Used textbook site, Chegg, hits nerve

Updated

Used textbook site, Chegg, has hit a nerve.

Chegg is undercutting the prices of textbooks at college bookstores, and a recent BusinessWeek article about the Santa Clara, Calif. company has climbed to second place on Digg’s “Top in 24 Hours” page (as of this writing). We’re not sure exactly why. One reason may be because the young audience at Digg is enjoying the story — seeing this as a way of indirectly sticking it to the publishers and Barnes & Nobles and other college bookstore owners who currently charge such high prices. We remember being unimpressed by the discounts of used books at college, so we can empathize.

Chegg provides an alternative for textbooks and other school supplies, such as computers. It has just raised $2.2 million from Gabriel Venture Partners and angel investor Mike Maples, who backed the company earlier. The company tells VentureBeat it made $100,000 in revenue in December, though is not profitable yet. It saw 44,000 unique visitors last month, and has seen a 200 percent increase in traffic each month since August.

Update: Corrected to “thousands” for unique number. Apologies.