According to an article in Adweek today, Time.com has seen a 164 percent increase in it’s traffic from the social news property Digg. This spike in traffic helped increase Time.com’s year over year traffic by 41 percent. All it took was a custom widget that Digg provided to Time.com displaying the most Dugg stories from Time’s website.
This simple widget was all that was needed in doubling the Time.com stories that were placed on Digg’s homepage each month. Considering there are many content developers that would pay big money to be on the homepage of Digg just once, their partnership was a tremendous win for everyone involved. Digg has proven their ability to drive traffic to their own web property and generate revenue through sponsorships but now they have proof of their potential impact on the revenue of the websites that provide the content that makes Digg so successful.
With publishers scrambling to increase their revenue streams and attempting to survive this ever changing landscape, this will certainly open many eyes. Digg may have just stumbled upon a gold mine that will finally propel them into a property that might justify the lofty valuations that once made them a potential acquisition target and media darling.
