Engineers Jump Digg for WaPo’s SocialCode

Digg, which for years has been one of the top places people have turned to for sharing content, is transitioning into a new chapter, one that reflects its diminished social reach.

The company announced Thursday that Washington Post’s subsidiary SocialCode has hired 15 engineers who worked for the site.

SocialCode is the WaPo’s social media advertising and analytics firm, according to TechCrunch. The 15 new employees will be stationed in San Francisco and Seattle and “likely work on include Trove, SocialCode’s social news platform, which powers Washington Post’s own Social Reader and Personal Post.”

The subsidiary, founded in 2011, has teams in Washington, New York, Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles, according to WaPo.

In a blog post, CEO of Digg Matt Williams wrote, “At Digg, we have been studying social media since its inception. From Digg Social Reader to Digg Ads, we established a new paradigm for content and advertising on the web. Joining SocialCode felt like a natural next step.”

Digg, which assigns stories to “Upcoming” and “Popular” sections, prominently displaying the most voted on content, has seen better days. Due to the growing usage of sites like Twitter and Reddit, it doesn’t hold as much clout as it used to.

Founder Kevin Rose left the start-up in March 2011, and in 2010, it downsized from 67 to 42 employees, WaPo reports.

Andrew Tonner, Motley Fool’s technology analyst, said in an interview with the WaPo that this is part of the paper’s efforts to find ways of revenue on social media channels.

“Advertising over social media is a huge opportunity,” he said. “Strategically, it seems like a big win for The Washington Post.”

Image courtesy of NightRStar/flickr