Netscaped

16 June 2006

As you may have read, AOL have realigned Netscape into a digg style news site.

“So what” I hear you say. Well, don’t forget the netscape.com is one of the most popular sites in the world, getting millions of hits a day. Combine that with a system that allows anybody to post stories and vote of them and things start getting interesting.

It’s a bit of a shame that they’ve ripped off Digg so much – they could probably even sue – but it’s nice to see the addition of editorial content (in the form of “Anchors” that highlight certain stories). One think Digg suffers from is a vast amount of “silly” stories (“OMG look at this cool video!” etc) – some editorial input could really help in this space.

The key thing though that Netscape brings – when it’s out of beta – is a massive audience. It’ll be interesting to see how a user controlled site works with millions of users, and also means that smaller sections, such as music and pets for example, will still get a sizeable audience.

Of course, if you thought the “Digg” effect or Slashdotting was bad, you wait till you’ve been Netscaped…

From: Articles

16 June 2006