Digg Plans Topic Expansion

Posted on June 14, 2006

Digg already has subjects that are not 100% techy -- like music and movies -- but Valleywag offers proof Digg will be adding more non-tech topics.

Digg already soared past Slashdot as the most influential tech-centered news portal. The "Digg effect" can bring down the servers of sites linked from the homepage and drive a frenzy of blogging and news coverage -- or spread rumors like nobody's business. That's why Yahoo reportedly offered $40 million for the company (to which founder Kevin Rose says, "I wish!")
But Digg is destined for bigger things than tech news. The above screenshot of Digg version 3 (not showing? wait for it), leaked from a beta tester a week before its launch, reveals categories for "Business" and "World News." This should give Digg a leg up on AOL's rumored general-interest Digg killer.

If Digg is useful for tech news it should logically be useful for other news. Digg should easily expand into topics like business and world news but will it be able to draw users interested in sharing headlines in extremely popular subjects like celebrity gossip? If Digg is seen as too geeky users may opt for other memediggers like Lipstick instead.