Very misleading quote. The full article features disbelief about Compete.com numbers, so it seems as much a critique of Compete.com as it does a story about Digg.
Since I ended up reading the article, I have to wonder if Compete counted Digg buttons on blogs as visits. Facebook, of course, did not even get a Share/Like button until 2.5 years later in late 2009 (http://mashable.com/2009/10/26/facebook-share-buttons/)
It would be easy to get millions of daily uniques if popular newspapers all request your script or image in every article, and sites like Compete don't properly take social buttons into account.
(It's interesting that recent articles have debated if Facebook itself now counts the display or click of a Like button as a visit.)
Since I ended up reading the article, I have to wonder if Compete counted Digg buttons on blogs as visits. Facebook, of course, did not even get a Share/Like button until 2.5 years later in late 2009 (http://mashable.com/2009/10/26/facebook-share-buttons/) It would be easy to get millions of daily uniques if popular newspapers all request your script or image in every article, and sites like Compete don't properly take social buttons into account.
(It's interesting that recent articles have debated if Facebook itself now counts the display or click of a Like button as a visit.)