Christian Selig, the iOS developer who ran the beloved third-party Reddit shopper Apollo, is becoming a member of the brand new iteration of Digg as an advisor.
Earlier this 12 months, Digg’s authentic founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian acquired what was left of Digg in an try and revitalize what was previously generally known as “the web’s homepage.” Rose and Ohanian have been already a captivating pairing — the 2 had beforehand seen one another as rivals, since Digg and Reddit have been fierce opponents.
By including Selig to the combination, Rose and Ohanian are additional signaling that the brand new Digg needs to shake issues up.
Selig performed a distinguished function within the backlash towards Reddit’s elevated API pricing in 2023, which made free apps like Apollo — which provided an enhanced searching expertise for Reddit customers — not possible to run. In a Reddit put up that went viral, Selig advised customers that as a way to maintain Apollo operating as-is below the brand new API pricing, he would want to pay about $1.7 million per 30 days. Evidently, Apollo shut down, a lot to the Reddit neighborhood’s disappointment.
“We’re excited to have Selig deliver that very same craft and community-first pondering to Digg, serving to us construct one thing that feels good to make use of and even higher to be part of,” mentioned Digg CEO Justin Mezzell in an announcement.
Digg is embarking on a quest to make the social web really feel enjoyable once more, versus its present state, the place AI shrimp Jesus and different artificially generated slop have taken over our feeds. However Digg isn’t fairly able to open to the general public simply but. Final month, Digg opened signups for an early-access program that it’s calling “Groundbreakers,” which asks for a one-time $5 payment to maintain bots out. (The proceeds from this system are being donated to nonprofits chosen by the Digg neighborhood.)
Within the announcement of Selig’s function, Mezzell included a cheeky reference to the API drama at Reddit. “I merely gained’t touch upon that. We’re charting our personal course right here at Digg,” Mezzell mentioned. “But when I did remark, I might in all probability say ‘[redact] me sideways, what a fumble.’ However that will solely be if I did say one thing publicly.”
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