Can Digg ever become the powerhouse it so badly wanted to be? It's a natural question amid the departure of five-year CEO Jay Adelson, the latest in a line of painful goodbyes for the social news site.

Since starting Digg with Adelson and two others in late 2004, Kevin Rose has plowed through potential acquirers like a pitiable romantic suitor: From Google to News Corp. to IAC to Current TV, Rose watched his would-be relationships fizzle rather than consummate. With Adelson gone, maybe it's time scale down dreams of a big acquisition and try to focus on converting traffic—finally growing again after getting trounced by Twitter for a year (see below) — into profit. In the meantime, we'd love to hear the backstory behind Adelson's exit.

[Photo: Adelson, left, and Rose in 2007. By Brian Caldwell.]