Binside TV: DIGG

Digg Recommendation Engine from Kevin Rose on Vimeo.

There is good news for Digg. The popular social networking site just got a $28.7 million dollar boost. Digg launched some new features including a recommendation engine in beta. Watch a video where Kevin Rose explains the feature. UPDATE: Watch an interview by MyBlogLog founder Scott Rafer with Kevin Rose who is co-founder of Revision3,Pownce and Digg.com.

Digg Inc., a social networking site whose users vote on their favorite news stories, is launching a major expansion even as the general media industry remains in decline.

The San Francisco-based company said it would double its staff from 75 to more than 150 over the next year, move into a much larger headquarters building and begin a push into international markets as part of the expansion, which is being funded by $28.7 million in new financing. That investment round, led by Highland Capital Partners, follows previous investments of $11.3 million from other investors since 2005. As part of the new funding, Richard de Silva, a partner at Lexington, Mass.-based Highland, will join Digg's board.

Founded in 2004, Digg has grown quickly; the company says monthly visitors to its site have doubled in the past year to more than 30 million. The site allows users to act like editors in choosing what content is most important or interesting. They submit stories, blogs, videos and images that users may vote for—or give them a Digg, as the company puts it—and those with the most positive votes are given greatest prominence on the site.

"I think there's a pent-up demand on the part of the public to really engage with their media," said Jay Adelson, Digg's chief executive officer. "What the Internet has enabled is the public to express themselves." source