Digg’s users don’t seem too interested in the story that their site is (once again) being spoken of as a takeover target.

At the time of writing, the community – which submits and ranks stories that appear on the Digg site – prefer a piece on how Hollywood is running out of superhero franchises, a story on telephone tapping and a video demonstrating how to “repair a dripping faucet”.

That’s understandable – since its launch in 2004, Digg has established a long line a history of “almost-but-not-quite deals”. In the spring of 2006, it is thought to have been asking for about $20 million and was deep in discussions with Yahoo. By the end of that year the asking price, according to Valleywag, had risen more than sevenfold to about $150 million – but still no deal emerged.

Now Digg, which has about 21 million users, is being spoken of as a $400 million (£190 million) property.

Could there be anything behind the latest rumours – and is Digg worth it?

Quite possibly.

The site recently signed an advertising deal with Microsoft (dumping Google in the process) thought to be worth about $30 million a year for three years.

Those terms may be artificially generous (a deep-pocketed Microsoft is eager to take business from Google wherever it can).

But such a revenue stream would easily justify a $400 million valuation for Digg – especially when you consider Facebook’s implied $15 billion valuation based on Microsoft's 1.6 per cent stake for $250 million and amid the frenzie of dotcom buying not seen for some years.

Don’t discount the possibility of Digg ploughing a lone furrow for some time yet – but if the owners really think it is the time to sell, it is unlikely there will be any shortgage of buyers.

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