Once a Social Media Star, Digg Sells for $500,000 to Betaworks – WSJ.com.

Digg has been in the news a lot today – some positive, some negative. Probably the best news for the current ownership is that they are selling the site and getting something for it.

Digg was an amazing site. A few years ago I used it more than Facebook. Today it’s not even in my browser history. The real lesson from Digg is that it’s hard to build a community, but it’s real easy to kill it.

Look at the Netflix fiasco. At least Netflix finally figure out that their users were carrying pitchforks and torches in the street and backed down reversing their mistakes. Digg alienated their users and pressed forward. By their second “redesign” I like lots of other people were gone never to return.

Create the product that you want to use. Chances are your customers will like it as well. If the majority of them don’t and leave, admit your mistake, roll back and move forward.