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Netscape.com Loses Its Identity
wh0pper writes "Digital Trends has a great opinion piece about how Netscape has lost its identity again in regards to their wanna-be Digg portal. One interesting fact I was not aware of is that Jason Calacanis is the person behind the new beta Netscape portal. A choice quote: 'If this business model sees the light-day and it looks like it will, Netscape readers will change from the baby-boomers of yester-year to a younger audience more interested in Jessica Alba's Bikini or Britney Spears than real intellectual news.' I've tried using the new beta Netscape site, and personally hate it. The little link to the external site and the frame to keep you on Netscape's site are deal killers for me. Does the general audience think it can compete?"
Aha! So that's why Paris, Britney, and Jessica are featured so prominently.
Seriously. From the current netscape.com front page, at least a third of the content is of the form...
That's not a brand. It's a cheap rehash of Cosmo.
It is, however, unsurprising, considering the demographics of AOL's customer base.
Let me get this straight: you want Microsoft punished for bundling sockets into Windows?
Of course you were probably the first in line to bash them for not including something so basic.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
No company has the inherent right to be in business and to stay in business forever. Why do you bring the Bush administration into this at all? Hell, what does any administration have to do with any of this? This is capitalism, no more, no less. Protecting companies like Trumpet and Real by prohibiting other companies from entering those markets is simply absurd. TCP/IP is a standard. Nobody owns it and nobody has exclusive rights to it. Trumpet offered an implementation of it. And so did Microsoft. How is Microsoft in the wrong? RealNetworks is barely relevant anymore mainly because their protocol sucks. The only reason they were relevant in the first place is because they were one of the first companies to offer streaming media. There are better protocols now. Again, how is this microsoft's fault?
These companies didn't deserve anything. Companies come and go as markets change. Protecting these companies will only stifle innovation and competition.
For the record, I'm not a Microsoft supporter. I don't care for their software and I don't use any of it. However, I do not feel the need to bash them with bullshit economics like you apparently do. Stop that.
If it weren't for Microsoft, we'd be paying for a copy of Netscape 6.87 based on the Netscape 4.x codebase instead of running Firefox. Thank you, Bill Gates.
The success or failure of the Netscape brand no longer matters to AOL. They know they'll never see Netscape bring back the billions of dollars AOL spent on it - not that making money was ever the point of buying Netscape anyway. AOL now uses Netscape to play with differnt or new ideas without watering down the AOL brand. In a year Netscape.com will be something else, and the lessons learned from giving users control over content at Netscape.com will be applied to hundreds, if not thousands of other projects in the AOL/TW universe.
I look at this latest development, following so many other baffling ones, and feel a dull ache. Once I was happy - even eager - to send bucks toward Jim, Marc and Jim. How depressing to think it would've been a mercy to retire the company name long before the conception of the beta's k3wl arcade labyrinth. It's like a mutated descendant of GEnie gone horribly wrong.
<grrr