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Digg, the Web community that lets users vote on news items, today unveiled a sitewide redesign and expanded its coverage area beyond technology. The new site features will go live June 26.
Digg showed off the redesign at a launch party at a south of Market Street bar in San Francisco on June 22 that if less extravagant, was reminiscent of the high-energy Web site rollouts of the dot-com boom.
With this third major redesign, Digg users will now be able to prioritize content in the subject areas of World and Business, Video, Entertainment, Science and Gaming.
Each of Diggs new content categories contains several subcategories. World and Business includes Business & Finance, Politics, World News and Offbeat News; Entertainment includes Celebrity, Movies, Music and Television; Videos includes Animation, Comedy, Educational, Music, People and Gaming; Science includes Space, Environment, Health and General Sciences; Gaming includes Gaming News and Playable Web Games; and Technology includes Apple, Design, Gadgets, Hardware, Industry News, Linux/Unix, Mods, Programming, Security, Software and Tech Deals.
The company also expanded its personalization and social networking features. Digg users can now customize their site views based upon their interests and keep closer track of their friends activities.
In addition, Digg has made it easier for users to “bury” news stories. Once a user buries a news story, it is removed from his or her view and may be removed from its posting category, depending on how many diggs it has received.
“We believe in the power of the masses and the power of communities,” Digg founder Kevin Rose said in a telephone interview. “Were giving our users more control over content filtering in more areas, which is just what they asked for.”
The company has not announced a time frame for future releases. Executives said, however, that users can expect a series of smaller updates throughout July and August of 2006.
At the launch party, Rose demonstrated two of the new features set for release later in the summer. One includes an interactive page that tracks how many hits that a selection of articles gets and makes it easier for users to select the hottest articles of the day.
Another new feature will allow users to track in real time what stories their friends and associates are reading on Digg, making it easier to share and exchange articles that match their special interests. It will give users “a quick download of what your friends are doing on Digg,” Rose said.
Digg will also release an application programming interface that will let users build custom programs that will make it easier for them to track or aggregate article categories for business or personal interests, Rose said.
Editors Note: This article was updated with information about Diggs June 22 product launch in San Francisco contributed by John Pallatto.