“The final version is close to complete, and when you visit Digg.com later this week, you’ll find a beautiful, image-friendly, and ad-free experience.”

And with that, Digg v1 is born. Today, the company is giving us a hint of what the all-new site will look like. And on first glance – it really is all about the images.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Digg made headlines when the news broke that it had been sold to Betaworks (of Chartbeat fame) for a paltry, embarrassing $500,000. We later learned that that figure wasn’t entirely accurate, as other players snatched up other parts of Digg for around $16 million. Still, the final selling price was ridiculously low for a company that was once one of the VIPs of the online news realm.

A week after news of the purchase broke, Digg announced that the all-new Digg, v1, would be launching on August 1st. I guess that they decided that a redesign was much overdue, considering their own poll found that 92% wouldn’t recommend Digg in its current form to a friend.

In a blog post, Digg explains v1 as being built upon four main principles:

We make it easy to find, read, and share the most interesting and talked about stories on the Internet right now; The experience must be fast and thin. Let users go, and they will come back to you. We optimize for return visits, not pageviews per visit; Build an experience that is native to each device: smart phone, inbox, Web page. Stories must find the user, wherever they are; Users must be able to share where they and their friends already are — on networks like Facebook, Twitter and email.

And with that, here’s what the front page of Digg will look like (minus some additional tweaks at the end):

The new version of Digg is going to take into account Facebook likes and retweets in the Digg score, and the new score icon will include the breakdown when you hover over it:

When the new Digg launches, there won’t be a commenting system. According to the blog post, that;s because they just couldn’t get it right in time. Commenting will return in the “coming weeks.”

Also launching at the same time as Digg v1? A brand new Digg app for iOS and a mobile version of Digg.com.