Digg this: Adelson out, Rose in as CEO
Jay Adelson is departing Digg, with Kevin Rose immediately taking over the role of acting CEO. And that’s likely just the start of a shakeup at Digg, which has been somewhat superseded by social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Digg is changing, in more ways than one. Firstly, Jay Adelson is leaving the company, with his role as CEO being taken over by Digg founder Kevin Rose. When the dust has settled on that move, Digg then needs to change in order to better compete with the precocious startups that have moved in on its territory in recent years.
Jay Adelson has stepped down as CEO of Digg, and issued a statement claiming his “entrepreneurial calling is strong, and I am ready to incubate some new business ideas over the next 12 months.”
Digg founder, and the public face of the company, Kevin Rose, is stepping in as acting CEO, and he issued a statement thanking Adelson for “five years of amazing work,” and stating, “You’ve been a great friend and mentor, we wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for you.”
But these tepid pronouncements of gratitude belie the story underlying the shakeup at Digg.
According to TechCrunch, Adelson’s position at the company has been under threat for some time. The board of directors are thought to have come close to terminating him last year, and Rose himself is thought to have had problems with his associate, reportedly stating, “One of us will leave the company.”
Rose is thought to have believed that the site wasn’t innovating or keeping up with its competitors quickly enough under Adelson’s tutelage. The venture capitalists who have sunk $40 million into the company without seeing a return were also unhappy with Adelson’s leadership.
So Adelson is out, and Rose is in. But Digg still needs to act fast in order to avoid falling further behind other companies in its sector. Digg is facing an uphill struggle to start competing better with the likes of Facebook and Twitter, both of which have eschewed the need for Digg at all with their sharing options and ability to drive traffic to Web sites.
Will the redesign unveiled at SXSWi 2010 be enough, or is it too little too late for Rose to reinvigorate the site back to its former glory?
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