Former social-news giant Digg bought by Betaworks for $500,000

Two months after The Washington Post gutted Digg, hiring away over half the social-news company’s total staff, including all of its engineers, the remainder of the ailing site was acquired Thursday by Betaworks, a New York-based technology-development firm, for $500,000. For its money, Betaworks got Digg’s brand, website, and technology.

Though the eight-year-old company is now a shadow of its former self — Digg once raised $45 million from investors — it still attracted more than 7 million visitors each month as of May.

Digg, which dominated the social-news space until rivals Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook made it all but irrelevant, will be folded into News.me Inc., Betaworks’ digital-media arm.