Bunch of Netscape updates happening this weekend:
The Role of Anchors: WE ARE HERE TO SERVE.
There seems to be some misinformation spreading about the role of the Netscape Anchors. The Anchors do NOT filter the results or control the site. The Netscape Anchors are HERE TO SERVE the members. If the members vote a story to the top 10 our Netscape Anchors will add an image for them and do some meta-journalism on the site. WE ARE HERE TO SERVE, NOT TO CONTROL. We are your editorial concierges. If you want followup on a story we do it for you immediately. The Anchors can vote on stories of course, but their votes count for as much as the publics do.
The home page ranking
We tweaked the velocity (how fast things go up the page) and gravity (how quick they go down the page) formulas and the results are looking good. This is a real art/science procedure... you're basically turning a bunch of dials to see which one gets the best result in terms of speed vs. quality. It's really amazing.
% of advertising, and designing for the mass vs. the (Delicious/DIGG) elite.
We've got the site down to almost no advertising right now. People attacked us for having five ad units at launch and they were right--it was over the top. We're going to keep it light for the beta and I think we will wind up with three advertisements (like the New York Times) at the end of the day. I'm thinking a leaderboard and medium rectangle above the fold and a skyscaper below the fold. The DIGGsters have been beating me up for the number of ads and the cluttered nature of the site, which I can appreciate. DIGGsters like myself love clean design (or no design). However, the mass audience likes a lot of design and images--they even like ads. So, we're gonna do something for our DIGGsters/clean design folks as an alternative to the current home page.
On killing DIGG ad the Jason vs. Kevin silliness.
I've been in this business since two years before it started (1993/94). I've watched pronouncement after pronouncement about Microsoft-, Netscape-, Yahoo-, and Google-killers. Heck, people have talked about AOL-killers since we launched and it has never seemed to happen (and as long as I'm here it's not gonna happen I can tell you that!).
The fact is, we've evolved the work done by DIGG by bringing an editorial layer to Kevin's community model. Kevin's community model was, of course, based on Josh's bookmarking model at Delicious. Delicious was inspired by Flickr tagging and Furl's group bookmarking, and Furl was inspired by the *dozens* of bookmarking sites that were around in the Web 1.0 days.
DIGG didn't create voting or social bookmarking--they just did it best. They evolved the entire concept, and that is what *GREAT* entrepreneurs do: they build a better mousetrap. There are no original ideas in this world, only ideas to be evolved.
After everyone calms down about the size of Netscape (12M uniques a month) vs. the scrappy upstart DIGG, they will realize that us launching Netscape has tripled the value of DIGG. Yahoo, Microsoft, and Fox are now thinking "if this works for AOL/Netscape we gotta get into the space." When they do they will look and see that the best way to win the race will be not to build but to buy DIGG--heck, if this model works I could see AOL offering to buy DIGG to consolidate the market. So, it's not like AOL has been taken out of the race to buy DIGG or other social bookmarking sites. I think this space is the future, and I could see us owning seven different social bookmarking sites some day--just like we own dozens of content /services like TMZ, Engadget, TVSquad, MoviePhone, Mapquest, etc.
We are going to bring the social news concept to more people than DIGG ever could, and those users will become DIGG users as well (like I am). This is not a winner take all space--very few spaces ever are in fact. Hotmail/Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and AOL all share the IM and email markets. The news market online is shared by dozens of folks. To think that Netscape would crush DIGG, or that DIGG would crush Delicious is silly. It's what the silly inexperienced bloggers think.
A rising tide does lift all boats.
You can check what happened when Weblogs, Inc. joined Gawker Media in the professional blogging space--we both go much bigger. Nick Denton became a better entrepreneur when we came into the space. He got more focused, he staffed up, and the competition made us both stronger. It also made for a better product for the users.
Advertisers that Nick sold on blogging bought ads on Weblogs, Inc--and visa versa. I would say that Gizmodo and Engadget shared 50% of their advertisers at one point. Nick and I discussed group selling once in fact (we didn't need to because we both had f/t staff).
-- Kevin and the crew are dedicated to the community model of social news.
-- My team at Netscape are dedicated to the community model of social news with a term of Anchors to serve the users.
-- Google News is dedicated to solving the new aggregation problem with better algorithms.
-- Rojo is dedicated to solving the social news problem with an aggregation + tags model.
-- Newsvine is dedicated to solving the social news problem with news feeds + bloggng + voting.
If this is a real industry we will all get there *together*, and when we do we will all slap each others backs while drinking aged scotch and fine cigars at some outdoor cafe five years from now. We'll talk about the good old days and laugh. I do that right now with Tom from @NY (my Silicon Alley "rival") and Nick Denton (my blogging rival).
Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing are best friends even though they fought like gladiators for over a decade. Competitors share a deep bond--they are the only people who experience the war from the inside, and as a result they are forever one with the experience.
I love Kevin, I love Josh at Delicious, I love both of their sites and admire what they've accomplished. Their not competitors, they're compadres.
Bottom line: we're all in this together and we'll either make it as a group or none of us will make it--let the games begin!
New Netscape Updates (or "on DIGG killers and Jason vs. Kevin").
Reader Comments
(Page 1 of 1)2. Never mind this Digg stuff Jason - what's cool to me and some of the old timers here in NYC is that at long last someone from Silicon Alley is running Netscape.com THE ICON of Web 1.0.
Revenge is sweet!!!
Posted at 5:26PM on Jun 18th 2006 by Michael Pinto
3. One small correction: del.icio.us had tagging before Flickr did and Joshua actually suggested we add tagging to Flickr.
Posted at 7:08PM on Jun 18th 2006 by Stewart Butterfield
4. The once-moribund Netscape (the brand) has been languishing for years in marketing deep-freeze hell . . . was converted in to low cost ISP, along with CompuServe, to act a flanker "value" brands to the NetZero/Earthlink/PeoplePC/Juno contingent. It was also used by AOL back during the post-bubble epoch of 2002-2004, to be bolted on to the AOL core client as the embedded browser (actually made it into CompuServe 7.0) and used as a trump card to reduce marginal user agent string pageviews going to MS Explorer. And now this.
The general public's institutional memory (people over the age of 34.5 years) still has Netscape thought of as a browser company, even with the browser market share @ ~1% (with exception of the gutted Mozilla Foundation's Firefox, with an asterisk...).
Are all brands evergreen? Pepsodent toothpaste sells @ $.97/unit, but was once a powerhouse, too. But still, what a great sandbox to experiment in!
Troy was rebuilt at least nine times, too.
Posted at 7:59PM on Jun 18th 2006 by Rob in NoVA
5. The basic question is, Are people who use the Web better or ill-served by this total revamping of netscape.com?
Netscape.com members -- anybody who chooses to sign up -- have a 30-channel news service where they can pick stories, write a summary, rank the stories and comment on them. It’s true “anchors” – hired editorial staff – can “pin” stories in the top position and add their own reportage and links to any story they choose. But Netscape members who don’t like the pinning or additional reporting, or anything else, can voice their objections (and other members can join in).
For years, many netizens have passionately advocated for a participatory journalism where “news” isn’t owned by publishers and their editors and reporters, but belongs to anyone who finds it and publishes it.
The new netscape.com, regardless of its excessive ads and other beta bobbles, is a significant advance in the new democracy of news publishing. Why isn’t this good news for all of us who don't own a printing press, TV station or website?
Posted at 8:48PM on Jun 18th 2006 by Tom Grubisich
7. re: velocity; I fedback about something I think affects the site's credibility (validity?) ... after commenting on one of the stories (I had just registered) I found myself reading "Hot stories as voted on by you" (or words to that effect) and the stories in the list only had 1 or 2 or maybe 3 votes each. That doesn't give rise to sterling confidence!
Understandable, of course ... but something to keep an eye on.
lookin' good!
Posted at 2:24AM on Jun 19th 2006 by Bernard D. Tremblay (ben)
8. However, the mass audience likes a lot of design and images--they even like ads.
Huh? The mass audience likes ads??
Tolerate, in moderation, sure. Don't mind even, again when in moderation.
But like?? Maybe, rarely, when the ads are really relevant, people are OK with them. But that would be a small percentage of people for a small percentage of the time (after you clicked the relevant ad, it's no longer needed, so no longer welcome. Not to mention all the other ads).
Are you basing that wild claim on something?
Are there really people out there who, when asked whether they prefer to see sites with, or without, ads, all else being exactly the same, will prefer to see the ads?
I find it very hard to believe...
Posted at 7:50AM on Jun 19th 2006 by Yaron
9. One complaint I have about the design is the photos used for stories aren't very high quality. They look over-compressed and I think there are better photos to pick from, especially considering they're from Getty (I assume you have the journalist license from them) Also, I understand that photos have to be cited, but it looks garish to cite them within the photo itself. Check out newsvine when it comes to photo quality. Bigger, higher quality, and they all have a very tiny photo credit watermark if they have one at all.
Also, I agree 100% that this is good news for Digg. Bigger companies entering the space only legitimizes the model, and I honestly don't think you guys are going to draw users away from Digg. But hopefully you'll be able to avoid the idiotic level of conversation that is a Digg hallmark.
Posted at 12:47PM on Jun 19th 2006 by Rob Goodlatte
10. Yes, the "people like ads" comment seems more than a little far fetched. Forgive me, but it sounds remarkably like the gator people saying how much they love their spyware. I'm sure there is someone out there that does, but I really really really find it hard to believe that the vast majority of people do.
11. it seems that you have fixed most about what which i complained about even if you didnt read my comments, heck im even starting to like netscape news.
BUT
many things you have said ARE wrong. Netscape News will eventualy blow digg out of the water. Adervisters will eonly want their ad on Netscape because the Digg brand just doesnt work with most people; it dosent not deliever that feeling of editorial intergetity. It almost feels like its too much of a loner.
When CNN comes to interview you about netscape's recent sucsess you will not say you expanded someone else formula, you will not say anything of the like.
When joe "i just saw this on CNN im checking it out" consumer comes to read/contribute to netscape he will think it the only one that has ever existed. Advertisers will do the same.
When you try to justifiy seeing a blooming market then stealing it with "it will help us both grow" you are downright lying and you know it.
12. >> Noah says :When CNN comes to interview you
>> about netscape's recent sucsess you will
>> not say you expanded someone else formula,
>> you will not say anything of the like.
Actually, check all the stories that we did this past week with the NYT, AP, Reuters, etc. In all of those stories we spoke frankly about DIGG evolving Delicious and Delicious evolving Furl. Our industry is built off of people evolving ideas... DIGG didn't come up with voting or bookmarking--they just made it a hit.
We are going to make metajournalism a hit.
13. What competition?
Your points are all valid though you cannot compare what Kevin rose did, conceptually cloning the delicious structure to what you’re doing with Netscape. Netscape simply cloned the site! Big business or not, you’re not innovative, you’re a clone. You’re valid when you say that taking a conceptual idea and doing it better is a good thing but that’s not what Netscape is doing. You’re cloning an online application completely. What’s the point? Still Netscape does have more money and resources to throw at the project and a large visitor base, therefore you’re right, people will use it, probably Digg users for comparison. If you think that your “Netscape’s clone” has any significance or importance to internet users then you’re mistaken. Netscape has no motive besides profit. If Netscape was dedicated to the community model of social news then they wouldn’t publish a Digg clone. What are going to do wait for every Digg release and clone it? Netscape is bored because it has too much freaking money. No one said Digg will destroy Netscape or vise versa. The fact of the matter is that you’re a clone, that’s how you started and that’s how you’ll finish. There is no race, your just there because you have the resource to keep the project going. There is no use for your project, it’s pointless.
Any one can manage and build an application with money but not everyone can or rather choose to think creatively. That’s the difference between digg and Netscape. Netscape lacks passion, creativity and imagination. The competition is not with Digg it’s with your wallet.
Posted at 5:05PM on Jun 20th 2006 by evil2kus
14. //---------------------Jasons Post -------------------------\
Actually, check all the stories that we did this past week with the NYT, AP, Reuters, etc. In all of those stories we spoke frankly about DIGG evolving Delicious and Delicious evolving Furl. Our industry is built off of people evolving ideas... DIGG didn't come up with voting or bookmarking--they just made it a hit.
We are going to make metajournalism a hit.
//----------------------------------------------\
The reason why Digg isn’t seen as a rip is because they took a concept that was applied to book marking URL’s and applied it to News. Kevin liked how delicious was structured so he analyzed, interpreted and revolutionized the idea further. That is exactly what you were talking about in your post! You on the otherhand did nothing of this sort. You simply took someone’s idea and cloned it. You’re project has no meaning. Money built this project nothing more. You don’t evolve ideas you steal them. Yahoo evolves ideas, google evolves ideas. Stealing and evolving are two very different things. If you would have succeeded in purchasing Digg then you would have evolved the idea. What do you do that’s so different? How are you evolving anything? The idea is there and the only thing that it needs is money! That’s your philosophy and while it might work in some instances it definitely doesn’t work on the web, at least not anymore. You don’t need millions to evolve a community like Digg, you need creativity and imagination. You need a crew that is passionate about solving one particular problem. I agree that keeping a community like Digg running requires a lot of money and that is primarily why so many internet startups fail. But it not millions and given that digg has investors financially supporting the community I think that your "clone" will always be just that a "clone".
Posted at 6:48PM on Jun 20th 2006 by evil2kus
15. Jason, how about having actual journalists do the follow-ups, instead of amorphously defined "anchors"?
If you use the votes to determine what stories interest people, and then use this as a base for actual reporting, that would be a very good feature/ability, and will fit very well into your explanations of why you are expanding on, rather the copying, the digg concept.
But as long as these anchors do things which are equivalent to what any other commenter on a post can do, you don't have that edge, and you don't provide "meta-journalism" just digg with some 'official' commenters.
I actually understood from your press releases that you will be doing more serious covers, and didn't understand the claims against Netscape of being a mere Digg copy. So I've taken a look at the stories marked as anchored which were listed on the front page. And I was really not impressed.
An article on a missile defence issue, where all the anchor does is point to Wikipedia and technorati...
A post claiming that AOL is copying Digg has your own commentary, which is relevant, but then the anchors just quotes another commenter, and points to another blog post...
A missing US soldiers in Iraq story, where the anchor just links to a bunch of news stories, which anyone can find doing a news search...
A report that Gmail is down, where the anchor actually claim to try and contact them, but doesn't get any response and just promised to let people know if one will come... This is better than the previous ones, but not by much.
The only one that provided any added value was the Opera 9 release post, where your anchor actually interviews someone from Opera.
You really have to improve on that, if you want Netscape News to be something different, and better. Not having follow-up on interesting news items is a real problem. Often people read articles and wonder what happened next, but nobody covers that. So you have potential there. But that will require putting actual journalists on the job, to do actual reporting.
Do that, and this service has a reason, a very good reason even, to exist.
Otherwise it really does look just like a Digg clone.
Posted at 6:45AM on Jun 21st 2006 by Yaron
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1. I couldn't agree more with your last point about "On killing DIGG and the Jason vs. Kevin silliness."
What the Digg users seem to be missing is that competition is good. Look how quickly a timetable was announced for Digg v.3 after the Netscape beta launched.
Remember the years after IE had won the browser war before Firefox came out? There were no new innovations or work on IE for a long time.
I'll say it again until it sinks in with the Digg crowd: Competition is good.
Posted at 4:54PM on Jun 18th 2006 by Scott-O-Rama