Netscape.com Loses Its Identity 148
wh0pper writes "Digital Trends has a great opinion piece about how Netscape has lost its identity again in regards to their wanna-be Digg portal. One interesting fact I was not aware of is that Jason Calacanis is the person behind the new beta Netscape portal. A choice quote: 'If this business model sees the light-day and it looks like it will, Netscape readers will change from the baby-boomers of yester-year to a younger audience more interested in Jessica Alba's Bikini or Britney Spears than real intellectual news.' I've tried using the new beta Netscape site, and personally hate it. The little link to the external site and the frame to keep you on Netscape's site are deal killers for me. Does the general audience think it can compete?"
Microsoft killed the net 0.x companys (Score:4, Informative)
Then, Microsoft came to the party and knocked out the entire industry by illegally bundling competitors to all three of these pre-.com-era startups. Where are these players now?
RealNetworks still exists, but their proprietary audio/video codecs are used by nobody other than their bloatware RealOne product. Rhapsody is an also-ran in the digital music world.
Trumpet? They're still supporting networking for 3.1, 95, 98, and NT [trumpet.com.au], but they've never had another must-have hit the size Trumpet Winsock and likely never will again.
And Netscape? They've officially deemed that there's no money to be made making a browser, and gave what they had for source code over to the Open Source community still uses the basics in the form of Mozilla. Netscape.com is just a domain that Time Warner keeps reformating. They've tried it as a cut-rate ISP, but United Online's Netzero and Juno have that game covered? They've tried it as a portal site, but realized that was redundant to AOL.com. So now they're trying it as a Digg knockoff... let's see how long that one lasts.
In reality, these companies deserved a better fate. Too bad as soon as the Bush 1.01 administration came in, the Clinton Justice Department's case suddenly died. At least the EU is still trying to take a bite...
Link to the beta (Score:5, Informative)
They bought Netscape for the visitors... (Score:2, Informative)
ugh. (Score:5, Informative)
et tu, slashdot? ;)
I have the pleasure of working as the lead developer for the new netscape.com.
We've been in beta for approximately 31 hours. We haven't even taken over the domain yet (and won't for awhile). The response has been overwhelming. It's the most valuable feedback we could have ever asked for though (and frankly, we expected a lot of it...) The frame navigator and the pop up new windows for instance, are things that annoy folks to no end -- duh, right? Well internally, it's an odd 50/50 split -- they are both designed from the start to be user preferences, configurable for each person. We'll get there in time, right now we're focused on measuring reactions to features and design changes. I know the definition of "beta" has changed.. but.. uh... it's beta. ;)
Are we attempting to be a "digg killer?" Not at all. We're attempting to iterate on the concept of social news for a completely different demographic. We're trying to create an honest, fun, interesting portal. Did digg kill slashdot? It's faster and has more daily content, yet people come here for discussion -- Slashdot's strength. We may not be "there" yet, but again, this thing is a brand new project, about 4 months old, and has only been publically accessible for less than two days.
Thankfully, we all have pretty thick skin here. It's been enjoyable talking to folks and seeing what the concerns are. Hopefully we can evolve this thing into the great product we all have in mind. I do appreciate everyone who has taken the time to send us their thoughts by e-mail or blog post. We're actively reading them and responding as much as we can. Let us know what your concerns are, and we'll try to address them (where we can, that is.. we don't like tons of ads just like everyone else.. just the nature of our position right now)
Re:Microsoft killed the net 0.x companys (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft broke the law, whether you disagree with that law or not. The Bush administration, in its first weeks on the job, removed the experienced lawyers on the case and replaced them with young lawyers with no prior experience in monopoly litigation. The expert independant counsel was also mysteriously fired with no explanation. Bush sabotaged the anti-trust case by crippling the prosecution.
I must be missing it (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.beta.netscape.com (Score:1, Informative)
It was not linked in the article
Re:Um, netscape portal... (Score:3, Informative)
Netscape was a visionary company. If Microsoft hadn't squished them, they would single-handedly control the Internet today. You still see some of their ideas manifested in a myriad of places - Mozilla, feeds, open-ended portals, and applications-in-the-browser (what some call Web 2.0).
Re:ugh. (Score:2, Informative)