Right, but those apps nevertheless have a footprint and (hopefully) a codebase to improve upon. At this point in time Digg has none of that -- just a once-well-known brand and a new redesign that's failed to capture back the audience/community lost to Reddit and others. This looks more like a hail mary than a solid business decision.
The team currently behind Digg does have experience in this space, though: they previously developed News.me, a Flipboard-alike, shuttered when they decided to put all their resources into Digg.