Selective denials fuel speculation about Digg’s sale

Venture Beat — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:02:59 -0700

The problem with directly addressing rumors rather than using “no comment” is that the public then expects the same treatment each time. Thus is the predicament Digg’s chief executive Jay Adelson now finds himself in.

During the last round of Digg acquisition rumors in March, Adelson took the time to write a post on the Digg blog officially denying that the rumors had merit. So now that a fresh rumor is out there today that Digg is on the verge selling to Google — and we’ve heard nothing from Digg, it looks fishy — warranted or not.

Quite a few Digg users were up in arms during the acquisition rumors in March when they thought the site would be bought by Microsoft. Adelson’s denial was an apparent attempt to calm them down. Now many are worrying in the same way about Google. Will Adelson respond?

Digg has a public meetup with users of the site scheduled for tonight in Chicago. You can bet the topic will come up.

[photo: flickr/mil8]