Christian Selig, the iOS developer who ran the beloved third-party Reddit consumer Apollo, is becoming a member of the brand new iteration of Digg as an advisor.
Earlier this yr, 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 referred to as “the web’s homepage.” Rose and Ohanian had been already an interesting pairing — the 2 had beforehand seen one another as rivals, since Digg and Reddit had been fierce rivals.
By including Selig to the combination, Rose and Ohanian are additional signaling that the brand new Digg desires 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 looking expertise for Reddit customers — not possible to run. In a Reddit post that went viral, Selig informed customers that to be able to preserve Apollo working as-is below the brand new API pricing, he would wish to pay about $1.7 million per 30 days. Evidently, Apollo shut down, a lot to the Reddit group’s disappointment.
“We’re excited to have Selig carry 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,” stated 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 group.)
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 stated. “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.”