Do Layoffs At Digg Signal A Bigger Issue With Their Product? (2010)

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Social news sharing site Digg announced plans to lay off about 10% of its workforce this week. CEO Kevin Rose told employees in an email that the company is “putting more emphasis on the engineering and development efforts” as it works toward a redesign.

Kevin Rose Announces Digg Layoffs

Kevin Rose’s email to Digg staffers is reprinted below:

Hey everyone,

This morning we faced the difficult task of reducing our team by about 10%. This was an emotional and rough morning for everyone involved. Laying off dedicated and hard-working individuals is extremely difficult, but we tried our best to treat everyone with the utmost respect and support. I hope all of you will join me in the effort to assist all of those affected, be it as a reference or a referring source and most importantly, as a friend.

This is one of the hardest decisions we’ve had to make recently but we strongly believe that it is the right decision for the long-term 
health of the company. In order to achieve our goals, we are putting more emphasis on engineering and development efforts. In fact, we are still hiring for these teams as they are critical in getting us to where we need to be for the future, for our impending upcoming redesign and much beyond. The only way for us to truly succeed is to adapt and adjust as necessary.

I’m sure there will be many follow-
up questions to this email. So, we’ll be holding an all-hands today at 3 pm where you can ask questions and share your comments.

Thanks,Kevin

Bigger Issues At Digg?

Social media is quickly gaining users and a stronger voice on the Internet. Is there a future for sites like Reddit and Digg? Will Internet users need websites to see what’s new and trending online? Or can they just check Twitter or Facebook? It will be interesting to see if the moves Digg’s much-hyped redesign is worth the effort.