I just added another page to the Wikipedia: social news.

Social news is obviously very different than social bookmarking, which is already in the wikipedia.

It would be great if folks could help me expand the topic.

In case you missed it Delicious redesigned (see above) and they took a page from both Netscape and digg.

From digg they borrowed the prominent number of votes/bookmarks, and from Netscape they borrowed the thumbnail image with each story.

The irony of course is that digg was inspired by the delicious bookmark, and Netscape was inspired by both netscape, digg, and reddit (which doesn't get enough credit in my book--their services is really great). Of course, when we launched everyone was like "you stole digg's idea!" I found this very entertaining since Kevin at digg is always a standup guy and credit Josh at delicious with the entire idea for digg!

The bottom line is that no one has any ownership over the concept of voting and social news--we're all standing on the shoulders of the first wave of slashdot, furl, and fark.

The thing I love about this industry, and the competition in it, is that we all make each other better. digg, Netscape, delicious, and reddit are all innovating at a faster rate, and a huge company like TimeWarner/AOL coming into the space with the new Netscape does nothing but validate the space.

Folks used to make a big deal about Nick Denton and I being in competition with each other back in the Weblogs, Inc. vs. Gawker days. The truth is that Weblogs, Inc. made Nick get more focused, and both teams built the space. Almost every advertisers that Nick convinced to advertise on Gizmodo wound up on Engadget and vica versa. Today media buyers frequently do an Engadget/Gizmodo buy.

That's the next phase of the "battle" between the social news sites: convincing advertisers to come into the space. I've started making the rounds and explaining the opportunity to media buyers. Every time I explain Netscape to them I'm paving the way digg, reddit, and delicious to get the same advertiser--and that's great. I'm sure John Battelle is out there pitching digg, and every time someone makes a buy on digg they are primed to understand and buy on Netscape and reddit.

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing...

The word is getting out about the first 10 Netscape Navigators (people who took "the offer" to become paid bookmarkers). You can see their photos on the right hand column at www.netscape.com.

Here are the basic details, we hired:

1. Three of the top 12 DIGG users
2. The #1 user on Newsvine
3. The #1 user on Reddit
4. We hired a bunch of folks from Weblogs, Inc. (since we know and love them :-)

It is important to note that this is all an experiment. No one knows for sure if this model of "paying people for work" us gonna work. I mean, it's crazy to think that people could be paid to do a job and do it with integrity--that's just crazy talk. :-)

Seriously, the fact is that the top 10 users on DIGG are responsible for 30% of the front page stories on DIGG. That's 3% of total front page stories each!!! Think about that for a second... the top 10 users of DIGG do 3% of the work each--that is stunning. They get paid nothing but they are responsible for 3% of the total content on the home page. Wow. Like WOW, WOW, WOW!

My hope is that the first 10 Navigators do such an amazing job that we can extend our offer out to other members of the DIGG, NEWSVINE, and REDDIT top 10.

HOW CAN YOU BECOME THE NEXT NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR?
Folks have been asking me the best way to get a paid bookmarking job with us. The best thing you can do to get on our radar and have a chance of getting a gig is to participate in the new Netscape. Of course, being in the top ten on DIGG/Delicious/Reddit/Newsvine is also great. However, I'd also like to see more of these folks participating on Netscape as well.

... and you thought it would be a slow summer. :-)

UPDATE1: There is a story on DIGG about the new Navigators here. The DIGG community is supporting the three users who have left DIGG for Netscape!
UPDATE2: There is a Netscape story about the new Navigators here.

Update: This story has been DUGG (but is not yet 'Scaped).
Update2: Looks like the story has been killed on DIGG--go figure. :-)

OK, it's on. :-)

On the latest DIGG Nation (minute 8), Digg co-funder Kevin Rose goes on a massive attack of my plans to hire a dozen top social bookmarkers, but he doesn't seem to have a point about it. I'd actually be interested in hearing what he thinks about paying folks to do social bookmarking, but instead he just personally attacks me.

This is a serious discussion and I'm saddened that Kevin has reduced it to personal attacks. At the very least he could have a serious discussion about it *AFTER* he attacks me.*

Also, Kevin has some facts wrong:

1. The top DIGG users have not changed that much over time.
2. The top DIGG users are not responsible for 14% of stories--they are responsible for over 50%.

Also, the truth is that DIGG, REDDIT, Newsvine, Delicious, and Netscape will all succed together. There are very few winner-take-all verticals on the Internet. There are 3-5 major players in email, IM, and search--no one owns 80-90% of a market. It really isn't about Netscape vs. DIGG... in reality the battle is "social news vs. top-down news." Kevin and I are brothers in arms right now and at some point I hope he will realize that.

The top ~50 members on these services are responsible for over 50% of the top stories--that's a straight up fact and Kevin knows it. That seems to scare the heck out of him, and it shouldn't. I've created a market for these users, and others are about to jump in and do that same (I know this for a fact). So, if there is gonna be a market for community leaders, why not just join the party Kevin? You raised a ton of money and you can raise more. You're making money from advertising and you can easily afford to pay the top 12 users $1,000 a month each--share the wealth dude! Why not carve out 10-20% of your revenue for users?

It only makes sense that folks should be paid for community leaders.

Kevin Rose is going to make millions of dollars (perhaps tens of millions) when he sells DIGG to Yahoo (my best guess). When he does sell DIGG--and trust me it will be sold before in the next 12 months--he will have done it on the backs of those top 50 members. Those top 50 members will get exactly... ummm..... nothing. If I was running Netscape as a startup I would create a bonus pool for these users in the case the site gets bought. I can't do that given our structure, so we're gonna just pay folks. Kevin should do something similar.

* For those of you entrepreneurs watching make a note: you know you're winning when the debate when the other side opts out of the logical discussion and moves to personal attacks.

** Update: A considered story on the issue here--I wish Kevin would take this issue seriously and discuss it like Jay does.

I guess the 3.0 in DIGG 3.0 means three ads above the fold! We got our butts kicked by DIGG users for having two ads above the fold--I wonder if they'll slam Kevin Rose for putting *three* ads above the fold--OUCH!!!

Note: The TOS (top of service) has only one advertisement, a leaderboard. Smart move... go light on top level ads, make it back on the second level. We're doing something similar (this is the Google School of Design btw).

Update: They are also doing graphical ads... not just text for those folks who said they don't do graphical ads. See first shot below.

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!