AOL Targets Digg, YouTube With New Netscape Site

Dotnaught writes "AOL has re-launched its Netscape.com portal as a place where user participation is balanced by moderator control. The renovated site will feature community-driven news and user-submitted video, guided by editors called anchors. "The hive mind sometimes doesn't do a thorough job," says Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs, Inc., a blog network acquired last year by AOL."

Not targeting Digg...

[killeena]

They aren't targeting Digg, they are using the idea of Digg. Digg is a site for tech news, and AOL is using the same format for general news.

Terrible design

[Odiumjunkie]

The page looks absolutely awful. The colour scheme is weak and amateurish, the AJAX is terribly, terribly slow, the "visit site" link (the most important button on a content portal) is, bizarrely, smaller than any other element in the article summary and hard to see against the site background, the adverts interrupt the placement of the content... overall, it's a total mess that looks like it's been thrown together with no real coherent plan. The worst type of imitation.

Pointless: Fark content meets Digg layout...

[bigmouth_strikes]

What it all boils down to is still the quality of the comments that the users post. Nothing else. There are dozens and dozens of story submission sites with some sort of social networking thingie, but it's really uninteresting unless there is a userbase with knowledge, experience, diversity and some degree of communication skills.

That is why sites like Digg et al is a miserable failure from that aspect; the comment section is entirely uninteresting and the intolerance and mob-mentality is mind-numbing. As a tool for staying within a 24hrs of the technology (hype) curve it is successful.

I read Slashdot for the comments and Digg/Playboy for the articles...

Re:Targetting Slashdot, too?

[antic]

I've always figured that I visited Slashdot often because of its timely updates. I liked to think that if aliens invaded the Earth, I'd probably hear about it via Slashdot before the local news. Now I think I'd hear about it through Digg first, and then wait for it to appear on Slashdot a day or so later so that I could read the comments (which are pretty retarded on Digg).

Back on topic, the Netscape site is a pretty blatant rip-off of the Digg format - have they no shame? Not only is it the same format, but it's laid out in such a similar fashion. Not particularly imaginative.

Re:Pointless: Fark content meets Digg layout...

[christopherfinke]

Is there an ironic tag for posting this on Slashdot?

Slashdot's comment section is invaluable; when browsing at +2 (or even +1), you'll find that 95%+ of the comments are from well-educated, literate users who have useful (or at least humorous) information about the subject at hand. Possibly 0.5% of Digg's commenters could comment at Slashdot without appearing out of place; the other 99.5% will have to wait until they graduate from middle school at the very least.

Re:Who's their target?

[French Mailman]

I think that AOL is simply trying to surf the "Web 2.0" wave. They are, once again, looking for content. That was already one of the rationales behind the merger with Time Warner a few years back. Except now, their strategy is different. Instead of merging with another big company for content, they want users to provide the content themselves. Getting users to post stuff and comment on it, for free, is a way cheaper way to get content than getting involved in a multi-billion merger.

My guess is that it won't work in this particular case. While users are willing to contribute to such "community Web 2.0 projects" such as Digg or Wikipedia, they probably won't have the same attitude towards a big business like AOL.