News aggregation site Digg’s tech team has been “acqhired” by The Washington Post.

The Washington newspaper will be bringing on Digg’s employees only; the rest of the company — its patents and assets — are still up for sale.

The struggling social website has been looking for a buyer for months, especially after web hits plummeted after its unsuccessful redesign in 2010 that saw its competitor, Reddit’s traffic soaring.

WaPo’s talent acquisition is part of the paper’s bigger push in social media. Last fall, the paper launched Social Reader, a Facebook application for reading and sharing stories that has logged in some 15 million subscribers as of this writing. This Facebook app model has been adopted by other journalism giants including the Associated Press and Reuters.

The paper also introduced Personal Post last February. The function allows users to enjoy a more customized newsfeed, including personalized headlines.

The acquisition will allow for WaPo to build up its online properties, something that many news organizations have tried to do without much success. It is not yet clear whether the Digg team will be able to reenact the initial success of Digg and create dedicated followers for the Washington stalwart.

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May Jeong is Toronto Standard’s business editor. Follow her on Twitter @mayjeong.

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