The new version of Digg, v4, is based on a distributed database called Cassandra, which replaced the MySQL database the site ran on before. Cassandra is very advanced—it is supposed to be faster and scale better—but perhaps it is still too experimental.

As a technology leader, it is important to know what technologies are just around the corner. However it is equally important to understand the potential impact on your business. Understand the 'bleeding edge' but be pragmatic enough to avoid the 'bleeding' part.