Digg Prunes Staff in Push for Profitability

The company will lay off 10 percent of its small workforce, but take on a new direct sales team to focus on bringing in ad revenue.

Traditional media outlets aren’t the only ones feeling the sting of recession. Digg, that beacon of new media, announced Thursday that it would lay off a portion of its creative team, and hire a new direct-sales team to achieve profitability.

Fortunately for the San Francisco company’s small staff, CEO Jay Adelson said that Digg would only need to lay off about 10 percent of its workforce to slow the burning of its capital. That’s about eight people – which looks quite reasonable in comparison to recent cutbacks of 5,000 or more at Intel, Microsoft and Ericsson.

The outfit, which still rides on venture capital, will also pick up a direct sales team in an attempt to finally achieve profitability.

In the same blog post, Adelson outlined the company’s goals for 2009, which included bringing new features to the Digg community and focusing on its advertising infrastructure.