yeah, something shady must be going on.
My guess is that you'll find similar people on Digg's and News.me boards. And this was just a way to a) write off Digg as a permanent loss off the books and b) transfer those assets cheaply to the other company, which might boost them from being a loser to being a winner
Noone sells Digg for $500K...not unless they are millions and millions in debt