Slashdot Mirror
AOL Targets Digg, YouTube With New Netscape Site
Dotnaught writes "AOL has re-launched its Netscape.com portal as a place where user participation is balanced by moderator control. The renovated site will feature community-driven news and user-submitted video, guided by editors called anchors. "The hive mind sometimes doesn't do a thorough job," says Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs, Inc., a blog network acquired last year by AOL."
Fear leads to anchors, anchors lead to hate..
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I click on the Netscape headline about how it's a ripoff of Digg which leads to an article about how Netscape is ripping off of Digg which links back to the Netscape article about how it's a ripoff of Digg which leads to an article about how Netscape is ripping off of Digg. Also, Netscape is using those stupid popup adds that get around Firefox.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
this is the top story right now. which is kind of fitting
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
The page looks absolutely awful. The colour scheme is weak and amateurish, the AJAX is terribly, terribly slow, the "visit site" link (the most important button on a content portal) is, bizarrely, smaller than any other element in the article summary and hard to see against the site background, the adverts interrupt the placement of the content... overall, it's a total mess that looks like it's been thrown together with no real coherent plan. The worst type of imitation.
It is being compared more closely to digg due to the minor fact that it's pretty much a ripoff of digg, and not slashdot.
Although, I honestly don't care about them ripping it off. If it's a good idea, and you think you can make it better, go for it.
What it all boils down to is still the quality of the comments that the users post. Nothing else. There are dozens and dozens of story submission sites with some sort of social networking thingie, but it's really uninteresting unless there is a userbase with knowledge, experience, diversity and some degree of communication skills.
That is why sites like Digg et al is a miserable failure from that aspect; the comment section is entirely uninteresting and the intolerance and mob-mentality is mind-numbing. As a tool for staying within a 24hrs of the technology (hype) curve it is successful.
I read Slashdot for the comments and Digg/Playboy for the articles...
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
I've always figured that I visited Slashdot often because of its timely updates. I liked to think that if aliens invaded the Earth, I'd probably hear about it via Slashdot before the local news. Now I think I'd hear about it through Digg first, and then wait for it to appear on Slashdot a day or so later so that I could read the comments (which are pretty retarded on Digg).
Back on topic, the Netscape site is a pretty blatant rip-off of the Digg format - have they no shame? Not only is it the same format, but it's laid out in such a similar fashion. Not particularly imaginative.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
I think that AOL is simply trying to surf the "Web 2.0" wave. They are, once again, looking for content. That was already one of the rationales behind the merger with Time Warner a few years back. Except now, their strategy is different. Instead of merging with another big company for content, they want users to provide the content themselves. Getting users to post stuff and comment on it, for free, is a way cheaper way to get content than getting involved in a multi-billion merger.
My guess is that it won't work in this particular case. While users are willing to contribute to such "community Web 2.0 projects" such as Digg or Wikipedia, they probably won't have the same attitude towards a big business like AOL.
For some reason I read the article summary as this:
'The AOL has re-gurgitated its Netscape.com portal as a place where user
participation is monitored by master-controllers. The renovated site
will feature minion-driven news and peon-submitted video, guided
by godlike editor entities called anchors. "The hive mind sometimes
doesn't do a thorough job", says The Queen, Overlord of Weblogs, Inc.,
a mind-control network acquired last year by the AOL.'
Don't ask me why...