What do you think of the redesign? Tell us what you think in the comments.

People are creatures of habit, enjoy repetition with few welcoming change. With that philosophy in mind, some “Negative Nancy’s” are sharing their feelings, in 140 characters or less… most notably being Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg.

Rose isn’t standing alone as Chris Sacca, famed venture investor, was a little more comical critical of the new look.

The criticism isn’t just limited to people with Internet fame, as thousands of everyday TC readers are jumping on the “we hate the new look / logo” bandwagon.

Too be fair, there are those who actually like the TC redesign, and welcome the modifications to the blog.

We’re sure that TC knew what they were getting themselves into, as they have a blog post titled “Redesigning TechCrunch: We Picked This Logo Just to Piss You Off“. Well congrats, as this seems to be the exact sentiment being shared on Twitter.

In the post Feldman talks in depth about the controversial logo:

“I love it, though that’s no accident: we went through many, many options with Code & Theory before finding one we liked. It’s bold, simple, and versatile. It works in any context — from a tiny monochrome icon to a mosaic on a poster. It fits the TechCrunch brand perfectly. And no, we didn’t build it in Minecraft. We used AOL Paint, which comes free on the AOL CD and has this sweet UltraLogoMatic2000 feature.”

Personally, the logo is the only part of the re-do I don’t like. Actually, for the most part it just feels like an everyday WordPress site, nothing more, nothing less.

Do you like TechCrunch’s new logo? Tell us your thoughts in the comments

“We’ve been hearing a lot about how Kevin Rose is launching something new,” writes CEO Matt Williams on the company blog.  ”Everyone knows Kevin is an entrepreneur at heart, and he’s had many projects in the works over the past several years. We’re excited to see what he comes up with next. Kevin continues to be committed to Digg’s success; his role as founder, Board member, and Diggnation host remains unchanged.”

Williams took Rose’s place as CEO last summer after Rose filled in for ex-CEO Jay Adelson. As for the death of Digg, Williams takes issue with that too. He writes:

Since hitting a low point toward the end of 2010, our traffic has stabilized, and we’ve seen site engagement increase significantly: Diggs up 20%, time on site up 20%, and the total number of comments submitted per day is up nearly 50%. These strong numbers reflect both the passion of the Digg community and the tireless work of our engineering team.

Longtime Digg users have been overwhelmingly positive about our ongoing improvements. All told, we still have close to 20M monthly unique visitors worldwide, just about 1M unique visitors each day. We also have over 6M registered users, growing by hundreds of thousands each month. Depending on your favorite measurement service, Digg is ranked in the top 100-150 U.S. web sites, and our traffic puts us as one of the top news web sites in the world.

Williams also hinted at future plans for Digg. He didn’t get into the specifics of the direction the site will take, but it sounds like some new personalization features might be in store. Williams said, “We must head toward a future where the crowdsourced view can be combined with news pertaining to your own interests and news shared within your own social circles.”

Of course many people are already getting their news from this way from services that utilize Twitter and Facebook. It will be interesting to see what Digg does to compete going forward.

I’d like to update you on the latest change at Digg. After several months of searching, we are excited to announce that Matt Williams will become the CEO of Digg. As you know, I have been the interim CEO, while we looked for the right person, and I will still remain actively involved in the product, but am handing over the day-to-day running of the business to Matt...

Quote from Matt: "The launch of version 4 was a big moment for Digg and I believe in the potential of this new platform. There is so much innovation yet to come — being the best in the world at curating news means solving the information overload we all experience every day. The Digg team has already made great strides in this direction and there is much more ahead. I’m excited to join such a talented team and such a vibrant Digg community."

Update: Kevin Rose has put up a new post on the Digg blog announcing some upcoming changes to the site, but no mention of the hiring of Williams.

Original Article: Digg has reportedly found its new CEO. According to TechCrunch, the company has hired former Amazon General Manager of Consumer Payments Matt Williams to fill the role.

Michael Arrington says Digg Founder Kevin Rose, who has assumed the CEO role since the departure of Jay Adelson earlier this year, will become Digg’s chief architect, which he used to be.

While Arrington claims to have confirmed the news, Digg has not yet made an announcement about hiring Williams – not even a tweet from Rose yet.

Assuming the news is indeed true, Williams gets to take over the company at an interesting time. The new redesign of Digg just launched (announced just after Adelson’s departure), and it is already inspiring some user backlash (the new home page is still being overrun by content from Digg competitor Reddit).

Williams has been with Amazon for 11 years. Before that he founded LiveBid, which was sold to Amazon in 1999.

Digg founder Kevin Rose announced today (via Twitter) that they’re going forward with the launch:

The new Digg is kind of like Digg meets Twitter/Facebook/Buzz, at least from the publisher’s perspective. It is much more publisher-friendly, which means publishers will be more eager to encourage sharing their content on Digg in hopes of some new web traffic.

The way Digg is now set up may cater to just that. It’s much more about who you follow now, like the aforementioned social networks, or like a news reader. It will be interesting to see how users respond. They do after all already have these other services to choose from as well. It remains to be seen if there is a need for Digg in this mix.

The site seems to be moving pretty slow right now if it loads at all, so you might experience some hiccups as the new design rolls out.

Follow WebProNews on Digg here.

Though he says Apple TV will be renamed, he says to expect an App Store for interactive TV apps that will eventually "destroy the television side of the cable and satellite industry". He says your only requirement will be to access "on-demand stations" with an Internet connection. "Say goodbye to your monthly cable bill," he proclaims.

Apple’s product is rumored to cost around $99, which would be substantially less than Dish Network’s Google TV offering if a recent survey from the company is any indication. "At $99 your parents, grandparents, and friends will have an iTV," says Rose.  "Sharing pictures/videos from your iPhone will happen with the push of a button.  Imagine getting a notification of new family videos the next time you turn on your TV. My mom will love this feature." 

Of couse Google TV will come in many different forms – not just the Dish Network offering. Rose also says the iPad will become one big remote. Clearly the competition between Apple and Google will continue in this space, and why I hesitate to dismiss all of Rose’s predictions completely, some of them may be a long way off if they are true at all.

For instance, I don’t see this taking the place of cable/satellite without all of the networks jumping on board, and that will probably not be so simple. I’d have to give the edge to Google in this area, as it is launching Google TV with Dish Network as a partner – people won’t have to give up the channels they like to use Google TV. They will get the best of both worlds – TV and Internet/Apps.

Google TV will be integrated with Android, making a wide range of Android devices remote controls in a sense. This was discussed by the company at Google I/O. Given that Android runs on so many devices, whereas iOS only runs on select Apple devices, the window for integration would appear to be much greater for Google.

Rose is surely right about one thing – this will indeed be a hot space to watch over the next year or so.

oleoleolson at AlterNet writes, "A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year."

Digg Founder Kevin Rose tweeted that he is looking into the matter:

The report alleges that the group banded together on a Yahoo Group called Digg Patriots, which has since been removed.

Meanwhile, as Rose mentioned in the tweet, Digg is working on getting its big redesign out.  I imagine we’ll be hearing more about the alleged gaming of the site before long.

This week, it’s all about Google "going to war" with Facebook as a social network. Just as there is little evidence to suggest that Facebook poses a serious threat to Google the search engine, there is little to support the notion that Google is a threat to Facebook the social network.

Do you consider Google a threat to Facebook? Tell us why or why not.

The discussion rippling throughout the Blogosphere was kicked off when Digg Founder Kevin Rose tweeted (the tweet has now been removed):

An interesting enough post, sure, but also one that caters to much more speculation than any real facts. A popular version of the speculation is that Google will do more with its profiles. This would make sense, given that this is the central hub for one’s Google account, and could be somewhat thought of as Google’s version of the Facebook Wall.

Obviously Google has other social services like Buzz, Friend Connect, Orkut, Gmail, GTalk, Wave, Reader, Docs, YouTube, SideWiki, etc. As I have said numerous times in the past, Google is essentially already a social network, and these services are connected throughout a Google ID, the one that is tied to your Google Profile. It is really just a matter of how these are connected. Another way to look at it is that Google is the social network, and each product is one of the features.

Is Google going to kill Facebook with a new announcement? Probably not. While it will certainly be interesting to see what is announced (if anything), and it might be a very good product or feature, people are highly unlikely to stop using Facebook because of whatever it is. Chances are, you already use both Google and Facebook, and I seriously doubt that will stop anytime soon (at least for any reason related to this).

Eric Eldon at InsideFacebook points to comments from former Facebook executive Adam D’Angelo, who says Google’s project is "not a rumor" and that there is "a large number of people working on it." Based on his comments, Google is modeling the project off of Facebook.

Even if he says it’s not a rumor, we still have to treat it as such until we hear word from Google, and we all know that Google doesn’t comment on rumors.

In another interesting sidestory, Matthew Papakipos, an engineer who "started and managed the Chrome OS project" is now with Facebook. One can only imagine what this means.

What would Google have to do to make you stop using Facebook? Share your thoughts here.

Today Digg announced that the Digg iFrame Toolbar is dead. "Framing content with an iFrame is bad for the Internet," said Rose. "It causes confusion when bookmarking, breaks w/iFrame busters, and has no ability to communicate with the lower frame (if you browse away from a story, the old digg count still persists)."

"It’s an inconsistent/wonky user experience, and I’m happy to say we are killing it when we launch the new Digg (sign up for the beta here)," added. "That said, we will continue to iterate on our browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and IE. Look for seriously revamped versions of those in a few months."

The Diggbar was the subject of a great deal of controversy among webmasters as soon as it was launched. There were a lot of questions about where traffic was going, and Digg ultimately had to make changes to appease the crowd.

Rose also announced today that the new Digg will be unbanning all previously banned domains. "While we will apply automated filters to prevent malware/virus/TOS violations, no other restrictions will be placed on content," he said.

To re-iterate, the changes will not take place until Digg v4 is launched. According to Mike Arrington, Rose has expressed some amount of dissatisfaction with the new Digg in the past.

It should be interesting to see how much change actually comes to Digg with this new change in leadership.

"With the new Digg getting ready to launch, Digg Ads doing well, our sales force growing, our hiring ramping, and the company maturing well beyond its startup phase, I feel that now is the right time," Adelson said in a statement.

"The entrepreneurial calling is strong, and I am ready to incubate some new business ideas over the next twelve months," he added. "As the economy exits a very deep recession, I believe that it is an excellent time for new companies to develop."

Rose offered a statement of his own. "While I’ll miss working with Jay day-to-day I am excited to be taking on the role of Chairman and acting CEO, driving Digg forward on our promise to enable social curation of the world’s content and the conversation around it. We’ve been super busy on the product side getting ready for the upcoming Digg redesign and delivering our mobile apps for the iPhone and Android." More about these here and here.

Adelson will continue to served as an adviser to Digg.  The company is not offering any more details beyond what’s in the announcement at this point.

"We’re making some drastic changes, but they’re much-needed drastic changes," he told The Telegraph. "People are going to be shocked at some of the directions we’re taking. You have to be comfortable with completely tearing down and throwing away a bunch of ideas."

"In the next version of Digg you’ll see stories being presented to you in a more real-time nature, especially stories that your friends have touched. It will not be just about Digg.com, but also embracing all the content that your friends touch on other websites. It’s about being that place where people say, ‘I’m going to take a look at Digg because it provides me insight into what’s trending, what’s popular, what’s hot from all over these different places where people exchange information’."

While that certainly doesn’t reveal too much about what Digg is going to look like (or when it is going to look like tha for that matter), it does look like Digg is going to change quite a bit, and that can be dangerous for a site that is largely focused on users, as Digg is.

This isn’t the first time Digg has made changes by any means. In fact, they seem to make them fairly often, but it sounds like they may be changing how Digg operates completely, and the experience that users have grown accustomed to. It will be very interesting to see just how drastic the changes are.

Digg recently launched new extensions for Firefox and Chrome, and over the past year it has rolled out a new API, launched Digg Trends, made some interesting use of advertising, and improved its search, to name just a few things.

Related Articles:

> Important Product Director Moving From Google To Digg

> More Stories Get a Shot at the Digg Home Page

> Digg to Get All Twitter This Year?