Former Amazon Exec to Replace Kevin Rose as Digg CEO

By Ryan Fleming August 31, 2010

Image used with permission by copyright holder

It has been a busy month for Digg. After implementing the new Digg platform to a less than stellar response that led to several user protests (accompanied by a 33-percent drop in traffic), Digg founder and current CEO, Kevin Rose, has announced that he will be stepping down. While Rose will still remain involved with the company, Amazon executive, Matt Williams, will take over as CEO.

Rose’s recent stint as CEO began just five months ago after then-CEO Jay Adelson stepped down. Adelson had been CEO since the company’s founding in 2004, and left to “pursue other interests.” It has never been entirely clear if the choice to pursue other interests was his or not, but the result was that Digg founder Rose took over.

Rose took the position just as Digg began to undergo a massive overhaul designed to keep it competitive against other social media sites. Under his short tenure, the new Digg was recently launched to mostly negative reviews last week, as flawed algorithms dogged the website.

Whether Rose stepping down is the culmination of a strategy that has quietly been in place since Adelson left — meaning that Rose was always considering the position as an interim role — is unknown.

According to Mashable, Rose’s replacement, Matt Williams, has been with Amazon since 1999 and held several positions, working his way up through the ranks. His most recent position was as the company’s General Manager of Consumer Payments.

Digg also announced several patches and upgrades today, designed to improve the algorithms and overall stability. The changes will also include timestamps, comment upvoting, and more. There are also more changes in the works, including user recommendations coming soon.

Topics

Amazon

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…

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