Digg has rolled out version 3 of their site adding new non-tech categories like: entertainment, world & business and videos. Meanwhile, Valleywag reported a rumor yesterday that AOL is planning massive layoffs which could include axing Netscape:

That’s right, a BLOCKBUSTER AOL LAYOFF for the ages!!! Finally the show is almost over and the curtains are about to be drawn…. sources suggest that AOL is going to have a “75% layoff” of the Access business which is home to the AOL Broadband and AOL Narrowband departments… Well we know for sure that AOL will kill Netscape (low cost flanker) in either scenario….and Compuserve….that died a long time ago….what has not died that has been touched by AOL?

AOL-bashers don’t get too excited as these rumors are very unconfirmed. It’s pretty clear, however, AOL has been dying for awhile. Perhaps it’s cosmic wisdom that the most voted on Netscape story is “Netscape copies Digg.”

Prepare for battle trying to cancel AOL?
The last couple weeks the MP3 of that insanely frustrating call with the guy trying to cancel AOL has drilled into the main nerve of many others who have faced that same problem over the years. Any company that makes you call them to cancel goes on the You Should Be Ashamed list. And those who try to jam free months of service down your throat when you keep saying I just want to cancel, belong on the You Should Be Out Of Business list. It was encouraging to see AOL fire this employee but the bigger cancer is the corporate philosophy that drives their call center to these antics. If that isn’t put into chemo post haste, then the world should be saying “goodbye.”

Submitting stories to Digg
Back to checking out Digg, I’m curious what a first page digg in the new categories will send traffic-wise. Certainly now this opens up the field for many more posts here to be eligible. If you find a story here that you think is digg-worthy please click the “digg this” link at the end of the story and tell us you dug it.

In the past one post submitted by a reader has made the front page. We’ve been slashdotted a few times here without problems but the first digg hit took the site down. This motivated us to move Hmm to its own dedicated server (it had already been on one of our dedicated servers already, but now it’s on a new server by itself) so we will be better ready to handle future front page digg traffic surges. Gotta love the digg effect.

As of this writing I’ve submitted 12 stories to Digg since Feb 2, 2005 and had one submitted story promoted to the front page returning a current ranking of 5,652. Looks like I’m not even on a one submitted story per month pace, but I think that will change now that the field is more open for other type stories. When did you join Digg and how many stories have you submitted? Any first page digg experiences?

• One week of paint on new Netscape beta, Digg still the big story
• Compare your Digg stats to others
• Slashdot Firehose brings readers into story selection process a la digg
• Digg receives $2.8 million in VC funding
• Kottke’s Digg vs. Slashdot traffic comparison
• Hmm survives the perfect traffic storm, changes ahead [site news]