What is Digg up to?

It was just announced that Digg.com has generated an additional $28.7 Million in VC funding. Digg is saying that this funding is going to be used for a large expansion plan over the next few months. Rumor is that Digg plans to almost double its staff to 150 as well as move to a bigger and better space in San Fransisco. I do believe this is all true, but what I am wondering is why?

The expansion represents the largest initiative in the company’s history and will include:

• Hiring the staff needed to accelerate Digg product and feature rollouts, including more ways to consume the over 16,000 stories and other content submitted to Digg everyday, deeper category and topic content views, and additional ways to discover and customize content;
• More than doubling the Digg staff within the next 12 months – from 75 today to over 150 by December 2009;
• Kicking off Digg’s international growth strategy and plans to expand Digg into other languages;
• Moving to a new larger corporate headquarters in San Francisco in early 2009 that more than triples the existing Digg headquarters space;
• Investing in brand and market development programs;
• Investing in publisher analytics and more sophisticated tools for publishers;

~ Yahoo News: Digg Announces Significant Expansion Plans Fueled by $28.7 Million Series C Round of Funding

Digg has to have something up their selves, other than just an expansion. The traffic statistics are showing that the Digg.com traffic is plateauing, and possibly dropping off a bit. Also, a good bit of Digg these days is related to the 2008 US Presidential Election, so I am speculating that Digg will see a large drop off of traffic after the election is complete. I have heard some rumors that Digg might be working on a complex new feature that will better intertwine with Facebook’s Connect feature.

There must be something else in the works. What are your thoughts?