Netscape - new versus old - the debate rages on
July 5, 2006 – 12:47 pmIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
The debate rages on. Right there is the main point of a phenomenon that’s now called “Web 2.0″. The term has come to mean active community websites where users are responsible for the ultimate content creation of the website. This model is successfully being used at such immensely popular websites as MySpace and Digg.com. The old Netscape was, in all fairness of description, an also-ran that lost the portal wars a long time ago. The new Netscape has a chance to go much further, and perhaps be the top site in a totally different category, one that involves masses of people contributing on a daily basis, in order to shape their vision of what a website can be.
All change involves pain, and this change has been no different for users of the old version of Netscape. Many individuals have expressed outrage at the new direction of the page, and some have threatened to switch if Netscape doesn’t go back to the prior design. Other commenters have even mentioned problems with Netscape email and the Netscape browsers, which aren’t at issue here. I’d like to summarize the debate to this point:
Fair points in the discussion so far:
- “I hate the new design” - fair enough, it’s your opinion
- “I wish I could get to the old Netscape” - you can here
- “I don’t care about some idiot’s opinion on news” - okay, this is a person who’s content with the old media, and not likely to switch to the new
Opionions that might be mostly BS:
- “The new site has a liberal/conservative bias” - I think it’s way to early for that
- “Your new website sucks” - It’s not my website, but thanks for the mildly constructive criticism. Make the website better by outlining your grievances instead of issuing snappy reactionary one-liners
My main man Gomer at Interwebmarketing pointed out that Alexa is showing a traffic decline for Netscape, and this might indicate that the old Netscape users are abandoning the site in droves. Or it could just indicate a temporary ripple in the vortex, happening because two demographic groups are passing in the night at an intersection called Netscape, where old meets new in a battle for the future of community websites.
These folks did not have a chance at winning the portal wars. The browser brand was severely battered by Microsoft and Netscape was never a serious contender in the search engine wars. But it does have an instantly recognizable brandname, that’s still revered by many. The people in charge now decided to take the equity in their brand and couple it with a brave new direction for the whole website. And even aesthetically, the new website is much better, IMHO.
Perhaps some of the old time users are romanticizing the old version a bit more than needed. A side by side comparision, to me, has the new Netscape coming out top on issues of design and usability. I guess you can’t please all of the people all of the time, and you just can’t teach an old dog a new trick. Ultimately, only Netscape can decide if it was worth rocking the boat and upsetting existing customers in order to bring their new site to life.
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