Just a couple of hours ago Digg announced on it’s company’s blog that Matt Williams will replace interim CEO Kevin Rose. Williams had previously been an executive at Amazon for the past 11 years. Williams certainly has a strong skill set for the online world and may be able to help the company which is facing significant backlash over last week’s unveiling of Digg version 4, which is significantly different than the previous version.
The timing of this announcement seems a little odd. The past week and a half Digg has been dealing with some pretty harsh backlash from a large portion of their users over the changes made to the site. Examples of this backlash include multiple submissions to Digg titled “Kevin Rose: Do the Right Thing” with images of the old Digg. The homepage of Digg also has been covered with stories from Reddit, showing Digg where their loyal user base was going.
Digg has yet to give a reason for the seemingly strategized timing of the new CEO announcement. I sent a message to Digg asking for a comment and we will certainly keep you updated if they actually decide to respond. Perhaps Rose is being ousted as a scapegoat. Perhaps they know they need new brains in the operation, and maybe… just maybe its a coincidence.
One thing we know for certain is that Williams has an impressive résumé under his belt and he may just be the right person to fix the numerous problems with Version 4. With Williams in charge at Digg we will see if the damage is reversible or if this is the decline of Digg as a social bookmarking powerhouse.
December 31st, 2011 on 8:40 am
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