Sometime today, according to BusinessWeek, social news site Digg will launch a slew of new social networking features that will put the site in closer competition with services like Facebook and MySpace. The features will enable easier communication between diggers and allow them to form groups based around their interests. "This is really the first time that we have enabled communications between users," Digg founder Kevin Rose told BusinessWeek.

The reason for the change, implies BusinessWeek's Catherine Holahan, is that as Digg has expanded its reach beyond technology focused stories, its early users have complained that the main page has become diluted with news in topics that don't matter to them. The new features will allow users to form connections and share stories with people that have common interests.