Social Media might have been around for a while, being as social is such a vague term, but it has really been over the last year that we have seen a massive explosion in the popularity around the use of social media marketing.

Although there are many social communities people use, it was Digg that put social media marketing on everyones radar. It was the mass wave of traffic (“digg-effect“), often upwards of 100,000 UVs, and the many authoritative natural links sites received, that sold marketers on the need to get to that coveted “front page”.

About 6 months ago, there was a buzz around Digg possibly selling their company. Initially, Digg wanted close to $300 million, and even hired Allen & Co. to help them get it. Many believed that it was not a good purchase and even IAC, who initially had interest in possibly buying Digg, was not willing to pay anything close to the $300 million Digg wanted.

Digg did not stop their mission to sell however, and TechCrunch published today, March 7, 2008, that two rather large names have been heavy into conversations, with intentions to possibly bid on Digg: Microsoft and Google, the top internet search engine.

Based on the deal Digg made with Microsoft to run their ads, which is where the majority of Digg’s revenue comes from, it is speculated that Microsoft’s bid would be much lower than Google’s, which is estimated to be in the $200-225 million range.

So what happens if the biggest search engine around buys the largest social news community? Don’t count on the famine and mass earthquakes. Google, Microsoft, and many other large companies have made it a common practice to acquire other businesses, and they have not been really changing too much when they do so.

Maybe we will get lucky and a Digg front page article will get stuck randomly into some search results…

Any thoughts on what will happen if the purchase happens?

*Edited: Jay Adelson, Digg’s CEO, published the following statement on the Digg blog:

Hey all,

Normally our policy is to not comment about things like this, but this morning’s rumors about a bidding war involving Google and Microsoft have created such a stir we feel compelled to tell you all directly that they are completely inaccurate.

Sorry to burst any drama theories, but they aren’t true. We remain focused on improving Digg and rolling out great features.

-Jay