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Digg slices and dices staff

Cost-cutting ahead

News and link-sharing site Digg has cut over a third of its staff.

The company lost its chief revenue officer on Monday. Chief executive Matt Williams emailed staff to explain the firm needed to make serious cost cuts going into 2011.

The firm brings in revenues of around $15m and hopes the cuts will push it to profit in the middle of next year.

Williams told staff in an email: "Unfortunately, to reach our goals, we have to take some difficult steps. The fact is our business has a burn rate that is too high. We must significantly cut our expenses to achieve profitability in 2011.

"We've considered all of the possible options for reduction, from salaries to fixed costs. The result is that, in addition to lowering many of our operational costs, I’ve made the decision to downsize our staff from 67 to 42 people."

Williams, who's only been at Digg for six weeks, said it was an incredibly hard decision but he was sure it was the right choice for the business. He said he and other directors would do their best to find jobs for laid-off staff.

The onetime media darling has lost readers to Reddit following the roll-out of a new version of the service. Both offer a broadly similar service - users submit links which are then voted up or down by other users. ®

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