Over the last few years, Digg has become Silicon Valley’s version of the boy who cried wolf. Like the child who warned local villagers that a wolf was about to attack his flock of sheep, potential buyers of Digg have repeatedly leaked reports that the company was about to be sold, but a sale was never consummated.
Not anymore. In an interview with BusinessWeek, Digg Chief Executive Officer Jay Adelson says the popular news aggregation Web site is no longer for sale, and the focus of the company is to build an independent business that reaches profitability as quickly as possible. That means the four-year-old startup will dial back some of its expansion plans, instead prioritizing projects that generate revenue and profit.
Among the new efforts: The company recently started to sell ads on its RSS feeds. It is on the verge of launching a revamped version of its homegrown search engine that the company hopes will produce more relevant and profitable search advertisements. And it is within a month of closing a deal with a mobile ad provider to sell more ads on cell phones. “Now I am pressured to keep costs reasonable and focus more on the top-line revenue, which we really haven’t done ever,” says Adelson, a 38-year-old father of three who splits his time between Dutchess County in New York, where he lives, and San Francisco, the company’s headquarters.
Revenues on the March
Wearing jeans, scuffed black leather boots, and a striped, long-sleeve shirt with the tails hanging out, Adelson described how the financial crisis led him to speed up the company’s tempo. In September, Digg said it had tripled revenues over the last year. In 2009, Adelson expects “another tripling if not more.” Earlier this year, Adelson wanted to reach profitability within two years. Now, he says, “it will…