Digg.com On the Block for $300 Million?

Techcrunch and Venturebeat are both reporting that Digg.com is currently up for sale with an asking price of $300 million dollars.

Apparently the company is not waiting around for offers and is being proactive in the search for a potential suitor, as they have hired Allen & Company to help facilitate a deal (and most importantly, find a buyer.)

While there have always been rumors swirling around a possible Digg.com sale, this would seem to be the first clear indication that the company founders are ready to move on and cash in.

With a fanatical user base that quite literally powers the site, one would have to speculate that a potential buyer might be scared off by the idea of all of the site's influential users abandoning ship once the sale is complete.

I mean, can you imagine a company like Microsoft buying Digg.com? If the most respected and influential users of the site abandon ship because they don't particularly like the new owner, then the site dies a slow death. Remember how users crippled the site temporarily over the entire DMCA issue? If I were a company with $300 million lying around, I would be very, very wary of purchasing this site.

I will be very interested to see:

a) if Digg.com finds a buyer

b) who that buyer is

c) how much they end up paying

d) how the Digg.com community will react

The site generates a tremendous amount of pageviews on a daily basis, but how much monetization really goes on? Digg users are notorious for doing their best to avoid clicking any ads, due to the fact that they are extremely web savvy. $300 million seems much too high to me, but what do I know..

Filed under: Internet Companies | General Knowledge