News.me owner Betaworks to acquire Digg

The news-sharing website Digg will be acquired by technology investment firm Betaworks, according to blog posts put out by both companies.

Betaworks paid just US$500,000 for the social media pioneer that once secured $45 million in financial backing, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The companies did not disclose the purchase price.

Betaworks will merge Digg with News.me, a news-sharing app for iOS devices that Betaworks also runs.

"We are turning Digg back into a startup. Low budget, small team, fast cycles," Betaworks said in its blog post.

In January this year, Digg briefly kindled hopes that it would revive from a long slump, boasting of a 35 percent jump in page views. It attributed the jump largely to integration with Facebook's open graph API (application programming interface), which allows users to share on Facebook what they have found through Digg.

Betaworks founder John Borthwick will lead the joint News.me-Digg project when the acquisition is complete. Digg's current CEO, Matt Williams, will become an "entrepreneur in residence" at venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, a Digg investor.

Cameron Scott covers search, web services and privacy for The IDG News Service. Follow Cameron on Twitter at CScott_IDG.

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