Betaworks acquired the website Digg on Thursday in a deal that included the remaining brand assets. After seven years since Digg launched, it helped pioneer social voting on the web. Launched in 2004 by then 27-year old Kevin Rose, Digg rose to prominence as an aggregator of online content. The site let users vote up - or "Digg" - links, an early precursor to how Facebook and Twitter help spread "viral" content today.

"We wanted to find a way to take Digg back to its startup roots" Digg Chief Executive Matt Williams said.

The next generation of Digg will live on with the team from Betaworks. Betaworks is combining Digg with News.me, a Betaworks company with an iPad app, iPhone app and daily email that delivers the best stories shared by your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Digg will join a portfolio of products developed by Betaworks designed to improve the way people find and talk about the news. Betaworks founder John Borthwick will be the CEO of the new Digg.

The deal was worth just $500,000, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Coming soon, Betaworks will unveil a new cloud-based version of Digg to complement the current News.me iPhone and iPad apps.