Last night, I wrote about Kevin Rose not responding to questions on his AMA on Reddit. Rose was at a birthday party last night but has returned to Reddit today and has posted YouTube responses to five Redditers’ questions.
After all the coverage on Digg’s sale and Rose personally a few weeks ago and now on the launch of new Digg, it’s very interesting to hear Rose’s thoughts. He does a good job going in-depth in his responses, and seems pretty open.
Here are the responses. You can track them, if he posts more, on Rose’s YouTube channel.
Digg, biggest regret
“In the case of Digg Before, it was really trying to rethink Digg and trying to bring Digg to a more mainstream, traditional news…a lot of this stuff was really going against our core. But the reason why we made these decisions internally was because we were seeing that traffic was declining when, in hindsight, we should have focused on the tools and improving the community we already had.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4JDTFNt8Wc&w=640&h=480]
This is the most interesting segment to me, and I really like that he tackled this one first. Rose talks about product strategies and working to mainstream the site, as well as what he’s learned as a founder. A lot of cautionary tales here, especially for social sites.
How is Google?
“One of the things that I’ve always loved to do is brainstorm ideas with friends and get together and talk about what they’re building…Essentially, my day-to-day is just going around and meeting entrepreneurs, and talking to them about what they plan on launching.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Uk83shZsg&w=640&h=480]
It seems like his new position at Google is really playing to Rose’s strengths.
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Another episode of Diggnation?
“We’ve had too much fun and too many good times over the years to not get together at some point and do something cool again, so stay tuned.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67VZJE6WkG8&w=640&h=480]
Stay tuned! This would be cool to see, so here’s hoping it works out.
How do you feel about the headphones photo?
“He promised me he wouldn’t use it.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohAOqC6suMg&w=640&h=480]
Rose shares the funny backstory behind one of the most overused photos in the Valley. The photo shoot was 3 1/2 hours, including over one hundred pictures of Rose ripping up newspapers, and this one won out.
How do you feel about the new digg?
“I don’t really know about a ton more than what you do. Every once in a while they Ping me to talk about things…I do like that it’s a break from the traditional Digg design. I was not a fan of the design the last couple versions.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBOCu3i0zKU&w=640&h=480]
Rose says he saw some early designs, generally likes it and he mostly warns against over-criticizing the current version of the site, which was built in just six weeks.
