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Netscape.com Loses Its Identity

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the rebranding-a-rebrand dept.

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?"

1 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Net-who? by Kelson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As far as I can tell, AOL has never been entirely sure what to do with the Netscape brand name.

    They seem to have bought the company mainly to use the browser as a bargaining chip against Microsoft ("We'll switch to Mozilla if you don't give us a good deal!"). Since they secured the new deal for the IE engine and jettisoned the browser development staff they've abandoned Netscape-the-browser at least twice, both times changing their minds. There was the surprise release of (IIRC) Netscape 7.2, which as near as I can tell involved merging the latest Mozilla Suite with their local tree, and then there was the outsourced chimera of Netscape 8.

    They aren't interested in Netscape the browser, but they have this brand name that they don't want to waste, and they keep trying to come up with something to do with it. They tried it as a classic portal, they tried it as a low-cost dialup service, they tried it as a webmail service, they tried it as a toolbar, now they're chasing another trend, trying to jam the square peg into yet another shaped hole.

    It makes about as much sense as it would make for, say, Coca-Cola to buy Dr. Pepper, then retire the soft drink flavor and start marketing Dr. Pepper spice racks.

    (Oh, and Britney Spears -- does the youth audience still care about her, or is she already passe?)