Digg commenter, Hiji, writes, "This is the beginning of the end. In a few years all the major blogs and social media sites will be owned by large corporations, putting us right back where we started." The topic of discussion is, of course, TechCrunch's rumor that Digg will soon be acquired by Google for somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million.

Digg's users are debating what Google acquiring Digg might mean for their community in this thread on the site. The question is, will being controlled by a big company, like Google, ruin the community that Digg has worked so hard to build, or will it enhance it?

A few of the major Web 2.0 sites that have been acquired by big companies include YouTube, Flickr, and MySpace. Each of these sites has been greatly affected by being acquired by a larger company. YouTube was forced to take down much of the copyrighted material that had helped them rise to popularity once they were acquired by Google.

I would argue that YouTube has benefited from the financial backing and support that Google was able to provide, so the acquisition may have been a necessity at the time. Flickr has seen little to no improvements in the way of new features, aside from Flickr Video, since being acquired by Yahoo. Despite the lack of innovative new features at Flickr, their photo community is stronger than ever, thanks, in no small part, to Yahoo's ownership.

Although MySpace is still a force to be reckoned with on the internet, especially in the music scene, they have watched their seemingly insurmountable lead in the social networking space slip through their fingers and into Facebook's. Whether or not this is due to being bought by News Corp. is purely speculation, but the influence of the big media company may not have helped.

In the case of Digg, Google is clearly buying the site for their community. Digg has one of the strongest communities in the social media space. Google certainly has the engineering power to build a site similar to Digg, or Yahoo Buzz, if they wanted to, but what they are really after is the people.

If we can agree that Google wants the community, it would only make logical sense that they would do whatever they can to make that community happy and to get them to stay, post-acquisition.

The other side of the coin that you have to consider is the volume of people that will be streaming into Digg if they are acquired by Google. The added promotion of the internet giant will send a lot of newcomers to the site, who may break the delicate dynamic that Digg has right now. Digg suddenly being flooded by gardening tips, for example, might drive a lot of the core users away from the site.

Digg will, almost certainly, survive under mainstream attention, even thrive, but it will become a very different place from what we see today. The category structure of Digg submissions was built out for this very reason. If and when the mainstream public turns their attention to Digg, the audience that they have today might be able to find refuge in their own sections of the site, if they decide to stick around.

This acquisition is a tremendous opportunity for Kevin Rose and company to cash in on some really hard work. They have done a great job building this company and carefully crafting the Digg community into what it is today.

Being taken under the wing of a company like Google may be their big shot at really breaking into the mainstream. The move would absolutely change the dynamic of the site. Some will like it and stay, some will hate it and leave, and many more will discover Digg for the first time. So, what do you think? Will Google destroy Digg or take it to the next level?

Source: news.cnet.com