on Friday August 04, 2006 @09:52AM (#15846051)
        Or maybe he just doesn't see wealth and expensive status symbols to be the most important thing in life? Maybe he enjoys sharing an apartment with others?

        /Mikael J

        • How does this rate as flamebait? He's got a valid point - no everybody flashes their $$$. Perhaps these guys learned something from the last bust - not everybody will be successful, so perhaps they're actually saving some of that $$$ in case things do go bust.
          • I agree with you on the learning from the bust theory. This is the second time around. Wisdom seems to come from failure, and I would classify the first dot-com bust as a failure. It was supposed to change the world, but what ended up happening is Wall Street bought out the companies that really could change it, took over, and then gutted or bleached them.

            If there's one company that will change the world in the way the dot-com's never did, and in a way that is more fundamentally sustainable, it is cr

        • Re:So are any of the Brat Pack profitable? (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I agree. I am by no means mega-rich, but I make a very very comfortable living working for an investment bank. However, I like my roommates, apartment, and neighborhood, the fact that I drive an environment friendly ninja 250 motorcycle, etc. I am content with these things and don't see the need to acquire a bmw or a crazy expensive co-op with a "good address" so I can home each day to an empty lonely apartment. The only thing I "bling" out on are tech toys, and the occasional vacation.

          My 401k and bank acco
        • Or maybe he just doesn't see wealth and expensive status symbols to be the most important thing in life?

          Indeed. Maybe he "gets it" (life, that is) in a way that the ostentatiously affluent don't. I've been around successful people of both stripes, and I've always found the ones that are incessantly driven to display their wealth to be oddly pathetic in that way. It's as if they're desperately trying to conform to perceived societal expectations of how "rich guys" are supposed to behave, rather than living t
      • It appears to be a lesson every of the Web 2.0 CEO must learn: pop up your human side, dress casual and don't show your wealth. And the best of all: make people say poor guy; manipulate people's sympathy (Rose's girlfriend sad story, sleepless etc), it will open all doors
      • the two guys who founded google drive each drive a toyota prius and are billionaires.
      • Or, just maybe, those dollars haven't started to flow to Rose yet. Remember, 90% of the dot com bust outs were because everything in the dot com was "paper". There were no real assets, just stock valuations, and when those valuations crashed, nobody had anything left. Rose might actually not have much in the way of real money beyond any salary he might be pulling. And given Digg's operating revenue, I doubt he's pulling that much of a salary (low 6 figures is next to nothing in San Jose).
      • Actually, a lot of entrepreneurs do things like this even if they can afford not to. They figure it gives the impression that they're putting all their money back into the company instead of spending it on themselves.
    • It's impossible to see how YouTube is currently profitable.

      It does however, thanks to the team of legal snakes hired to draft its licence agreements, own the rights to everything posted on it. So one day, in theory, they could sift through the dreadful noise that is its video contributions for those few pearls and subsequently sell them.

      Thoroughly screwing the original film maker in the process.

      Now, there is no evidence that I've seen that YouTube is evil per se, however the licence agreement look
      • I haven't looked at Youtube, so I don't know what the license is like or how it's presented. If it isn't hidden or misleading, then I have no problem with it.

        If they truly "own the rights to everything posted", then I'd certainly not post anything. However, as long as their licence doesn't restrict me in any way, then it really doesn't matter. They're just taking what I gave them and doing what I said that they could do with it.

      • It's impossible to see how YouTube is currently profitable. It does however, thanks to the team of legal snakes hired to draft its licence agreements, own the rights to everything posted on it.

        Only if:

        1. the person posting the content had the rights to give away in the first place; and
        2. the agreement turns out to be enforceable, which it may well not be if the people posting the content didn't understand the implications of doing so at the time they posted it.

        Moreover, if YouTube ever tried to do somet

      • It does however, thanks to the team of legal snakes hired to draft its licence agreements, own the rights to everything posted on it. So one day, in theory, they could sift through the dreadful noise that is its video contributions for those few pearls and subsequently sell them.

        Unless of course, it turns out that the people who posted the videos didn't have the right to post them in the first place, meaning youtube gets sued out of existence.

      • Re:So are any of the Brat Pack profitable? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Friday August 04, 2006 @12:23PM (#15847100)
        It does however, thanks to the team of legal snakes hired to draft its licence agreements, own the rights to everything posted on it. So one day, in theory, they could sift through the dreadful noise that is its video contributions for those few pearls and subsequently sell them.

        Thoroughly screwing the original film maker in the process.

        Oh baloney.

        Here's what it says: [youtube.com]
        The foregoing license granted by you terminates once you remove or delete a User Submission from the YouTube Website.
        What is so hard to understand about that?
        You don't want them to redistribute your creation anymore?
        Then take it off the damn website fer chrissakes!

        Either way personally, I would never ever post anything on that site.

        Stupid is as stupid does.
        • Because it points out the bleeding obvious to its parent, who seems to be knee-jerking at the mere idea of a 'content license' without apparently bothering to read said license.
      • It does however, thanks to the team of legal snakes hired to draft its licence agreements, own the rights to everything posted on it. So one day, in theory, they could sift through the dreadful noise that is its video contributions for those few pearls and subsequently sell them.

        If that was YouTube's goal, they're going about it in completely the wrong way. YouTube cannot just sell a property- or even make a "YouTube's Greatest Hits" DVD or TV show-- without extensive clearances from all parties involved

  • In other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by jayhawk88 ( 160512 ) <jayhawk88@gmail.com> on Friday August 04, 2006 @09:43AM (#15846002)
    ...a bitter and angry Rob Malda told reports looking for a quote to "Get the hell off my lawn".
    • It might be tempting to think that, but according to (you guessed it) netcraft [netcraft.com], slashdot.org is, at the time of writing, the 76th most visted site on the internet. Congruously to our current discussion, www.myspace.com is ranked 77th.

    • Re:In other news (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dsginter ( 104154 )
      Here [slashdot.org] is Taco's mistake from way back in 2000:

      8) What About the Slashdot Story Submission Queue?
      by nullspace

      I think it would be interesting to be able to view the story submission queue. That is, what type of stories are being submitted, which stories are being rejected and why, and other interesting trivia. Would you allow users to be able to view this queue, and if not, why?

      Hemos:

      One comment: Having us write rejections is probably impossible. I've tried to do the math, but considering the sheer amount of

      • Ahh.. what could have been.

        Not what could have been, what is. The fact that Slashdot's set-up couldn't make the idea work doesn't mean other sites, such as Digg, can't do so.

        Of course, whether Digg can maintain its grand position in the site rankings for as long as Slashdot has been around is another question entirely. There are reasons that I still visit Slashdot far more often, and those reasons generally relate to the fact that there is some editorial control on stories and a reasonably powerful mo

      • I've been reading Slashdot for, what, four years now, yet I still don't quite get why people want an open submission queue. The only reason I can see (it's also the only one I've ever been given) is "Kuro5hin/Digg has one". But this is hardly an argument! Hasn't it occurred to any of you that there's several ways to run a news site and the Kuro5hin (or Digg) way is not the only one?
        </offtopic>
      • If not opening the submissions queue is what kept Slashdot from becoming digg, thank god for that. I look at the RSS feed for digg for the story headlines, but there's no content there. I read slashdot for the comments and rarely bother to read the articles, because the intelligence behind the highly rated slashdot comments generally yield better analysis than the story itself!
      • My rejections

        * 2006-08-03 10:09:01 Movie To See - Freedom to Fascism, smell the pain (Politics,Movies) (rejected)
        * 2006-05-20 05:08:27 RFID hacking easy as 1.2.3... (Hardware,Security) (rejected)
        * 2006-03-17 23:50:45 Mass Media Cover-up (Politics,Media) (rejected)

        Yeah, I think its all auto reject, and only they look at 'friends' stories.

        Youre too big slashdot, you are mainstream and are not 'cool', bound to the corporate

  • Xfire? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by myspys ( 204685 ) * on Friday August 04, 2006 @09:43AM (#15846003) Homepage
    "Web 2.0 and its successful companies, including YouTube, Del.icio.us, Facebook and Xfire."

    I'm sorry, Xfire?

    Am I the only one who hasn't heard of Xfire or/and it's success?

    • Re:Xfire? (Score:3, Informative)

      by RootWind ( 993172 )
      Not entirely. You would probably only here of Xfire if you are a gamer. It's a Game tracking/IM type service. That's the jist of what it is. They have recently been bought by Viacom however. (Why on earth Viacom wants such a service is beyond me).
      • I'm really confused at this point. What is web 2.0 really? At first I thought it was just using old technologies like ajax (dhtml with xml), and possibly multimedia content or something. xfire is primarly a windows client on an im network. Very little aside from profile management is done on their website. Plus their domain was registered in november 2003 according to whois.

        Does any site created in 2003 or later count as web 2.0? By this logic, if you have a service on/after 2003 and it has a windows
        • Like so many technical terms that get throw around in the web world, Web 2.0's meaning changes depending on if you're asking techies, suits or the media. It's not a strictly defined term anyway like Ajax, but from a technical standpoint I'd say you're correct, Web 2.0 means web sites that function more like standard applications through the use of technologies like Ajax. On the business side the term refers to those companies that are just emerging as the first wave of successful web companies after the d

    • Re:Xfire? (Score:2, Funny)

      by deviceb ( 958415 )
      and i thought i was out of the loop.. !
      oh wait.. no xfire is a boardgame where you shoot marbles at the person oposite you to make goals.

    • Re:Xfire? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Chapter80 ( 926879 )
      I thought Gamebattles.com was THE site for gamers. Why did Viacom buy Xfire?

      Chip Kellam's Gamebattles is my pick for the next one to get picked up. And Chip is the classic Brat Packer. Hope he's on the next Business Week...

  • Good ol' Supply and demand (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday August 04, 2006 @09:56AM (#15846075)
    The economy in a downfall, interest rates lower than the inflation, people with money trying hard to find a place for investment. That's what we have today.

    On the other hand, not too many people want to go down the dangerous road of self employment in the IT sector after the dot.com bubble burst. More so since if you have experience, are a good coder, know your stuff and don't quote "web design" as the core feature of your CV, you have no troubles finding a moderately to well paying job. Those would be the people to go for self employment, though, because without any experience (and connections) in the market, self employment is suicide.

    In other words, there's a lot of investment money and not many people daring to pick it up. It kinda feels like dot.com all over again.
    • The economy in a downfall, interest rates lower than the inflation, people with money trying hard to find a place for investment. That's what we have today.

      I have to refute these statements. There is no clear evidence at this point the economy is in a "downfall." Interest rates are not currently lower than the most widely accepted measures of inflation (cash in a CD is easily getting over 5%). There are still plenty of other places to deploy capital.

      In other words, there's a lot of investment money a

    • Huh? I never really got the idea that most people in I.T. went down the self-employment road out of choice, so much as out of desperation!

      At least here in the midwest, that's what I've seen, time and time again. Someone with specific talents in an area of I.T. gets laid off from a good-paying job with a large-ish firm, can't find another job in a reasonable time-frame, so they finally decide to venture out on their own.

      For example, before my current job, I worked for a couple years for a guy's start-up bu

    • The economy in a downfall, interest rates lower than the inflation, people with money trying hard to find a place for investment. That's what we have today.

      The answer to that one is simple. Buy commodities, e.g. gold, silver and oil before the government prints your money into worthlessness.

      BTW, when the oil producers switch from demanding dollars to demanding gold or euros, you're going to see some serious inflation. They may well do this fairly soon as the value of their holdings of dollars is decreasing

      • I'm in the fortunate position that my country's economy is running on Euros. So, I'm anxiously waiting.

        Then again, every time some oil exporting country threatened to take Euros for Oil it was immediately bombed to ruins, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

  • Little in common? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Aladrin ( 926209 ) on Friday August 04, 2006 @09:56AM (#15846078)
    So, the perpetrators of the current web2.0 bubble has little in common with the dot-com bubble?

    Let's see...

    Fly-by-night operations... check.
    Crazed Investors... check.
    Funny naming conventions... check.
    Non-standard work-places... check.
    Failure-to-profit... check.

    Oh yeah, SO VERY LITTLE in common.

    Well, let's see what they don't have in common...
    Different clothes.
    Different year.

    Umm... Yeah, that's it.
    • Yep. This Web 2.0 stuff should be called Bubble 2.0.

      I like Kevin and all, but how come everytime I see him he looks like he needs a shower and a haircut? Oh and new clothes too.
    • I disagree. From all I've seen, it looks like they're wearing the same shirts and jeans they had on a decade ago.
    • Providing no real value, but pumping the stock market.

      90-95% of Web surfers do nothing. They don't create content. They don't participate. The "Social Web" is millions of people waiting for something to happen and a small number of neurotics who think what they say is important or get a weird kick out the whole circus.

      In the meantime, you throw advertizing at the aimless creatures and place your bets.

      It's the hypnosis revenue model of television and radio. People have not changed. If this guy's ~really~ sma
    • Don't forget:

      Principal's who think their shit doesn't stink... Check.
      Claims that "This time, it's different"... Check.

      Is their anyway we can invest in these idiots' inevitable collapse? 'Cause we KNOW it's coming.
    • You forget they have many more blue LEDs now - things will be *just fine* ;)

  • Attention Kevin (Score:5, Funny)

    by mustafap ( 452510 ) on Friday August 04, 2006 @09:57AM (#15846081) Homepage


    1992 called. They want their inflated ego back

  • So three anecdotes make a trend? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blueZ3 ( 744446 ) on Friday August 04, 2006 @10:05AM (#15846112) Homepage
    Silicon Valley to Business Week: Get a grip!

    Ok, so there are a number of "Web 2.0" entrepreneurs who aren't in it soley for the money. (Or equally likely, IMO, some entrepreneurs are now standing pat in the hopes of a bigger payday later... but that's another issue).

    So what? Back in the "Web 1.0" days there were also a good number of folks who didn't immediately go off the deep end when VC money became available. I was personally involved with two startups just before the dotbomb burst, and both had offers that they turned down because they wanted to keep control. This is nothing new, despite the ridiculous article. (Another hint to BW: don't try for "hip"--you just come off as lame)

    And the folks in the story are still definitely a minority, as far as I can tell. There are still lots of folks out there who are trying the old scam of trying to get VCs to give them money based on a business plan and a Flash demo. It's just that now instead of "we'll give it away at a loss, but make it up on volume" there's the "we'll create a 'community' and sell advertising" theme.

    Nothing to see here. Move along.
    • whoa now, let's not get all crazy style. give them a business plan & a powerpoint presentation.. no need to waste time with actionscript!
    • There are still lots of folks out there who are trying the old scam of trying to get VCs to give them money based on a business plan and a Flash demo. It's just that now instead of "we'll give it away at a loss, but make it up on volume" there's the "we'll create a 'community' and sell advertising" theme.

      But this is completely different. The first model is insanely stupid--the sort of thing that only bubblistas would invest in (and they did). The second is not only a potentially viable business model, it

  • Web 2.0 (Score:4, Funny)

    by EnsilZah ( 575600 ) <.moc.liamG. .ta. .haZlisnE.> on Friday August 04, 2006 @10:06AM (#15846117)
    I really wish people would stop using version numbers where they don't belong...
    There really should be some sort of service that lets you order someone to smack those people upside the head, preferably with a nice AJAX interface.
    • Hey, that's a good idea! I've already put together a rough outline of how we can make that work and whipped up a business plan. Want to start a new business with me?
    • That feature won't be available 'til AJA3.0X (Did I put the version number in the right place?)
    • Good point. I'd like to contribute a thoughtful response in agreement to your statement, but I have to drive Sharkey 2.0 to her doctor's appointment right now.
  • I'm going to start using a totally fictitious term that sounds like it might be related to the Internet, like iWebby or something like that, and then see how long before the businessweeks start naming 'players', 'moguls', and 'leaders'.

    Talk about form over substance.

    I can see it now - "businessweek interview iWebby founder and lead VC. There no money - yet, but like web 2.0 and web 3.0 and web 4.0, the profound impact of iWebby and the soon to be termed iWebby 2.0 will change everything, and give bir

    • I'm going to start using a totally fictitious term that sounds like it might be related to the Internet, like iWebby or something like that, and then see how long before the businessweeks start naming 'players', 'moguls', and 'leaders'.

      Talk about form over substance.

      As long as our Total Enterprise WebFrontispiece leverages Blue-skyRuby Outside THE Rails in order to grow its self-contentizing stakeholder model I don't care about the details. Send for the code monkeys!

  • The More Things Change... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eno2001 ( 527078 ) on Friday August 04, 2006 @10:16AM (#15846175) Homepage Journal
    ...the more they get the lame. And nothing is lamer than Digg and Kevin.

    OK, in all fairness here's where I stand on Digg vs. Slashdot:

    -Sort through the massive amount of crap on Digg for the latest news bits that might be worthwhile. On Digg it'a all about quantity, not quality. Or to put it another way, "How do we do it? VOLUME"!!!

    -Hit Slashdot and find that some of the stories you found interesting on Digg are featured here and there is a better quality of discussion (amazingly) than there is on Digg. So this is where you get social. Digg is just an unsorted pile of crap.

    -Yeah, I'm aware that the stories are "voted" to the front page by the readers. That's fine as long as your readers aren't idiots. The more popular Digg gets, the more idiots they collect. Therefore the quality of the front page represents what the idiots want to see. Not what actual, thinking readers are interested in.

    Now, what I can also thank Digg for is the effect it's had on Slashdot. Not so much internally, but externally. I don't give a rat's ass if Taco and crew are scrambling to try and compete with Digg. That's not the effect I'm talking about. I'm talking about the somewhat homeopathic effect they've had on Slashdot. By becoming more popular, they've lured away most of the idiots. I've noticed that the level of discussion on Slashdot has improved since Digg 3.0 was unleashed. I think that a lot of the morons who annoyed the piss out of me after Slashdot became popular (I've been here since 1997 when I used to be CaptEno) couldn't resist that suction of stupid that Digg presented. The only negative effect I've seen is much slower story submission. Whereas the stories used to tick by quickly, now we're lucky if we see five new stories in a day.

    • Spot on. You can't read digg comments, you will tear out your hair and cry to your momma.

      I do hit them on occasion to see what stories they have listed since they do have quantitiy.

      Now, if we only had a slashbox thingie for digg on slashdot, I would never have to go there...
    • Amen. The biggest thing Digg needs is uber editors. SOme diggers would scream, but they need this because all too often some stupid or inaccurate story gets to the front page. In accurate stories need to be moved off much quicker and retractions put up as well. Digg is what it would be like to see the Slashdot submission queue in my opinion. Slashdot only puts up the quality posts/stories and the fact that most discussions on Slashdot are MUCH better then they are on digg. Digg only goes to two levels
    • Its reaaaal simple. Digg is for those 18, and the occasional troll.
    • I agree (well, mostly). I enjoy Digg, but only visit it when I have exhausted all the rest of my news-reading for the day and still want to see some interesting links. However, Digg has a few weak points:

      1. You can only reply to comments of depth 1 -- nothing below that. Thus, if you post some insanely stupid comment in response to someone else, no one can directly respond to you. They have to post lower down on the page with something like, "@dipshitdigger: Here is why you are wrong: [yadda yadda]," or wha

    • The more popular Digg gets, the more idiots they collect.

      hmm, Slashdot's been popular for a while. are you saying Slashdot is full of ...?

      The more popular any website gets, the more visitors (of any kind) they collect. popularity will drive as many idiots as actual,thinking readers. maintaining the quality of content is a different matter - if digg discussions continue to be as lame as they are now, then the contributions of thinking readers will dwindle. but that is also the simple beauty about digg

      • You are using Digg for a completely different purpose than I am then. For me, the news is only mildly interesting. The ensuing discussion is what the real value is. I could hit tons of other sites if all I wanted is news. I want discussion, arguing, flamewars, trolling, insults, accolades, etc... but they MUST be intelligent in nature. That may be why Slashdot appeals to me more than Digg. I don't see a whole lot of that on Digg because that's not the focus of Digg. Digg just wants tons of content wi

  • It's called Cyberpunk (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Friday August 04, 2006 @10:17AM (#15846183)
    Bandwidth nearly free, hardware cheap, software free. All you need is time, skills, devotion and a good idea. Who needs VC? Back in 1999 people where shedding millions just to get a proper DB up and running. Nowadays all it takes is two clicks of a mouse and a 3 minute download. Hell, you can get yourself a new server after working a few extra shifts at Mc Donalds if the need arises. My cheap-ass PDA has more horsepower than my workstation back then. It's the age of Cyberpunk, pure and simple.
    • Bandwidth nearly free, hardware cheap, software free. All you need is time, skills, devotion and a good idea.
      You also need a blog.
    • What is cyberpunk? Of course I've heard the word before but it seems like it's another internet word where a new definition is applied to it every 3 seconds. I always thought it was a genre of science fiction. Nope, apparently it now means "access to cheap computing power". Maybe tomorrow it will mean "cognitive dissonance". "Dude I'm studying Hegel's theory of cyberpunk in psychology right now!" Maybe cyberpunk will become a verb... "I totally cyberpunked his @ss! LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!". "Dude I am so cyberpunke
    • Ah, but we make the same mistake as then, thinking that only *now* is the situation static. Of course not. The era, the 100 years from 1950 to 2050 (and beyond) is the "Information Revolution" or "Information Age". It subsists not on the year-by-year declarations of "Information wants to be free" or "digital is open" and so on, but merely from the combined long-term effects of:
      • Information and the machines to store/access it are ubiquitous and relatively cheap.
      • The more open flow of information creates a

  • Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

    by csanford ( 944712 ) on Friday August 04, 2006 @10:24AM (#15846219) Homepage
    Techdirt [techdirt.com] puts this article into nice perspective.
  • From TA:

    On July 18, AOL tried to lure Digg's top 50 contributors with $1,000 a month to switch to its site, which led Rose to rant on his weekly podcast that Calcanis and AOL were trying to "squash Digg." The corporate giant's failure to gain inroads so far shows that simply copying Digg won't work. It also spells out why Old Media types are so afraid of being eaten alive by the creative destruction these young new players are delivering. The barriers to entry are now so low that all it takes is a laptop

  • Ok.. the term "brat pack" wasn't at all funny when they were using it to describe the teen stars of "The Breakfast Club" in the 1980s. Could we please not resurrect this particular dead lingo?
  • Is this the same Kevin Rose that's hosting AOTS on G4?
  • totally left out last winter's flap about Rose and Digg banning dissenting or questioning voices from their midst. Digg faces censorship accusations. [blogcritics.org]
  • besides 12 year olds posting?
  • I only ask because quite often digg will link to a video on youtube and on you tube there is a count of how many people have played the video. Quite often this will be a number of around 2,500. certainly low 1000's seems common with a world wide audience shouldnt more people be looking at the video links from digg.
  • I know for a fact they are not based above the SF Weekly office. The SF Weekly office is next door to mine, and I have a friend at Digg. We do not hang out for lunch, because he's a bit too far away.

    With such a simple fact wrong, I would not be suprised if more of it was incorrect.

  • All these ad-supported services are chasing the same pool of advertising spending. In that sense, they're competitors of Google. Now AOL has gone advertising-supported, so they're going after the same revenue.

    The result is probably going to be that online advertising rates go through the floor, like banner ads did. We'll also see some sites get desperate and try annoying ads, popups, popunders, interstitials, and adware. Total spending on advertising is not going to increase; it has to stay a fractio

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