CBS Web guru Quincy Smith talks Digg partnership
When CBS Interactive announced on Tuesday that its CBSNews.com property had entered a content partnership with Digg, there wasn't a whole lot of information released other than the fact that election-related headlines from Digg would appear …
Context & Ripple Effects
Digg spent 2006-2007 trying to shed its niche image — CNET flagged early on that it was headed beyond the geek crowd, and by September 2007 it was building out fuller social-networking features. The company also entered 2008 mid-deal-process: it confirmed hiring an investment bank in December, with reports of a $300 million-plus price tag, and Valleywag floated a possible News Corp. tie-up including Revision3 in November.
Against that backdrop, this CBSNews.com content partnership — announced Tuesday with CBS Interactive chief Quincy Smith talking it up — reads as both a distribution win for Digg and a credibility marker from a legacy broadcaster, arriving just as the 2008 presidential campaign season gives election headlines premium value.
First-order effects
- CBSNews.com gains a stream of Digg-ranked election-related headlines for the 2008 campaign, adding crowd-curated aggregation to an established news brand at no reported cost.
- Digg secures placement on a major broadcast network's site — mainstream reach its earlier coverage suggested it was chasing — while it is actively shopping itself with a retained investment bank.
Second-order effects
- Rival broadcasters and news sites face pressure to strike similar social-news syndication deals before the election cycle peaks, turning Digg-style headline feeds into a licensable commodity.
- A visible mainstream-media partnership strengthens Digg's hand in its ongoing sale talks, giving suitors evidence of blue-chip distribution alongside the rumored $300 million asking price.
Third-order effects
- If broadcasters keep licensing crowd-ranked feeds, editorial curation splits into two layers — professional reporting and community ranking — with aggregators like Digg positioned as infrastructure between them.
- The pattern points toward social-voting signals becoming a standard syndicated input for legacy media, with deal flow around such partnerships shaping which aggregator platforms survive consolidation.
The trend: Legacy media is beginning to license crowd-curated headline feeds from social-news platforms, with the 2008 election accelerating Digg's push from geek niche to broadcast-distribution partner.