Has Digg’s nerd juggernaut outlived its usefulness? Kevin Rose, founder of the community-driven news website, apparently thinks so.

Rose is planning changes during the next few months to give individuals more control over how they view stories on the Digg site, shifting power away from the core of loyal and fanatical users—so-called Diggerati—that have built the community-based content-ranking website into one of the stars of Web 2.0.

The problem for Rose, however, is this: The same user devotion that made Digg a hit threatens to manifest itself as a backlash. Digg's user base is already known for protesting every change in the website's algorithm for ranking articles, videos, and graphics; the more radical transformation that Rose is proposing is bound to leave many in the Diggerati crying foul.

Digg is just fine with that.

As the playing field for user-driven newsgets more crowded, Digg’s new tools, which are scheduled to appear this summer, appear to be designed to bolster user traffic to the site. Individual visitors will be allowed to pick which stories they want to read by setting alerts and making suggestions—bypassing the will of the Digg core.

“So you can dictate, not just the community,” says Mike Maser, Digg’s chief revenue and strategy officer.

Sure Digg may gain new users who enjoy being able to see stories only about their particular interests—rock climbing, for example, or presidential contender Mike Huckabee. But it also stands to lose other users who like their playground rules just as they are.

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The conceit of Digg is that it’s a democratic system in which a set of contributors—mostly male, mostly tech-savvy—“digg,” or recommend, an article, photo, video, or graphic they've found on the Web, then submit it so others can digg it as well.

The stories that are "dugg" the most are uploaded to the front page of the site each day, directing readers—and advertising dollars—along the way.

But the system for pushing content onto the front page is easily manipulated, requiring the site to constantly update and amend the algorithm that drives Digg. Accusations of ballot stuffing abound. Users can build several accounts or have their loyal armies of Digg soldiers click on stories they want pushed.

Those without a deep network of friends end up with less pull, and Digg’s geeky core tends to be obsessed with certain topics, notably Ron Paul, Steve Jobs—and, of course, any story that mentions Digg.

There are even some websites that offer to pay Digg users to vote for certain stories. Digg penalizes such behavior harshly—including permanently banning transgressors from the site—but the mere existence of these fly-by-night businesses damages Digg’s allure.

“If you know how to game Digg, you can get [a story] discovered,” said Steve Jurvetson, a partner at the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in Menlo Park, California. “You can trigger legitimate tipping points.”

Also, each new change to Digg’s algorithm unleashes a site revolt from its loyal band of users, concerned that their pull—and the power of their voting bloc—will be thwarted.

Much of that anger gets directed at Rose, who spends quite a bit of his time in the public eye. He co-hosts a Web talk show, Diggnation, with former Tech TV host Alex Albrecht. Irreverent, with a consistently juvenile take, Diggnation is supremely popular among a certain segment of 20- to 35-year-old men. The site considers those consumers—a demographic that is highly sought after by advertisers who have had a hard time reaching it through TV and other media—to be its core.

“Young men have disappeared from all over media,” said Marissa Gluck of Radar Research, an internet consulting firm in Los Angeles. “One way to get them is through community.”

Still, this group is known for easily jumping ship for the next new thing. Its members can quickly and easily migrate if they believe they're being disenfranchised from what they consider their Digg-given rights.

“This audience has proven to be very fickle,” said Gluck. “Look at Napster, Grokster, LimeWire, Friendster, and Facebook.”

Plus there are plenty of places now to land. Digg copycats like Reddit (owned by Condé Nast, publisher of Portfolio.com), Yahoo’s Buzz, and Propeller are launching rapidly. Mixx, another upstart competitor, landed $2 million in funding in February.

Even more troublesome is Digg’s professed lack of profitability — very confusing for a site that claims 25 million unique visitors a month, 12,000 items posted daily, and one billion impressions of its widget spread across the Web.

Then there’s the fact that Digg been reported to be on the verge of a sale for the past 17 months, with any number of big-media suitors rumored to be kicking the tires at valuations ranging from $150 million to $300 million.

Digg declined to comment on whether it is actively seeking a suitor. But with competitors popping up right and left, it’s unclear how long that strategy—perhaps meant to entice higher offers—will last.

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Digg chief executive Jay Adelson declined to comment on whether the company is actively seeking a buyer, and his publicity entourage gave a most un-Web 2.0 excuse: He was traveling “out of state.” Rose also declined to talk. But with competitors popping up right and left, it's unclear how long that strategy—perhaps meant to entice higher offers—will last.

Digg’s Maser said he is unconcerned about the site’s ability to thrive on its own. He said he believes that the core base might react to changes but that’s their nature.

“Change gets them concerned about change itself,” he says. “But there’s a very small group that has this perception.”

And if some of its most vocal critics do give up on Digg, the people running the site appear to believe that a more mainstream, less ideological user will replace them.

That, in turn, could lead to more advertising, and perhaps even a sale.

“We’d like to broaden the base’s sphere of interest,” says Maser. “The home page has served us well, until now.”