One aspect of Digg is Diggnation, the podcast hosted by Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose. In all of the stories about the possible sale of Digg no one is talking about the driving force behind Digg, which is Diggnation.
Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht are clearly the spokesmen for Digg. Whether they were hired or not is not important. By way of creating the weekly podcast Diggnation they have become the "personality cult" of social bookmarking.
Hear me out.
Everyone knows the culture on Digg is all about getting on the homepage. Each user even has a number after their name which indicates how many homepage stories they have under their belt.
What is the ultimate badge of honor? Why to have Alex and Kevin feature your story on the Diggnation podcast! It doesn't matter if they butcher your name or not, making it to the homepage is one thing, but getting onto the podcast is social bookmarking nirvana!
Now comes the tricky part...
If Digg is sold (or acquired) what happens to Diggnation? What happens to the driving force behind Digg? Will it continue? Can Digg stand without Diggnation, Kevin and Alex?
Now, I'm not trying to ignore the programmers who work on the website itself but, just as Bill Gates hasn't coded in many years neither do Kevin or Alex. But, they are the face of Digg.
Of course Kevin has not said a single thing since the News Corp story broke, I don't expect he will. He might if any stories about it get enough Diggs to make it onto Diggnation...
Diggnation is *the*major marketing tool for Digg, no one should delude themselves into thinking otherwise. If Digg is sold Diggnation will have to continue and it will have to be Alex and Kevin.
Now you might think they could be paid to do the podcast but I'm not sure about that. Part of the fun of the podcast is the image of them sitting on an old coach, drinking free beer and hearing how Kevin is not "really" the "60 Million Dollar Man." Once he becomes that man, will he still want to do Diggnation? Of late he has not seemed very happy on the podcast couch.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions, I'm just trying to go at this from a different angle than you might read elsewhere.
