Nostalgic revival
A case study in rebuilding old social media in with modern tools to fix modern social media problems
Summary
Private Beta Launch (Groundbreakers)
April 2025 on web, iOS, and Android
Public Beta Launch
January 2026 on web, iOS, and Android
Team
1 Product Designer (myself)
3 front-end engineers
5 back-end/LLM engineers
3 community managers
CEO, Justin Mezzell
VP of Eng, Jesjit Birak
Product input from Kevin Rose
Description
We were on a mission to bring back social discovery built by communities, not by algorithms.
How you might ask?
For starters, the algorithm was yours, not Digg's. And rankings were driven by transparent systems designed to reflect community intent, not manipulate engagement.
Communities were owned by the community, not Digg.
Moderation on platform was transparent. Meaning any action taken by community managers was shown in public audit logs for all to see.
And lastly, it was built for real humans. We couldn't promise 100% bot-free, but we tried our hardest. Ultimately, this is what led to Digg shutting down. 😞
My involvement
I worked on nearly every aspect of the product. I designed and built the about page above, I worked with the front-end engineers to build out our design system in our codebase, I designed both the mobile and web apps, I explored iterations of our brand, and worked with our Director of Audio and Video, who also ran our marketing efforts, to build out our social media brand, post templates, and live event materials.
Shipping fast
Right before and cotinually after the Public Beta launch, we shipped new features every week. One in particular was the ability to upload video. I worked on the design of the post creation and play interface on both mobile and desktop web. Out of the gate we supported scrub previews, volume controls, closed captioning, full screen, pictur-in-picture, and keyboard shortcuts. I'm proud of the work we did on this one in such a short time.
ghanbak — now until forever
ghanbak — now until forever
ghanbak — now until forever
