Digg iPhone app foreshadows site changes

CEO Jay Adelson says the mobile application was built with upcoming new-and-improved site in mind

After months of anticipation, Digg’s mobile app has hit the iPhone. CEO Jay Adelson gave us a rundown on the app’s history and future.

Given Digg’s techy demographic it took the company a lot longer than many expected to develop the app. Adelson said part of the complication came from the company’s upcoming site relaunch. Digg has been rebuilt from the deepest backend up to the user interface in order to create a faster and more personalized experience. They knew that the site functionality would change dramatically, and wanted the app flexible enough to reflect those changes as they roll out. The focus on the new site also bumped the app to a lower spot on the priority list. To help with the development, Digg enlisted app developer TapTapTap.

As we mentioned earlier this morning, the feature set is pretty robust. It includes a touch of functionality not yet available on the website—like a “save for later” button that lets users put an article in a file folder for when they have more time to read, and a more streamlined sharing button that makes pushing articles to Twitter and Facebook easier, a change that foreshadows a deeper integration with social networks that is coming in the new site launch.

The app is still not available in the U.S. Apple Store as of this writing, but it has hit the in some other countries. Adelson said the delay is due to the way Apple rolls out the apps, and that it should be available in the States sometime today.

Users can expect the app to morph pretty quickly as the site development progresses. Some features of the new site, that will soon be incorporated into the app include the ability to sign in with Facebook Connect, Twitter, Open ID, Yahoo, etc, the ability to digg or bury a post without signing in, and a personalized ranking of stories, based on data from a user’s social graph as well as behavior. We also spoke in-depth about the coming changes to Digg.com and how the social media space is developing... stay tuned for another post on that soon.

And yes, an Android app is in the works.