Digg.com will dig across and down

The CEO of Digg.com tells Online Media Daily that the collaborative tech-news site will branch out into other kinds of news:

"[CEO Jay] Adelson said the site has now reached a 'critical mass' of users that can sustain entry into categories broader than technology - sports and business news, for example. 'Whatever we choose, we've got good access to a critical mass of people,' he said."

From Digg dude Dan Huard, in the Digg.com comments about this announcement:

"Please make no mistake...we haven't confirmed how the categories will be separated out yet. But it is our goal, as our CEO said, to EVENTUALLY cover all aspects of a typical newspaper."

Digg has good value as an information service, even if it is sometimes uneven, too accurately reflecting the communities that feed it. This announcement simply follows what appears to be the theme of 2005: paint a big red target on newspapers and "old" media, and start shooting.

The Internet is already full of competitors for all local newspapers -- online competitors that don't necessarily have to compete market-by-market, paper-by-paper, to steal mindshare and revenue from the incumbents.

That's exactly why I keep saying newspapers can't expect to survive by defending all the value propositions in their convenience bundle at once, or by expecting all of them to remain viable.

We have to pick our spots. The best pieces of the old print-and-deliver bundle can be not only defended but enhanced, albeit as they transform to new distribution and sharing methods.

Meanwhile, why in the world would we confine ourselves to just those businesses in the bundle we've traditionally provided? New markets for high quality information exchange are opening before our eyes. Digg's one example.

We can still make great plays in this game.