by: Charles Arthur | The Guardian

Digg, the "social news" site which was once the poster child for Web 2.0 and valued at up to $175m, has been sold to New York technology development company Betaworks for just $500,000 (£324,000) in cash plus equity.

The sale of the seven-year-old site, founded a few months after Facebook, marks a colossal loss for its former venture capital backers, who put in a total of $45m during its life as an independent.