Netscape: Let the Clone Wars begin!
Earlier today on the Netscape Blog it was announced that the impending shutdown of the social news experiment at Netscape dot com was true.
Visitors to Netscape.com will see a more traditional news experience very soon. Don't worry, the social news site isn't going away! We will keep you updated on where you will be able to find the social news site as we get closer to making the switch.
Translation? We don't like seeing the Netscape brand dragged through the mud by blog spammers and other not-so upstanding elements of the interwebs.
We received some feedback that people really do associate the Netscape brand with providing mainstream news that is editorially controlled. In fact, we specifically heard that our users do have a desire for a social news experience, but simply didn't expect to find it on Netscape.com.
Yup, sounds about right.
Netscape realized something that digg discovered many months ago. If you build it, they (spammers) will come (and try to game it). The sad thing is that the blog post also slaps all of those Netscape Navigators and Scouts right in the face by saying the people want editorially controlled content from mainstream sites.
Take a look at what passes for home page content on Netscape:
What was the whole point behind the Navigator and Scout programs? Why to bring some editorial control over the social news side of things. This post essentially says that all of those editors they hired are not worth a damn and failed to keep the site properly edited.
So let's take a quick look at Netscape's new design.
Wait a minute, where have I seen that design before? Oh yeah...
It looks just like Yahoo!!!
First they cloned Digg, and failed.
Now they clone Yahoo...
I've heard that imitation is the highest form of flattery but this is down right ridiculous. Know what is real ridiculous? That the people in charge of making these decisions get paid in the millions of dollars!
- The Digg Effect Part 4: Netscape vs. Digg vs. Stumbleupon
- I’ve Been Blog Scraped!
- The forgotten side effect of moving to Propeller
- I have a clone?
- Focusing on the social in social news and book marking
Steve,
I’m a bit disappointed in your assessment of not only the Scout program, but the move as well.
Netscape.com is transitioning back into a more traditional news portal (which the users wanted) and the social news site is moving to a new URL. This has nothing to do with the “Netscape brand dragged through the mud” as you say.
Having said that, I’m not any happier about some of the content that makes it to the front page than you are but my primary responsibility in getting hired, was to post quality submissions, which I do. I cannot control if my own posts make it to the front page or not. That’s controlled by votes. But we DO do everything in our power to control sock-puppeted stories, spam, duplicates and posts that violate the middle-man rule. I won’t go into specifics about the criteria but rest assured that if a story makes it to the front-page and remains there, it’s passed all of the criteria. We don’t just delete something we consider to be crap. Trust me when I say that I’ve personally cringed sometimes at the things on the home page, but it’s what the users have wanted to vote there…not me and therefore, it remains.
What you don’t make mention of and probably aren’t aware of, is the thousands of posts submitted by the Scouts per month AND the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of stories that are closed, redirected or otherwise, by us.
As an aside, the social news site that is netscape.com now, is moving. We’re going to be even better than we are now and I’m urging you to continue using that site when we move. I’ve considered you a friend on both netscape.com and I believe on digg as well so I’m personally asking you to come along for the ride!
Greg,
Thanks for responding but I think you might have misinterpreted my words.
I see Netscape’s comment saying that the users want “editorialy controlled news” to be a slap in the face of the hard working scouts and navigators. If the policy in place kept you from getting the junk off of the front page than why is Netscape saying (effectively) that the editors were not doing their job?
I do stand by my assessment. Netscape was hoping to become the next digg and failed. They had some great ideas (public editors rather than diggs ‘private’ editors) and they made a lot of great moves but in the end it appears that they failed.
I used to spend a lot more time on Netscape but then, a few months back, it became infested with spammers. It’s no big secret that unlike digg, Netscape readers do not use adblock software and they DO click ads. I guess it became too tasty of a target and the spammers came in full force!
When I go to Netscape I cringe when I see stories on the homepage that are obviously spam and lead to a site with very little content covered in ads. Have you looked in the “male” section lately? That area is always full of links to porn sites! This is what I mean about Netscape’s good name being dragged through the mud.
Now they (AOL) look at some of the junk that is on Netscape and the vitriol in the comments and they don’t know what to do. In the end they decide to move the social news side of the business off to it’s own new domain and turn the Netscape portal site into a Yahoo clone!
I support the scouts and the navigators and I have always found them to act professionaly and to be responsive. What I did not know was that your hands were tied when it comes to getting crap off of the homepage.
I noticed that the email notifications I get form Netscape started coming from NewNetscape.com (which is an empty site)…I wonder if this will be the location for, er…the new netscape.com (My guess is that it was probably the domain purchased for netscape when they decided to go social though)
I got the same thing this morning!
You squeezed a post out of this then ;-)
Greg D says that it is the users who are voting crap to the front page and so he will not intervene…. that is not really true.
I only started using Netscape after I was asked to join a syndicate to spam it.
There were some very effective syndicates operating on NS who kept cheap articles ($5 E-Lance stuff) regularly on the front page.
In the comments some went as far as complimenting each other being a “great front page spammer”.
With high page rank, Ad click happy users and only 20 votes needed to make the front page NS became a spam fest.
Having looked on there today I cannot see any of the old faces that dominated the front page a month or two back… maybe they have been banned, but, there are still plenty of low grade posts on no-mark blogs completely splattered with adsense. It is safe to assume that these have been submitted by someone affiliated with the site and voted for by members of a syndicate….
Here you go, one from today, 12th from top of the page with 56 votes, a large Adsense block followed by some low quality photographs… not even any content:
http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2007/09/09/beauty-of-portugal/?url=http%3A%2F%2Famusingto.com%2Fcool%2Fportugal-pictures.htm&frame=true
If Greg D thinks that genuine users are voting this stuff up he needs to think again.
Yes your “users” voted for it… but a large percentage of your users are spammers after your PR 9 back-links.
What Greg is saying is that those higher than him are not allowing the editors to remove this crap from the front page because the users have put it there.
I think Greg and I are in agreement that this is spamming. I also think that those higher than him are using this as an excuse to ditch the whole digg-clone thing off of netscape.com.
Since netscape got out of its race with the Internet Explorer, it is hunting for an identity. Trying to be another Digg was disgraceful. Trying to be another Yahoo is disgraceful :)