Digg, you just got a $30M paycheck, so now what?

TechCrunch reports that Digg raised a bunch of cash ($28.7 million to be exact) and will move their HQ, hire about 75 people, go international, provide better analytics to partners, and maybe even create a TV ad or two. (Hopefully none of them will star Jerry Seinfeld.) Oh, and the company will be handing out free cigars, paying people to drive them around San Francisco in limos, wearing diamond-studded suits, and installing seafood bars in every cubicle. Not really on that last sentence, but you get the idea: the company will go it alone instead of looking for a suitor like Google or Microsoft to pave the way for them. So now, according to BusinessWeek, the company has only $50M to go!

So what does this all mean in the grand scheme of Web 2.0? It definitely means they can breathe a sigh of relief and stop trying to be a social networking site ala FaceBook. Instead, Digg will try to take on sites like Twitter by encouraging more life-blogging in a "surf and share" model similar to Me.dium. Digg has now become synonymous with "finding a really cool site" so the next phase will also be in convincing people to make Digg more pervasive. Imagine the Digg logo on just about every site known to man. So that will burn up about $1M in cash, right? I see the site as adding even more sections for links, and possibly trying out new advertising models such as inline banners related to what you Digg about.

But you know what will be the really big market for them? One that could propel the company into the stratosphere? I think Digg should become synonymous with more than just finding a good link. What if the term "digg" meant people posting what they like and what they do?

What I'd like to see is a completely new model for Digging where, instead of links, there was some actual content at the site. For example, what if you "digg" a really good movie, and write a review about it? And that review is hosted on Digg? All of these reviews flowed up to an overall ranking system like Netflix? That would make the site the next MetaCritic. Or what if you "digg" a hotel in Las Vegas? Maybe you snap a bunch of photos and video and host that at Digg. This could overhaul the travel industry. Digging music would mean streaming music (the new Pandora? Last.fm? Rhapsody?). Or, I am Digging this baseball game, and here's my life-blog about it.

How much do you think all of this new digging is going to cost? I'm going to say about $50M for the hosting at least, considering they have 30M unique users (wow, they got $1M per user!). Today, Digg doesn't really host anything, and that means they are more expendable. Encouraging a Digg as meaning "hosting the content on the actual site somehow" (and this is where the hard development work will require a lot of funding) could be the kick they need.

Well, at least I'm digging this idea - let me know if you are and what ideas you have for how they can use the new cashflow.