Digg Goes Live, Kills Podcast Section

In an evening hour live on Ustream, Digg’s Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson answered questions from the audience. Fans looking for a live Diggnation might have been disappointed — Rose and Adelson didn’t start drinking beer until 17 minutes in. It was all business, and the pair mostly addressed functionality and feature issues.

The big video news is that the team plans to fold the podcast section into the main site, possibly via the video section. Which may actually bring new podcasts more traffic as they hit the front page — the current listings look pretty static (since I doubt Diggnation will be unseated from No. 1 any time soon).

Nearly 2,000 viewers tuned in to the show at a time, according to VentureBeat, making it a handy scale test for Ustream. Users reported audio problems while the show was live, but the archive is fine, suggesting problems with the live stream.

The team also promised more live webcasts, with studio audiences, since trying to respond to comments in a 1,000-person chat room is “useless.”