Jay Adelson's Six Step Plan To Make Digg Profitable

After years of throwing itself after potential buyers (Google, Fox, Al Gore) like some kind of partyboy startup founder, social news site Digg has a new plan: Keep costs low and turn a profit.

We're skeptical and figure the company has decided to play-hard-to-get and tidy up for a future buyer because it can't find one right now. But BusinessWeek's Spencer Ante says no. He reports:

In an interview with BusinessWeek, Digg Chief Executive Officer Jay Adelson says the popular news aggregation Web site is no longer for sale. The focus of the company is to build an independent business that reaches profitability as quickly as possible.

Adelson told Ante he expects Digg will triple its revenues before next year and turn a profit within two years -- "hopefully happen within a year." Here's how Adelson plans to do it:

• Ante says Digg will have to "dial back some of its expansion plans." Says Adelson: "Now I am pressured to keep costs reasonable and focus more on the top-line revenue, which we really haven't done ever." After its last round of funding Digg said it would double headcount before December 2009. Maybe not now.
  
• Insert ads into its RSS feeds.
• Ante says Digg is "on the verge" of improving its search and sell ads against search results.
• Digg is "within a month of closing a deal with a mobile ad provider to sell more ads on cell phones,"says Ante.
  
• Buy Digg clones to expand internationally. "There are Digg clones around the world in every country," says Adelson. "I could go into those markets and clean up those sites. If I needed more capital to do a deal, I could probably do it."
• Add new features to make users click more.

See Also:
Digg Still Not Sold, Raises $28.7 Million