The Atomic Blog

I remember attending a Digg Nation with my ex girlfriend – girlfriend at the time – about three years ago and seeing the absolute pandemonium in the crowd. Fast forward to about a month ago, and it was amazing to see the snickering and mocking taking place when it was announced that Digg was being sold for much, much, MUCH less than what it was once valued at. People had been so turned off by version 4.0, that the site nearly died.

But Digg is back. And it’s got some interesting ideas. Before they re-launched, they solicited feedback from users and one simply said, “build something awesome, the internet is rooting for you.” (Source: The Verge)

Betaworks, the company that bought and re-launched Digg is calling it v1 and it is entirely built on new code. So much is new that they didn’t have time to put  in a commenting system!

But there’s still a lot to admire. It’s a lot more image heavy and there is an editorial staff helping to curate stories. And for the time being—no ads, no sponsored posts, etc.

The redesign looks very modern and similar to a lot of popular news reading sites. Their iPhone app also allows you to save stories to read later (like when you’re underground and can’t access your 3G/4G).

Apparently, reviews are mixed amongst users—except online marketers and spammers who hate it. Which, honestly, has to be a good thing. (Source: The Verge)

I decided to sign up for the daily email that will send me top Digg stories since I can’t seem to find an RSS feed. And their Twitter handle doesn’t tweet every story on there. (I know—I’m old school in that I rely on Google Reader so much.) Time will tell if I’ll revisit the site often and since I have plenty to do on my morning commute, I didn’t download the iPhone app.

But has anyone else tried out the new Digg yet? If so… leave your thoughts below in the comments. (Because at least we’ve got a commenting system.)