in brief Search giant Google is close to acquiring US-based social news aggregator Digg for around US$200 million, according to a report on US technology blog TechCrunch.
"The companies are now in final negotiations according to our sources, although it could be a couple of weeks before it closes," the site wrote this morning, adding Digg would be brought into the search giant under its Google News property. However, the deal could still fall through, or another party — such as Microsoft — could step in.
Digg was launched in November 2004 by a number of youthful entrepreneurs in the US, with the most high-profile of those being Kevin Rose and Digg's current chief executive Jay Adelson.
The site is one of the best-known internet content and social news aggregators, and has a number of competitors such as Slashdot and Reddit. It has a substantial advertising deal with Microsoft and a loyal user community who contribute heavily to the site.
I think this rumor started on Leo Laporte Twit Live. But there always rumors of digg buyouts
What Leo said. Basically He feels that digg has the potential to be bought by google and Kevin would going to be very rich. But however would be stuck with the company for 2 years before being allowed to leave.
Funny thing is these rumors always start from techcrunch. Always techcrunch post a story about "Digg Buy-out" rumor and that gets dugg to the front page of digg.
Then Techcrunch gets alot traffic and slight increase in ad revenue to there site :). Because any story that involves digg normally gets automatically dugg to the homepage