RSSNetscape.com Reborn as Digg Rival
By Ed Oswald | Published June 15, 2006, 12:01 AM
Confirming rumors first reported in March, AOL relaunched Netscape.com on Thursday as a user driven news site much like the popular Digg.com. Headed by Jason Calcanis, the new Netscape aims to build on social networking concepts first brought to bear by both Digg and Del.icio.us.
For the next two weeks, access to the beta site will be made available through a link from the current Netscape.com portal. Starting July 1, the beta site will replace it, an AOL spokesperson told BetaNews. While the site may look a lot like Digg, the company is quick to point out its differences.
"We wanted to make an experience that is familiar to existing users, but driven by a different engine," spokesperson Andrew Weinstein said. Users would be able to submit and vote on stories much like Digg, but that's where the similarity ends.
Stories are ranked through what AOL refers to as a "velocity formula." This creates a ranking based on the number of votes, how often the story is commented on, the time the story was written, and also the time the votes were cast. The more time elapsed between the story and when the vote was submitted results in a lower value, Weinstein explained.
"This will prevent stories from becoming self-sustaining" on votes alone, he added.
Netscape has assembled a team of 23 "anchors," who will man the site round the clock. These anchors, which both come from traditional publications and from Calcanis' Weblogs network, will be tasked with ensuring that stories are accurate and complete.
Weinstein said that other pure social networking sites have that problem. He pointed out that on several different occasions, stories on former Sun CEO Scott McNealy's firing moved up the rankings on Digg. Through Netscape's method, these stories would be caught early.
Adding a journalistic layer will also help the portal to respond quickly to breaking news. Anchors would be given the ability to move important stories up quickly even if they have a low number of votes.
These anchors would also be able to follow up on stories and add to them. "It's almost meta-journalism," Weinstein said. "It brings journalism full circle: the initial journalist writes the story, our zeitgeist rates it, then our journalists can add and expand to it."
In addition to the Digg-like features, the new Netscape.com also carries a social networking like aspect, where each member will have his or her own page. From this page, a user could see what stories they have submitted, comments they have left, and what they have voted on.
A separate friends page within the users page would also give a user the opportunity to see what their friends are voting on as well, Weinstein said.
While some may criticize AOL and Netscape for essentially copying Digg, Weinstein disagrees. He believes that the new site is an evolution of what Digg attempts to do.
"Many sites did social networking before Digg," Weinstein pointed out. Del.icio.us took that to another level, and Kevin Rose added to the format in order to come up with Digg. "Netscape is the next evolution in social media," he argued.
Another worry for some may be the opportunity for potential bias in coverage. Weinstein says that AOL understands that will likely occur, and its anchors will be upfront in stating their opinion. He also said the selection of the term "anchor" versus "reporter" was considered when dealing with potential bias.
Whereas reporters are expected to be impartial, anchors often add their own individual perspectives to news reports. "I think the bias is an expected part of this," he said.
remember Winamp after AOL bought Nullsoft?
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|Anything that AOL touches, AOL destroys... Remember the "AOLTimeWarner" deal? How long did that last? What happened to Steve Case? Had to get out of the business because of that deal. When's the last time that AOL released their main online software? 2 years ago maybe or more? AOL programmers sucked and they will always suck UNTIL they stop being cheap by hiring entry-level programmers (college students).
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|Like that's gonna help anything.
Ever since AOL bought Netscape back in the day it has sucked.
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|ummm, i hope its good
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|I was listening to an interview with Kevin Rose, developer of Digg.com. He was saying that they break news before the big guys even get word (big guys = CNN, FoxNews, etc.). Who cares?
All news is eventually posted everywhere on the web. Having it first is of no advantage as everyone will have it at some point or another.
These sites are just another popularity contest, thats all it is. Epinions, Yahoo! Answers, Digg.com, wikipedia, etc. These are all services setup to allow and track user contributions showing the top ### of users in terms contributions.
These sites are stealing precious time from these people that can be better used to serve the world or do work at a job, god forbid.
Just what this world needs, another site for people to waste time on. Delightful.
What these people fail to realize is that being #1 or whatever on these sites mean nothing. The only way you will get recognized is if you are hosting the #1 most popular video on YouTube. I see these dopes on YouTube make it on the morning news on every major new channel and get contracts from different TV networks like MTV2 and crap. Ive even seen one girl go on ISRAELI TV to talk about her video. JEEZ!
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|agreed 100%
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|As a former Netscape fan, It was hard to watch Aol totally destroy the browser and there web portal. I can't believe this is still around. And aol, doesn't know what its doing. Either improve your own aol content and dump the Netscape side of the house, or put everything into Netscape. Couple years ago the Browser was looking good after if was based on the Mozilla code. You would think they would convert its members to Netscape, So what does Aol do? They sign an agreement to extend IE with its package. Totally clueless overthere...
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|who cares.
Let netscape die.
In fact, let google, Microsoft, and firefox all die and bring forth the next generation. Just hearing their names so much drives me nuts, and I use all three quite a bit. For the record, I dislike company names with "E," "e-," "q," or "extreme" before the word. Thanks,
mjm01010101
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|Hey, how many times do I have to tell you... SHUT the f**k up, idiot! Go back to Linux, wanker!
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|LOL@smackdown
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|A bit harsh don't you think?
What are you......12?
Oh....I guess you're 32 seeing as you were born in 1974. What moron uses their birth year in a username?
LOL...
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|Personal attack. No value included.
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|Wait....
Another Digg?
Crap. As if one wasn't bad enough.
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|Netscape hasn't died yet? Heck you hardly ever hear anything out of em anymore.
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|I still rely on Yahoo News for my daily news fix. They have it ALL OVER the competition, at least so far. Don't know why I'd even want to consider switching at this point.
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|Doesn't anyone find it ironic that these "democratic" news sites that scoop the main sources are almost always linking to... uh... news sites! Maybe not CNN, but New Scientist, and publications like that, which have real journalists writing real stories. When I see Digg, Netscape or others have anything other than me-too geekfest pile-on's, then I'll give them some attention. Maybe Netscape anchors can start making these democratized news sites worth the daily read. But for now, DudeBoyz has it right: Yahoo News has it all over the competition.
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