It is a sad day for Digg.com fans, TechCrunch has recently reported that the large fan base Web site Digg.com is looking to possibly sell. With recent hints from townhall meetings at Digg.com, Kevin Rose gave viewers slight hints that this might be in sights. But we all knew that it was going to happen sooner or later. But why now?

With the recent launch of Yahoo Live, Justin.tv has been almost out of the cross-hairs. Any media attention that Justin.tv was receiving is basically gone because of Yahoo’s recent Live! launch. Justin.tv was started over a year and a half ago now, causing some big buzz. With competors like UStream and various other life-casting copy cats, the market for life-casting and streaming video got flooded. But Yahoo saw this current buzz and started developing their own life-casting features. Thus started Yahoo Live! But what happened to Justin.tv? While it is still up and running, Yahoo received almost all of the media attention due to it’s user-base. It received attention from Diggnation as well as hitting some of the biggest technology news Web sites. Yahoo took the idea a step further, launched it to the much larger user-base they have, and essentially took credit for an idea that was not theirs.

How many friends or family members have you asked, “do you know what digg.com is?”

I consistently ask people, because Digg.com was essentially the first Web 2.0 Web site that I consider to be worth while. With it’s media changing idea’s and innovative founders, I soon became a fan in 2005. It is a shock to many that the Web site may be sold, but lets really ask ourselves, why? Well, how many Web sites have you seen that basically copied Digg.com’s original idea, having users vote for stories to become popular. From WordPress plugins to niche copy cats, I have seen many. But it looks like Yahoo is at it again, Yahoo! Buzz is the newest Beta in the Yahoo ripoff line-ups, and it looks like it has got its cross-hairs set on Digg. While Yahoo is not one of the bidders for Digg.com we can easily see why. Yahoo! continues to use its massive user base as a way to release copy cat Web sites that a majority of the population believes to be original. So is Digg getting out now because they see all of these things happening? I would assume so. With Kevin Rose dabbling into other adventures and creative idea’s, Digg is now becoming just another target for large corporate ripoffs.