Former Amazon exec becomes Digg head

Digg confirmed on Tuesday that it has named former Amazon executive Matt Williams as its next CEO, replacing Kevin Rose, who has been acting chief executive since Jay Adelson stepped down in April.

(Credit: Digg)

"After several months of searching, we are excited to announce that Matt Williams will become the CEO of Digg," Rose said in a blog post. "As you know, I have been the interim CEO, while we looked for the right person, and I will still remain actively involved in the product, but am handing over the day-to-day running of the business to Matt."

Williams has been at Amazon for the past 11 years, ever since the company acquired LiveBid.com, which Williams founded and served as chief executive. Most recently, Williams was general manager for consumer payments at Amazon.

He takes the helm of Digg as the company works to navigate through a controversial new version of its namesake site, a fact Rose acknowledged in his blog post.

"I know it has been a wild past week since the launch of our new platform," Rose said. "Introducing change is never easy, and bringing something as radically different as Digg version 4 was bound to generate a strong reaction. We are absolutely listening and really value everyone's feedback as we take Digg in new directions."

Rose said last week that the company plans a number of big fixes and tweaks to the revamped site.

As for Williams, he said in the blog that he believes in the potential of Digg's latest rework. "There is so much innovation yet to come — being the best in the world at curating news means solving the information overload we all experience every day," he said. "The Digg team has already made great strides in this direction and there is much more ahead."

Via CNET